Setting Up a Custom Domain

Brand all your client facing pages with a subdomain on your website

Nicole avatar
Written by Nicole
Updated over a week ago

What is a custom domain?

Custom domains take your branding to the next level. They mask your client-facing Táve pages with a subdomain you create on your domain.

Instead of this:
https://tave.com/yourwebsite

your clients could see this:
https://clients.yourwebsite.com 

To start using custom domains in Táve, go to Settings › Branding in your Táve account. Click on the brand you want to add the custom domain for and hit the “configure” button next to the custom domain field. Our handy custom domain wizard will walk you through the process!

You’ll start by deciding what you want your subdomain to be. You can use mostly anything you’d like here, but let’s keep it simple and use “clients”.

Next the wizard will prompt you to go to your domain registrar to create your subdomain (CNAME DNS record).

Setting Up Your Custom Domain With Your Domain Registrar

Important note: Every domain host has a slightly different setup. You may use GoDaddy, Bluehost, Network Solutions, or some other domain host. And although each host is different, you should be able to find the same capability. If you aren’t able to find it, you should reach out to customer support for your domain registrar. They might even add the custom domain for you! 

Steps to add a subdomain (CNAME) typically include:

  1. Log in to your account on your registrar’s website.

  2. Find the place where you can create new CNAME records. Typically this section is called a DNS Manager. 

  3. Once inside the DNS Manager, add a new DNS record and set the type to CNAME. 

  4. Find the field that’s typically called “host name” or “alias” or “subdomain” and put the subdomain part of what you decided during the custom domain setup wizard in Táve. In our case, we decided to do “clients”. Just enter clients in this field, for example, not the entire custom domain URL.

  5. Find the field that’s typically called “value” or “destination” or “points to” and enter clientaccess.tave.com. 

  6. Save the new CNAME DNS record. 

You’re done with what you need to do with your domain registrar! Now head back to Táve to finish the custom domain setup wizard.  The wizard will take the final steps of issuing an SSL certificate to secure the custom domain and serve all the pages over “https://”.   

Congrats! You are now fully set up to have your custom domain (clients.yourwebsite.com) redirect to Táve. Your client facing pages in Táve (contact forms, quotes, invoices, contracts, etc.) created from this point forward will all be presented under this custom domain. Any pages generated prior to this change will continue to use your brand's fallback URL.

Important Note: CNAME records have to propagate throughout the internet. Your custom domain will not work until this happens. Usually it takes anywhere between 2 to 48 hours, although in most cases it’s less than a few minutes.

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