SendGrid with Ruby on Rails and NameCheap, step-by-step

SendGrid is a robust email delivery service businesses and developers use to streamline email communication processes. It simplifies the task of sending transactional and marketing emails at scale. With its intuitive API and easy-to-use interface, we can seamlessly integrate SendGrid into applications, websites, or marketing automation platforms.

In this article, we will explore how to integrate SendGrid with Ruby on Rails to facilitate seamless email delivery, leveraging its robust features to enhance communication with users.

Getting Started with SendGrid:

After creating an account, obtaining an API key, and connecting the domain to SendGrid, Let's start with integrating with our rails application:

• add sendgrid-ruby gem in Gemfile and run bundle install

    source 'https://rubygems.org'
    git_source(:github) { |repo| "https://github.com/#{repo}.git" }
  
    # Bundle edge Rails instead: gem 'rails', github: 'rails/rails', branch: 'main'
    gem 'rails', '~> 6.1.3'
    # Use postgresql as the database for Active Record
    gem 'pg', '~> 1.1'
  
    gem 'sendgrid-ruby'
  

• add SendGrid environment variables

    SENDGRID_KEY=Blablabla
    SENDGRID_DOMAIN=yourdomain.com
    SENDGRID_ADDRESS=smtp.sendgrid.net
    SENDGRID_PORT=587
  

• configure ActionMailer settings

      config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp
  
      ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
        :user_name => "apikey", # DO NOT CHANGE
        :password => ENV["SENDGRID_KEY"]
        :domain => ENV["SENDGRID_DOMAIN"],
        :address => ENV["SENDGRID_ADDRESS"],
        :port => ENV["SENDGRID_PORT"],
        :authentication => :plain,
        :enable_starttls_auto => true
      }
  

• create new mailer

    rails g mailer UserMailer
  

• add welcome_email to our newly created user

    class UserMailer < ApplicationMailer
  
        def welcome_email(user_id)
            @user = User.find_by(id: user_id)
            mail(to: @user.email, subject: "Welcome To Our Application")
        end
    end
  

• create User model and controller ( I'll scaffold it)

    rails g scaffold User email name
  

• call UserMailer#welocme_email after creating a new user

    class UsersController < ApplicationController
      def create
        @user = User.new(user_params)
  
        if @user.save
          UserMailer.welcome_email(@user.id).perform_later
          render json: @user, status: :created, location: @user
        else
          render json: @user.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity
        end
      end
    end
  

• create a view that outputs HTML

    <!--/app/views/user_mailer/welcome_email.html.erb-->
    <h2> Welcome <%= @user.name %></h2>
    <p> Thanks for applying to our application </p>
  

  And Voila!