When using SendGrid, does message sent/attempted/number of hits all come through in the Campaigns module?

It should, assuming you are using SendGrid as an MTA and the Sugar instance can be accessed from the outside world.

The way that info is tracked is by way of markers on the email message itself. I would assume that SendGrid would deliver that message intact. Assuming so, if the recipient reads the message, or clicks on a link in the message, its tracked in Sugar by way of an entry point. This is why the instance needs to be accessible to outside world. 

Here is some more info on the general topic of how the Campaigns module works in conjunction with your SMTP server:

Angel's Blog: SugarCRM 101: Email Delivery 

Thanks for your reply. This is odd and confusing, but I asked SendGrid, and they claimed it wouldn't integrate - their exact message was:

Hi Alan, 

 

We can integrate with SugarCRM but once you point your emails through us, then the stats would live within SendGrid unless you used our event webhook and did the dev work to push them back into SugarCRM.  We don't have any documentation specifically on how to do that. 

 

SendGrid would provide the stats (opens, clicks, delivered, unsubscribed, etc.) within our main stats dashboard but if you enabled the event webhook we push real-time stats to an external URL that you control. You can store the data or do whatever you would like with it from there.  

 

Please let us know if you have any other questions. Thanks! 

I'll be asking them how to consider the conflicting reports, but if you can shed any light on this discrepancy it would be useful.

I would go back to part of my earlier reply and ask whether or not the messages from Sugar are being delivered intact.

It sounds like you are actually using SendGrid to not only send the message, but also create/manage the content, in which case I would see where it would create a problem.

If we assume you created the message in Sugar, a hyperlink would be masked as such: http://your_sugar_url/?final_url_destination The point being that it includes a reference to your instance and the destination URL, which in turn is used to log the clicks and other info in your instance.

The message from SendGrid seems to imply that they would be manipulating that format so it hits their server first before the recipient is redirected to the target URL.

I am guessing this means you are using SendGrid for more than just an SMTP and instead more like a marketing automation tool similar to Act-On or Marketo. 

I've found the time to test it. All message sent/attempted/number of hits come through as expected. Even if you whitelabel the URLs so they go through SendGrids account first, they still eventually hit SugarCRM and will display the correct information in the campaigns module.

Thanks Angel Magana for the help.