Using a custom domain for your Calibrae site
Out of the box, your Calibrae site is accessible through it's default address - for example, stjohns.calibrae.com. Your site can also be set up to be accessible through a domain that you own - for example, stjohns.com. In this post, we'll look at the whys and hows of configuring your site to use a custom domain.
Why use your domain?
White labelling / corporate branding is a good reason. Using your own domain for your Calibrae site URL is an important part of providing a branded experience that focusses the user on your organisation, rather than Calibrae.
Also, any organisation colleagues that self-sign up to courses on your site with an email address belonging to your domain (eg dave@stjohns.com) will automatically be given the option of being joined to your organisation's account. This makes it easier to associate your colleague-signups with your organisation's account, rather than them having their own individual, unconnected accounts. Having colleagues in the same account enables the organisation to manage the team, including organising colleagues in groups, and viewing team metrics.
How to configure Calibrae to use your domain
Configuring Calibrae to use your domain is a five-step process. The steps below enable you to (a) confirm to Calibrae that you control a given domain, and (b) enable Calibrae to serve your training portal via your chosen domain.
Step 1
Make sure that you have a domain name. Eg stjohns.com. Domains can be purchased from sites such as godaddy.com and 123-reg.com.
Step 2
Update Calibrae with your domain. As Site Administrator, go to your Site admin page > Site tab and click the link to Register domain.
Click New Domain and enter your domain name. Click OK.
Calibrae then provides origin and target values. You'll need this information to update your Domain Name Service (DNS) settings.
Step 3
Update your DNS settings with the supplied origin and target details. Go to your domain administration tool (typically, a web interface provided by your domain name service provider) and add a TXT record with the unique origin and target details provided by Calibrae when you added a Domain to your account.
If you would like your training portal served from your domain, you must update your DNS settings to route internet traffic to the Calibrae servers. Do so by either:
- Adding a CNAME record for your domain, pointing to app.calibrae.com, (preferred) or
- Adding an A record that points to the Calibrae IP address of: 52.45.80.102
Step 4
Once your DNS settings have propogated, pop back to your Calibrae site's Domains page and click Check now to prompt Calibrae to verify your domain.
Step 5
Once your domain ownership has been verified, you can proceed to update your site settings so that Calibrae will serve your training portal from your preferred domain. Update your Site Domain to your newly verified domain.
