Setting up Email notifications

Email notifications are used to authenticate log-ins and to inform users when they have been authorized by an admin to use the system.

There are two alternative methods for email notification. Only one needs to be set up. The two methods are Amazon Web Services/Simple Email Service (AWS-SES) and client email (Nodemailer). The AWS-SES method requires you to have an AWS account. The Nodemailer method merely requires you to be able to allocate a client email address on your enterprise mail server.

How to set up Nodemailer

To use Nodemailer, allocate a new client account on your organization's email system (for example [email protected]). This is the From: account that notifications will be sent from. Then add the following keys to the Environment tab in the Render.com dashboard:

NODEMAILER_HOST - your organizational email system host, e.g. "smtp.omb.mystate.gov"

NODEMAILER_PORT e.g. 465

NOTIFICATIONS_EMAIL - this is the From: address for all notifications

NOTIFICATIONS_EMAIL_PW - this is the password for the From: address

How to set up AWS-SES

1. Allocate a new client account on your organization's email system (for example [email protected]). This is the From: account that notifications will be sent from: the NOTIFICATIONS_EMAIL in the Environment tab of the Render.com dashboard.

2. Verify that email with SES (Amazon documentation).

3. Generate the IAM credentials for sending email (these will be the SES\_REGION, the AWS\_ACCESS\_KEY\_ID and the AWS\_SECRET\_ACCESS_KEY in the Environment tab of the Render.com dashboard).

4. Submit an AWS customer support ticket to move the account out of SES Sandbox mode.

5. Submit a separate ticket to request a fixed IP address for SES.

6. White-list this IP address on your enterprise spam filter.

7. Once the AWS support tickets are resolved, enter the credentials and email address in the Environment tab of the Render.com dashboard.