Getting started

Custom domain

Your portal can live on a subdomain of your own, like feedback.acme.com, instead of its CatchLoop address. Same board, roadmap and changelog, under your name. It takes one DNS record, and HTTPS is set up for you.

Connecting a domain

1. In the dashboard, open Settings > Domain.
2. Type the subdomain you want, for example feedback.acme.com, and press Connect domain.
3. At your DNS provider, add the CNAME record Settings shows you (below). Its value is your workspace's own.
4. Back in Settings, press Check DNS. Once the record is visible the status turns to Connected.

Owners and admins of the team can connect, check and remove the domain.

The DNS record

The value is unique to your workspace and never changes. That is what proves the name is yours to connect here: another workspace cannot connect a name that points to your target, and nobody can take over your name once it points there.

Only a CNAME counts. An address record (A or AAAA), even one with our IP address, cannot say which workspace the name is meant for, so the check refuses it and tells you so. A proxied record (Cloudflare's orange cloud) shows up as addresses too: set the record to DNS only. A chain of CNAMEs that ends on your target works.

A subdomain, not the domain itself

Use a subdomain such as feedback.acme.com or ideas.acme.com. The domain itself (acme.com) cannot carry a CNAME record, and it is usually your website anyway. Addresses under our own domain are refused.

A name already connected to another workspace cannot be added. A name another workspace added but never connected does not block you: whichever workspace the CNAME points to is the one that gets it.

Propagation

A new DNS record usually shows within minutes, sometimes up to an hour, depending on your provider and the record's TTL. Until then the status reads Waiting for DNS and your portal stays on its CatchLoop address. Press Check DNS again whenever you like; nothing changes until the record is there.

HTTPS and what changes

The first visit to your domain gets a certificate from Let's Encrypt, issued automatically and renewed on its own. There is nothing to upload.

We check the record again every day. If it stops pointing to your target three days in a row, the domain is disconnected: your portal goes back to its CatchLoop address and Settings says so. Fix the record and press Check DNS to connect it again.

Once connected:

• Every portal link, the canonical address of each page, and the links in the emails your customers receive (sign-in, announcements, My requests, unsubscribe) use your domain.
• The CatchLoop address of your portal redirects, permanently, to the same page on your domain, so links already shared keep working.
• Your customers sign in once more on the new domain: a sign-in belongs to the address it was made on.

Search engines

Your domain serves its own robots.txt and sitemap.xml, listing your portal's pages on your domain. Add your domain to Google Search Console and submit its sitemap, https://feedback.acme.com/sitemap.xml: Settings shows the exact URL, with a copy button, once the domain is connected.