Managing and Adding a Domain

Managing a Domain

A domain is a part of your website and a dedicated space that hosts a Hub or Experiences. Subdomains are part of a domain. They are used to host product pages. Therefore, if you have dedicated content for various products, you can deploy it using subdomains.

Your domain URL (yourwebsite.com) is created when the Hushly Admin user creates your firm’s account.

You can create a Domain exclusively for a Hub or Experiences. To define a Hub, creating a domain is mandatory. However, even if you do not define a domain for an Experience, you can create Experiences that fire on any web page. The objective of defining a domain or subdomain is to make it seem to users that your resource center is part of your website, even though it is hosted on Hushly’s servers.

With a subdomain, you can achieve the redirection by creating a CNAME record in your Domain Name Server (DNS). A CNAME record is essentially an alias. It instructs the browser, "When a user asks for URL A (your subdomain), tell the user that the user is looking at URL A, but go to URL B (Hushly’s server) instead."

An overview of the process is here:

• To get to your resource center, you want your users to visit a URL that is part of your website. This is a subdomain of your website, such as resources.mycompany.com. Create a subdomain.
• Your resource center is hosted on our server at hubs.hushly.com.
• Create a CNAME record that points resources.mycompany.com at hubs.hushly.com. This configuration redirects anyone who goes to resources.mycompany.com to hubs.hushly.com but makes it look like the user is still on resources.mycompany.com.
• Enable SSL for your resource center. SSL is deprecated in favor of the newer TLS protocol, but SSL is still the more commonly used term when referring to encrypted web connections. This section refers to SSL to indicate TLS as well.
• If you choose to use the Hushly-managed SSL certificate, add another CNAME entry to your DNS server within 48 hours of receiving the CNAME name and value pair from Hushly.
• If you choose the self-managed SSL certificate, prepare and send the certificate file for your subdomain resource.mycompany.com to Hushly at support@hushly.com or your Customer Success Manager.
  
  

Note: Many Hushly customers choose resources.mycompany.com as their subdomain and Hushly-managed SSL certificate for their resource center.

 
Adding a Domain
To add a domain, follow the steps below:

1. From the Left Nav Menu, click Setup > Manage Domains.
    
2. On the Manage Domains page, click Add Domain. 
3. Click the drop-down arrow and select a protocol, https:// or http://.
   • The default domain protocol is http(s)://. If you do not select any protocol, the default domain protocol is assigned to the domain.
   • If the domain uses the http:// protocol but your configuration specifies https://, users accessing the resource center will encounter an error, and Experiences, Embedded Experiences, and Hubs will fail to load.
   • If the domain you’re trying to add is already in use by you or another Hushly customer, it cannot be added.
      
4. Enter the domain name. 
5. Select the scope of the domain.
   • Select Experience to host Experiences in this domain.
   • Select Hub to host a Hub.
     Note: A domain or subdomain hosts only one Hub. Therefore, to host multiple Hubs, create as many domains or subdomains.
     
     
6. Click Add. The domain name is added to the list of domains on the Manage Domains page.
   Note: An SSL Certificate is mandatory for https:// or http(s):// protocols, but not required for http:// protocol.
   A CNAME record is to be added to your DNS service provider.
   
   
7. Domains created with https:// or http(s):// protocol requires an SSL Certificate
   • Click the Request link to request an SSL Certificate
      
   • A Request is created in AWS, SSL Status reflects Pending 
   • Click Verify to get the status of your Request. Once the SSL is created in AWS, clicking Verify will update the SSL Status to Issued.
     
     Note: Time Sensitive. When using the Hushly-managed SSL certificate, you must add another CNAME entry to your DNS server within 48 hours of receiving the CNAME name and value pair from Hushly.
     
     
8. Adding the CNAME record in the DNS configuration for your domain.
   • Click the Pending link to check the DNS Status
      
   • Add the CNAME to your Domain with the values provided and save. 
   • Example: Host: 'resource' points to: 'hubs.hushly.com' or 'v3hubs.hushly.com' 
   • Click Check, and the DNS Status will be updated — Verified will be shown 
9. The domain is now SSL-certified with a valid DNS configuration and is ready to be used by a Hub.
    
10. Email Support@Hushly.com to notify the team that the above steps have been completed so the Hub can receive final QA and be launched. Reach out if you have any questions or problems.

Next Topic:
Deleting a Domain