Email Configuration Changes

This page describes changes to the way REDCap handles outgoing email messages (sent by REDCap).

*** Please note, these configuration changes require no action on the part of REDCap users. Users may continue to use their usual email address when configuring their user accounts, survey invitations and other REDCap email features. ***

Over the last few months, we have had some issues with a few email messages sent from REDCap. While in general almost all email messages originating from REDCap are delivered without issue, some are being returned as “undeliverable” by the recipient's email system. In a few cases, messages have been blocked without any notification, which is a breach of Internet email protocols. The handling of our outgoing emails by external mail systems is outside of our control but we are increasingly finding that email filters and spam checkers, which are intended to protect our security and privacy, are getting more aggressive and are targeting legitimate email messages. In an effort to prevent or reduce the incidence of outgoing emails being filtered or flagged as spam, we have implemented the following change:

As of Wednesday October 25 2023 (Standard install https://redcap.ualberta.ca) and Friday November 10 2023 (Validated install https://micyrn.med.ualberta.ca), any outbound email with a “from” address belonging to an external (not ualberta.ca) institution will be treated as follows:

1. The “from” address will automatically be changed to redcap.mailer@ualberta.ca

2. The “reply-to” address, which is usually the same as the “from” address, will remain set to the original “from” address of the message.

As a result of this change, all emails sent from REDCap will have a ualberta.ca “from” address which should result in fewer messages being filtered or blocked. If a study participant replies to the message the reply will normally be sent to the original sender since the “reply-to” address is that of the original sender. Note however, that some email clients do not correctly support the reply-to address and so some messages sent in reply may not be delivered. This is outside of our control.

Messages sent from a ualberta.ca address will be sent unchanged, as before.

Any messages that are returned as “undeliverable” will be returned to redcap.mailer@ualberta.ca. We will monitor this account on a weekly basis and inform study teams of bounced emails that originate from their project.