Notify Users and Customers About a My Domain Change

In this topic, we refer to end users, customers, and partners. Let’s clarify the definition of each group.

• End users—Users who log in to your Salesforce org. For example, sales reps, account executives, support representatives, and admins. When possible, include some of these users in your testing.
• Customers—External users who access your Salesforce org data through external-facing sites and functionality. For example, users who visit your Experience Cloud site to shop for your products, to search for job postings at your company, or to search an externally exposed inventory. Customers can be authenticated or unauthenticated. In other words, some guests log in to your site, and some access the site without logging in.
• Partners—External users or companies that interface with your Salesforce org’s data. Their interaction can occur through APIs, interfaces, or apps. For example, you can choose to allow a partner to view your Contact data so that they can scrub the address data for accuracy. Or you can allow an external system to provide sales leads.

Before Your My Domain Change

A change to your My Domain name can impact end users, customers, and partners. To keep your business running smoothly on Salesforce, notify these groups about the change in advance.

When your Salesforce org URLs change, login processes, authentication methods, and commonly visited pages can change. A new URL can require end users and customers to update their bookmarks. If your site URLs change, a marketing or communication campaign can help customers transition to the new site. To keep all the existing functionality working, give your partners plenty of notice and include them in your testing.

End users—Here are the key points to communicate to your end users before you deploy My Domain change.

• Key logistics such as the target time frame for the change, when you expect to complete testing, and the notification process for completion.
• The visible changes. For example, login page or login URL changes and URL changes.
• Anyone logged in to Salesforce when the My Domain change is deployed can be logged out. If a user is logged out, they can log back in again.
• Connections to Salesforce are reset when you deploy the My Domain change. This includes features delivered by managed packages that log in to Salesforce in the background. Notify users that features that connect to Salesforce can stop working, and that they can see prompts to reconnect. If possible, include the known features that require the user to reconnect or reauthenticate.
• Instruct admins to verify that they can log in without authentication features such as single sign-on (SSO) or security keys before the change. For example, they can authenticate via a username and password with a second factor of Salesforce Authenticator.
• If your My Domain login URL or site URL changes, inform users that they can re-register their built-in authenticator or security key when they log in after the change. And recommend that users register or verify a back-up authentication method, such as Salesforce Authenticator or a third-party authenticator before the change. For more information, see Preserve Login Access During a My Domain Login URL Change.
• Instruct your end users to prepare to update their bookmarks for any changed URLs.
• Tell your users to update all bookmarks listed on their Chatter groups.
• Highlight any other company-specific steps to take after the change. For example, if you added Google to the My Domain login page as an identity provider, provide instructions or guidance on how to use that authentication method.
• How to report any issues they encounter after go live.

Customers—If your My Domain change impacts public-facing sites, plan your communications early. If your brand is changing, incorporate the new URLs into your marketing campaign for the new brand. Otherwise, let customers know about the change and encourage them to update any bookmarks.

If your customers log in to your site as authenticated users, determine whether it impacts their login method, and provide these users with post-deployment instructions. For example, notify them about a requirement to log in again after a certain date. To help customers who contact your company with questions after the change, share these instructions with your support team.

Partners—When you determine the scope and participants for your My Domain change, you review all functionality, including integrations and applications that require support from third parties. Let them know about the pending My Domain change as soon as possible, and include them in planning. Identify the key contacts at each vendor or third party, then provide updates on the progress of the project and testing. Clearly communicate the assistance that you require, and confirm key dates such as the go-live weekend and required participation. Also let them know how to contact you with any issues that they uncover during testing or post-deployment.

After Your My Domain Change

Consider providing more updates to each group after the My Domain change.

End users—After you deploy the change, we recommend that you include key details to help your users log in and adjust to the new URLs.

• Remind users to re-register any built-in authenticators and security keys when they log in after the change.
• Enable a message during My Domain redirections that provides the user with the new URL. See Manage My Domain Redirections.
• Instruct users to refresh their bookmarks. If they visit a bookmark that links to an old URL, they’re redirected by default. Instruct them to save their bookmarks again after they’re redirected. Tell your users to update any bookmarks listed on their Chatter groups.
• Remind users that their connections to Salesforce were reset, which requires them to reauthenticate. For example, in Salesforce CLI, use force:org:open to log in again. If a feature isn’t working shortly after the My Domain change, try logging in again. For features delivered by a managed package, they can see additional prompts to log in after the My Domain change.
• Recap any company-specific instructions for the change, such as the option to set up a new identity provider or sharing new URLs with customers.
• Summarize the process for reporting any issues that they encounter.

Customers—Ideally, the transition to your new My Domain URLs is relatively invisible to your customers. Consider celebrating any new branding and reminding customers to update their bookmarks. If the process to log in to your site as an authenticated user changed, repeat the instructions for the new process. To help your support team, provide the answers for any anticipated customer questions.

Partners—After you deploy your My Domain change, thank your partners for their participation in testing and go-live. Remind them that the URLs changed, and remind them about the process to report any issues that they encounter.