How to map a custom domain to TalentLMS

If you want to use a custom domain name for your portal (e.g., lms.mycompany.com), TalentLMS lets you map an external domain to TalentLMS.

Let's see how to:

A. Map an external domain to your TalentLMS domain

To use an external domain (e.g., a subdomain of your official business domain) for your TalentLMS portal, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your TalentLMS account as Administrator and go to Account & Settings (1).
2. Go to the Portal tab (2).
3. Click Custom domain (3).

4. In the Custom domain name field (4), type your custom domain name (e.g., lms.mybusiness.com).
5. Click Map custom domain (5).

Your custom domain is activated immediately, but for the mapping to be effective you have to add the right CNAME to your domain’s DNS records.

Note: A CNAME (i.e., Canonical Name) record is an entry in the Domain Name System (DNS) that specifies where users can find a specific URL. The CNAME associates your custom domain with your TalentLMS domain. How you add a CNAME to your DNS records depends on your hosting service (check out these guides for setting up a CNAME with cPanel, GoDaddy, and NameCheap). In any case, you need either administrator access to your domain’s settings or an administrator to map the domain for you.

6. If you have administrator access, go to your hosting service’s admin dashboard, find the DNS editor and add a new CNAME record.

• In the NAME field, type the domain name you want to map (e.g., lms.mybusiness.com).
• In the DATA field, type the domain of your TalentLMS portal (e.g., mysite.talentlms.com).

Note: Depending on your DNS hosting provider, you may have to type lms instead of lms.mybusiness.com in the NAME field.

B. Set up mapped domains for branches

When you map a custom domain to TalentLMS, each branch assigned with a TalentLMS subdomain (e.g., abranch-mynewsite.talentlms.com) is automatically mapped to a subdomain of the main mapped domain (e.g., abranch.lms.mybusiness.com).

For the mapping to be effective, you have to go back to your hosting service’s DNS editor and create an additional CNAME to map *.lms.mybusiness.com to your TalentLMS domain:

CNAME lms.mybusiness.com > mysite.talentlms.com

CNAME *.lms.mybusiness.com > mysite.talentlms.com

Note: When your custom domain is implied in the DNS editor, your mapping looks like this:

CNAME lms > mysite.talentlms.com

CNAME *.lms > mysite.talentlms.com

Alternatively, you can map each branch individually for more control over your custom mapping:

CNAME branch1.lms.mybusiness.com > branch1-mysite.talentlms.com

Or if your DNS is implying the root domain:

CNAME branch1.lms > branch1-mysite.talentlms.com 

C. Map a root domain

When your DNS service doesn't allow you to create a CNAME for your custom domain (this is typical for root domains like “mybusiness.com”), you need to create A entries instead and point them to the correct TalentLMS IP addresses. Then, your mapping looks like this:

A mybusiness.com > our IP address (please contact support for this)

A mybusiness.com > our 2nd IP address (please contact support for this)

CNAME *.mybusiness.com > mysite.talentlms.com

Note: The TalentLMS IP addresses could change at any point in the future. We strongly recommend that you always use CNAME records to map a subdomain (e.g., lms.mybusiness.com) to TalentLMS.

Also wildcard CNAME records on root domains are not advised, mapping each branch individually with a CNAME is a better way to control the domain mapping.

Further notes:

• Some DNS providers do not permit the creation of wildcard DNS entries (i.e., [*].example.com). In that case, you have to create individual DNS entries for each branch. In the example given, instead of [*].lms.mybusiness.com you have to use a separate DNS entry for abranch.lms.mybusiness.com.
• Whenever TalentLMS cannot match a URL to the respective sub-branch, it redirects users to the “www” domain. For example, if a user tries to access abranch.lms.mybusiness.com and there is no branch named “abranch”, they are redirected to www.lms.mybusiness.com.
• A common issue when typing www.mybusiness.com instead of mybusiness.com (without the “www”) in the Domain map field on the Home > Account & Settings > Domain page is that you cannot map your branches properly. In that case, the mapping needs to be done in the sub-level (i.e., [*].www.mybusiness.com).

We strongly recommend that you never type www.mybusiness.com in the Domain map field. Always use mybusiness.com. Also, if it's your root domain, always create a CNAME in your DNS editor for users to access your portal through www.mybusiness.com:

CNAME www.mybusiness.com > mybusiness.com

On the rare occasion that you decide to name a branch “www”, the www.mybusiness.com URL would take your users to the branch homepage instead of your main domain (mybusiness.com).

• When you want to host a different site on your “www” domain, it’s a good idea to use second-level subdomains to host branches. For example, www.mybusiness.com can point to your main site; lms.mybusiness.com can point to your main TalentLMS domain and branches can be mapped as abranch.lms.mybusiness.com.