If you’ve ever been interested in running your Salesforce Community portal from a custom URL (like support.yourwebsite.com or customerportal.yourwebsite.com), you’re in luck. With Salesforce’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) partner and some basic knowledge on managing DNS, you can easily achieve this. Let’s delve into how you can set up your custom domain and point it to your Salesforce Community Portal.

Step 1: Add a Domain in Salesforce

  1. Log in to Salesforce and navigate to Setup.
  2. In the Quick Find box, type “Domains”, then select Sites and Domains > Domains.
  3. Click on Add a Domain.
  4. In the form that opens up, choose the HTTPS Option: “Salesforce serves the domain over HTTPS using a Salesforce content delivery network (CDN) partner”.
  5. In the Domain Name field, enter your domain. For example: support.yourwebsite.com.

During this process, Salesforce will provide you with two records. They will be in the following format:

  • [domain].00dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.live.siteforce.com. For instance, support.yourwebsite.com.00dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.live.siteforce.com.
  • _acme-challenge.[domain].00dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.live.siteforce.com. For instance, _acme-challenge.support.yourwebsite.com.00dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.live.siteforce.com.

Step 2: Add CNAME Records to Your Domain’s DNS

Next, we need to add these records to your domain’s DNS.

  1. Log in to your domain management system (e.g., GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.).
  2. Navigate to your DNS settings, where you will likely see a section for managing DNS Records.
  3. Here, you will add two CNAME records. Depending on your domain management system, you might need to add either the subdomain or the entire domain:
    • CNAME | support | support.yourwebsite.com.00dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.live.siteforce.com.
    • CNAME | _acme-challenge.support | _acme-challenge.support.yourwebsite.com.00dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.live.siteforce.com.

Once these records are added, you need to wait for them to propagate across the internet. This process can take up to 24 hours.

Step 3: Add Domain Name and Assign to Production/Sandboxes in Salesforce

Once the DNS changes have propagated, you can return to Salesforce to finalize the configuration.

  1. Go back to the Domains page in Salesforce (follow the same navigation as in Step 1).
  2. Add your domain name (e.g., support.yourwebsite.com).
  3. Once the domain is activated, you can assign it to your production or sandbox environments.

Step 4: Associate Custom URL to Your Community Site

The final step is to associate your new custom URL with your Salesforce Community.

  1. In Salesforce, go to Setup.
  2. In the Quick Find box, type “Sites”, then select Sites and Domains > Domains.
  3. Click Registred Domain Name.
  4. Click New Custom URL
  5. In the Select Site dropdown, choose your community site.
  6. Save the changes.

You have now successfully pointed your Salesforce Community portal to your custom domain using Salesforce’s CDN partner. Users can now access your Salesforce Community portal via the custom URL you have set up