Enterprise Notifications with Azure Communication Services — Part 1

Azure Communication Services (ACS) provides APIs for multichannel communications, including Email, SMS, Calls and Video, that can be invoked from applications and automation (Azure Automation Runbooks with PowerShell for example) to implement reliable notification pipelines at scale. Below is a complete technical guide to implement sending Email and SMS with ACS.

Overview of Azure Communication Services (ACS)

ACS is a fully managed platform that exposes cloud APIs for voice, video, Chat, SMS, and Email, designed to embed communications into apps and workflows with enterprise security and global coverage. Email supports high-volume transactional, bulk, and marketing workloads, while SMS supports A2P messaging with deliverability metrics and sender options like toll‑free, 10DLC, short codes, and alphanumeric IDs depending on region and eligibility.

Here is an explanatory diagram that explains how ACS works :

Mindmap to build Email notification

Setting Up Email Communication Services

Creating Communication Services Resources

• Open the Microsoft Azure portal home page, indicated by the “Microsoft Azure” header bar at the top left of the screen.
• Use the global search box at the top to type the query “azure communication.”
• In the search results under Services, select “Communication Services” to proceed to that service

• On the Basics tab, select the subscription and resource group
• Enter a unique resource name and choose the data location
• Then click Review + Create to deploy the Communication Services resource.

Click Create

Creating Email Communication Resources

• Navigate to the Azure Portal and search for “Email Communication Services”

• Choose the target Subscription.
• Select an existing Resource group (or use Create new).
• Enter the Name for the Email Communication Service.
• Confirm Region is Global for the service.
• Set Data location to United States.
• Click Review + create to validate settings.
• After validation passes, click Create to deploy.
• Wait for Deployment to complete, then select Go to resource.

Adding Free Subdomain

• Go to Email Communication Service
• In Overview window go to “Add free subdomain” section and select “Click Add subdomain.”

• After clicking on “Add free Subdomain” button a new subdomain will be created automatically

Adding custom domain (Optional)

• After adding custom domain, a TXT Record must be added to your DNS zone to be verified (You must login to your DNS Provider Godaddy in my case then adding TXT Record with these settings).

• After Adding custom domain (I didnt Add TXT Record in my example just to show you steps, so domain will stay inverified and cant be used until I add TXT record) :

Verify default “FromMail” Addresses

• In the Email Communication Service domain blade, click on Free Azure Subdomain recently created.

• open MailFrom addresses under the Azure Managed Domain
• View the default MailFrom address shown as DoNotReply@<xxxxxxx>.azurecomm.net with its display name.

One of the limitations of the “Free Azure Subdomain” is that you cannot create additional email addresses apart from “DoNotReply.” This option is available with the custom domain.

Connect created domain to your Communication Services

1. Open the Communication Service previously created, go to Email then Domains
2. Select Connect domains.
3. In the Connect email domains panel, pick Subscription, Resource Group, Email Service, and a Verified Domain from the dropdowns.
4. Click Connect to link the selected verified domain to the Communication Service.

• Domain Successfully connected

Try Sending Email

• In the Communication Service resource, open Email the select Try Email to use the portal’s send test interface.
• Choose the Send email from address (the connected/managed domain) from the dropdown.
• Enter the sender email username (display name/alias used before the domain).
• Provide the recipient email address to deliver the test message.
• Set the email subject for the outgoing message.
• Add attachments as needed for the test email.
• Type the message body content to be sent.
• Click Send to dispatch the email through Azure Communication Services.

You can optionally copy auto-generated sample code in different languages (C#, JavaScript, Java, Python, cURL) to automate sending.

Here’s the received email :

Thanks