Category Archives: Azure Email Communication Service

Sending email via the Azure Communication Service

I’m wanting to send emails from an Azure function upon a call from my React UI. Azure has the Communications Service and Email Communication Service for this functionality.

In the Azure Portla

  • Create a Communication service resource to your resource group
  • Create an Email Communication resource to your resource group

Add a free Azure subdomain

If you now go to the Email Communication Service | Overview, you can “Add a free Azure subdomain”. This is a really quick and simply way to get a domain up and running but has some limitations of quotas that are less than if you use a custom domain. This said, let’s click the “1-click add” and create an Azure subdomain.

When completed you’ll see the Settings | Provision domains, where it should show a domain name, domain type of Azure subdomain and all status should be verified.

Add a custom domain

Before try anything out let’s cover the custom domain. We’ll assume you have a domain on a non Azure DNS, for example GoDaddy. In the Azure Email Communication Service | Overview, click the “Setup” button.

  • Enter your domain
  • Re-enter to confirm
  • Click the confirm button
  • Click the Add button
  • We now need to verify the domain, so click Verify Domain and copy the TXT value
  • In my instance my DNS supplier offers a “Verify domain” option but you can just as easily add a TXT type with value @ then add the copied TXT value OR use the “Verify Doman Ownership” button if one exists
  • Once validation has completed go to the Email Communication Service | Settings | Provision domains and you’ll notice SPF, DKIM and DKIM2 are not verified, i.e. they’ll show “Configure”
  • Click on “Configure” in the SPF (any will do) this will show configuration for SPF, DKIM and DKIM2
  • For SPF, copy the SPF value, go to your DNS supplier and create a new DNS record of type TXT, a name of @ and paste your value into the value
  • For DKIM, copy the DKM record name, go to your DNS supplier and create a new DNS record of type CNAME, paste the record name into the name of your record and then copy the DKIM value from Azure into the CNAME value (if you have an options for Proxy, set to DNS only)
  • Finally, for DKIM2, copy the DKM2 record name, go to your DNS supplier and create a new DNS record of type CNAME, paste the record name into the name of your record and then copy the DKIM2 value from Azure into the CNAME value (if you have an options for Proxy, set to DNS only)
  • Go back to the Azure SPF configuration and click Next then Done

Verification can take some time, but when completed your custom domain should show Domain Status, SPF Status, DKIM status and DKIM2 status all Verified.

Connecting to the Communication Service

We’ve configured our domains, now we want to connect the domains to the “Communication Service” that you created earlier.

  • From the “Communication Service” go to Email | Domains
  • Click on Connect domains
  • Select your subscription, resource group, the your email service and finally the verified domain you wish to use – you can add multiple verified domains, so for example a custom domain and your Azure free subdomain.

Now all that’s left is to test the email, so

  • From the “Communication Service” go to Email | Try Email
  • Select the domain
  • Select your sender
  • Enter one or more recipients
  • I’ll leave the rest as default
  • If all fields are correct a “Send” button will appear, click it to send the email.

Whilst trying the email out you’ll have noticed the source code on the right – this gives you the code to place in your Azure function or other services.

Code

Here’s an example of the code generated via “Try Email” 

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Azure;
using Azure.Communication.Email;

string connectionString = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("COMMUNICATION_SERVICES_CONNECTION_STRING");
var emailClient = new EmailClient(connectionString);


var emailMessage = new EmailMessage(
    senderAddress: "DoNotReply@<from_domain>",
    content: new EmailContent("Test Email")
    {
        PlainText = @"Hello world via email.",
        Html = @"
		<html>
			<body>
				<h1>
					Hello world via email.
				</h1>
			</body>
		</html>"
    },
    recipients: new EmailRecipients(new List<EmailAddress>
    {
        new EmailAddress("<to_email>")
    }));
    

EmailSendOperation emailSendOperation = emailClient.Send(
    WaitUntil.Completed,
    emailMessage);