WordPress with Gravity Forms Plugin

Help me out with how to get email notifications to work. I go to the dashboard, the form, settings, then notifications. I see "admin notifications". I select edit. Then I am presented with a "send to email" that has a name of "{admin_email}". I cannot understand how email notifications from Gravity Forms could work, as Gravity Forms (or WordPress as far as I know), has NO IDEA of my email server parameters such as SMTP Server, etc. Does Gravity Forms contain "sendmail" processes? If it does, I have yet to receive any mail.

What is the parameter {admin_Email}? How is that configured?

Question is: How do I get this configured for my mail server? I have searched the Gravity Forms site and found nothing. I have search Google with nothing found that I noticed was a solution.
RayRiderAsked:
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Jason C. LevineNo oneCommented:
PHP has a built-in mail() function and WordPress uses that by default to send email (like password reset emails).  Gravity Forms uses that same function to send email, so your server settings are not always needed.

If your ISP enforces SMTP and a login for PHP to send email, then you may have to download a plugin that reconfigures WordPress to use SMTP instead of mail().  The plugin I prefer for this purpose is:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-mail-smtp/

Going one step further, some ISPs don't let you send email from their server at all, or you have to jump through a lot of hoops and obey a lot of restrictions.  So in general, I like to open a free Mandrill account (mandrill.com) and use it as a remote SMTP server in conjunction with the plugin above.  Because Mandrill is run by MailChimp and deals with transactional emails, it has a super high delivery rate and it bypasses having to play games with an ISP to get mail to work.
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RayRiderAuthor Commented:
That makes sense. After submitting, I begin to think there must be a built-in server as I could not find a way to configure it. Thanks for the link. I believe I will take your suggestion and go with Mandrill and the plugin. I am on Comcast. They are notorious for blocking and limiting email attachments.

Thanks for your help!!
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Jason C. LevineNo oneCommented:
Oh, yeah. If you are hosting on Comcast or another major cable provider that offers hosting, definitely get your own email server up and running outside of their control.

Mandrill is great, and free up to 12,000 emails a month.
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RayRiderAuthor Commented:
I just got it installed and verified to work, Mandrill,  SMTP plugin and the gravity form integration.

I never got the notification to work on WordPress' default admin_email. It's working now!

Thanks again!
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