Many times when we are coding email functions in Dynamics NAV and using Codeunit 400 SMTP Mail we need to fill in a SMTP adress in the setup.

This is here where the hassle starts. You need to contact the customers hosting partner so they can fix/open up a SMTP account for you and of course you will get questions like why and when you need it and if it is really necesary. On top of that you also got their leadtime of answering emails. Instead you ask your companys exchange administrator and he says forget it!

I say screw them! Lets get our own SMTP server.

Now you problaby imagine something like downloading software and installing SMTP server software somewhere at the customer premises without being noticed. Nah, that is not the solution I had in mind 🙂

Instead get an account at http://sendgrid.com/ . This is a cloud based service that is used to seend thousands of marketing emails and then see statistics who read what. But! They also offer a SMTP server which you at the moment can send 200 emails a day for free!! 

It takes 5-10 minutes before you get all the information you need but after that you don’t need to ask or wait for anyone to get you this type of information.

And another thing! This is excellent when you want to send notification emails from Azure, failed backups and so on.

Even noticed that Azure got a specific sendgrid plugin. Have to check it out later. Look at it here.