In this article you will get to learn:

What is SendGrid?


SendGrid is a customer communication platform for transactions and marketing emails.

How can SendGrid help me? 

SendGrid can help you in two ways as shown below:

  1. Send your customers invoices or receipts using your email as a sender via SendGrid as a third party.
  2. Receive notification emails of your transaction.


How to create my SendGrid account (verify a single Sender email and Create API Key)?


You can watch the steps instead by watching our tutorial here.


  1. Create your account on the SendGrid website.
    • Using the following link: (https://signup.sendgrid.com).

      For more information about how to create a SendGrid account, you can check their tutorial from here.
      However, feel free to skip this step if you have already a SendGrid account.


    • Login to your SendGrid account.

       

  2. Create a new Single Sender by navigating to "Settings" and then clicking on "Sender Authentication" or click here to go to the Sender Authentication page directly.


    We recommend you verify/authenticate your domain first, for more information please check this link.

    • Click on the "Verify a Single Sender" button.


    • Then fill out the form.


      "From" and the "Reply" fields MUST be the same. 

    • A form will display enter your API Key name then select "Full Access" for the Permissions and press "Create & View" button.

                       

    • Then you will need to check your email address for the verification email it may take a few minutes then you can click on "Verify Single Sender" button.



    • In case you didn't receive the verification email, please click on "Resend email" as shown above.


  3. Generate the API keys by navigating to the "Settings" menu and then clicking on API Keys or click here to go to the API Keys page directly, then click on "Create API Key".


    • Your API Key will display; please copy it to a safe place.


      Store the key in a safe place, as it will be shown to you only one time. It will not be accessible after that anymore.


How to configure the email configuration in my PayTabs account via SendGrid?


1- Log in to your merchant's dashboard on the PayTabs website, navigate to Developers > Payment notification > Customer email receipts. 


2- Fill up the copied SendGrid API key to the field “SendGrid API Key” and fill up the field “From Email ” with the same email entered in your SendGrid single sender verification.



3- Now, sending invoices or receipts will do via your own SendGrid account, also you need to enable the "Transaction Receipts to automatically send receipts to your customers.

 

How to configure the merchant IPN in my PayTabs accounts via SendGrid?


  1. Log in to your merchant's dashboard on the PayTabs website, and navigate to Developers in the left sidebar; then, in the Payment notification section, click on the Configuration link.
  2. Create IPN/SendGrid notification by clicking the + icon.
  3. Select "SendGrid" as your type, then fill up the field “API Key” with the copied key and enter the “From Email” with the same email entered in your SendGrid single sender verification.
        
  4. Check all the necessary checkboxes, and do not forget to check the “Callback” option to choose whether you want to enable this IPN with callbacks or not, and once you finish all the details, click on the "Add" button as shown below:


    Note that From and To fields MUST be the same. 


  5. The next step is that whenever any transaction with one of the types in the Allowed Events from the previous step is initiated in this profile, you will receive a notification email that contains this transaction's full details as shown below:

    Sample email notification for normal cards/wallets transaction:
      



    Sample email notification for alternative payment methods that have down payments/installments plan such as "Forsa" or "ValU":
        



How to troubleshoot SendGrid not sending emails? 


  • Check your PayTabs configuration:

    1. You need to check that you are using valid from/to Single Sender emails by navigating to Settings in your SendGrid account and then clicking on Sender Authentication or clicking here to go to the Sender Authentication page directly.

    2. Then check the verified emails in the Single Sender Verification section as shown below:

    3. Compare the verified sender email with the one you are using in your PayTabs dashboard.

    4. Also, you need to make sure that you are using a valid API Key. If you are not sure, please create a new one from the step How to create my SendGrid account (verify a single Sender email and Create API Key)? and copy the new key and save it somewhere safe because SendGrid will not show it to you again for security reasons.

  • Check SendGrid Activity:

    1. From your SendGrid account, navigate to the "Activity" menu, then search by your sender email or the domain you are using, then press on the search blue button.



    2. A list of feed activities organized by most recent events will display if any, then you can check the activity status.


      Activity will always display a rolling three days of activities only or more according to your SendGrid account plan.


    3. If you find any unexpected status (Bounces, Blocks, Spam Reports,.etc), you can click on the activity to show the event history of that activity to know more information about the reason for that status.


    4. Then you share this information with your technical team to resolve. For more information about SendGrid Email Activity, please check this link.

    5. For example, if you found a Bounces activity, click on it to show the event history and then click on Bounces as shown below:


      Then at the Bounces page, remove the Bounced Sender email from its list as shown below: