Hosting on your own URL (White-labeling)

Related to Copy of Experience Release Notes (How To Guides) 1

How it works

Hosting a Formli on your own domain is simple using a process we call “white-labeling”.

White-labeling enables you to change the default primary URL of a Formli (like https://exp.humanagency.com/e/1exa1X8D/share) to a custom domain of your choice (like https://example.yourgroup.org/e/1234A67/share). This way, the link will reflect that this Formli is part of your movement whenever anyone comes into contact with a link to the Formli.

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Note: Previous Primary Domains will still work. Updating the primary domain will change all links from the app (view links, share page, and embeds), but responders can still access the Formli on the "old" URL as well, ensuring all past links you may have shared are still functional. Additionally, if you have multiple verified domains that have been the primary domain at various times, the previous custom primary domains will be accessible even if they are not the current primary domain.

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For more on authenticating your domain for emails, see here

Setup Guide

This guide assumes that you own a domain and have access to the domain host to enter in new CNAME records for your subdomain (see Step 3). This guide will walkthrough using Google Domains as the host, but other providers (such as DNS simple) will also work.

Step 1 - Go to Domain Authentication Page

Go to Account Settings in the profile drop down

Click Domain Authentication

You can select domain authentication for email, web, or both. For this example, we’ll use web.

Make your selection, then click Next

Step 2 - Enter a new custom subdomain

You’ll need to decide what to name your new subdomain. The subdomain will be designated by a unique part at the beginning of your domain. Here, we’ll use the domain "experiencel.ink", and the subdomain "testing123.experiencel.ink".

Enter in the subdomain into the Add a domain text box

Click the Authenticate New Domain button

Open a new tab in your browser and log into your account on your domain host.

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Note: If you’re using Cloudfare, make sure the "Proxy status" is set to "DNS only" instead of "Proxy". If it’s set to "Proxy", it imposes a strict CORS policy, which causes the font to fail.

Step 3 - Go to your domain host

Click on the domain you want to use (we’re using "experiencel.ink")

Open your DNS settings

Go to Manage custom records

Scroll to select Create new record

Change the the resource type to “CNAME” (Google's default type is "A")

Return to Formli and copy the first CNAME "Host" code by clicking the top left copy button.

Paste the host name in the first blank box

Return to your Domain Host and paste the text into the "Value" box (Google Domains has an "@" in this box)

Paste the value in the value input box

Repeat steps 5-12 for the second CNAME record.
Click Save

Step 4 - Verify

In Formli, go back to the DNS Records page and click Verify

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If you get an error, you can click Verify again—sometimes it takes a few seconds for the record to be verified. If you still have an error, you should double check that you entered your CNAME information correctly into the Domain host.

If you’re using Google Domains, you’ll need to delete the domain (in our case, we will delete "experiencel.ink") from the end of this field as it’s redundant for the host and can cause errors. If you’re using a subdomain, keep the subdomain portion included (in our, case "guide"). For example, the first CNAME has an error, but the second CNAME does not. We’ll revisit our Google Domains page and remove the extra “experiencel.ink” from the host name.