Custom domains
The Domains tab under Manage team lets you use your own web address for Trialflare, such as trials.yourorganisation.com, instead of app.trialflare.com.
Once a domain is set up, the links Trialflare shows and sends for your team use it:
- consent form and landing page links, including their QR codes
- questionnaire and video call links you copy for participants
- invitations, password resets and the other emails your team receives, such as task, file and query notifications
app.trialflare.com keeps working for everyone. Links that were sent before you set up a domain still work.
Custom domains are a team feature. If your team doesn't have it, the tab shows This feature is currently not available in your team. Contact us if you'd like it switched on. You need team.manage to add, change or remove domains. Anyone in the team can see which domains are set up.
Adding a domain
- Go to Manage team → Domains.
- Enter the address you want to use, such as
trials.yourorganisation.com, and choose Add domain. - Trialflare shows the DNS record the domain needs: a CNAME record with the domain as its Name, and Trialflare's address as its Value. Each part has a copy button.
- Create that record wherever your organisation manages its DNS. This is usually your IT team or your domain provider's control panel.
- Come back to the Domains tab and choose Check again.
The domain must be a subdomain, such as trials.yourorganisation.com, not yourorganisation.com on its own. A CNAME record can't be added to the root of a domain.
DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to be seen everywhere. If Check again says the record isn't there yet, wait a while and try again. The message under the domain says what Trialflare found, for example a record that points somewhere else.
You don't have to keep checking: Trialflare also looks for the record every hour, for three days after the domain is added. Once the record is found, the domain is set up without anything more from you.
A domain can only belong to one Trialflare team. A team can have up to five.
What each status means
| Status | What's happening |
|---|---|
| Waiting for DNS | The CNAME record hasn't been found, or doesn't point to Trialflare. Create or correct it, then choose Check again. |
| Setting up | The record is in place. Trialflare is setting up the domain and its security certificate. This usually takes a minute or two, and the page updates when it's done. If it takes longer, Trialflare keeps trying every hour. |
| Active | The domain is working over a secure (HTTPS) connection and can be used for your team's links. |
| Problem | The record wasn't found, or the domain couldn't be set up, within three days, so Trialflare has stopped trying. The message under the domain says which. Fix the record if needed, then choose Check again to start again. |
Trialflare checks active domains every hour too. If an active domain's DNS record is changed or removed, the domain goes back to Waiting for DNS, and your links stop using it until the record is fixed.
The primary domain
If you have more than one active domain, one of them is the primary domain. Your team's links all use the primary domain.
The first domain to become active is made primary automatically. To use a different one, choose Make primary next to it. Only an active domain can be primary.
If you remove the primary domain, another active domain takes its place. If there isn't one, links go back to app.trialflare.com.
Removing a domain
Choose Remove next to the domain. Trialflare stops serving it straight away, so links that were already sent using that domain stop working. Check that nothing current depends on it first. You can then delete the CNAME record from your DNS.
You can remove a domain even if your team no longer has the custom domains feature.
Signing in on your domain
Your team signs in on your domain with the same account as on app.trialflare.com. The two addresses keep separate sessions, so someone who is signed in on one will be asked to sign in on the other.
Sign in with Google and Sign in with Microsoft work on your domain too. You'll pass briefly through app.trialflare.com on the way, because that is the address Google and Microsoft know Trialflare by. Once you've signed in, you're brought straight back to your domain.
Connecting Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox to a trial works the same way: the connection passes through app.trialflare.com and then returns to your domain.
Passkeys only work on the address they were created on. This is a security protection built into passkeys, not a Trialflare setting. A passkey created on app.trialflare.com can't be used on your custom domain, so anyone who relies on one should sign in another way on the custom domain.
Adding, removing, checking and changing the primary domain are all recorded in your team event log.