How I Customized a Salesforce Org Using "My Domain"

"My Domain" is a Salesforce feature that allows the Salesforce Admin to personalize your Salesforce org users' login experience by creating a subdomain within the Salesforce domain. It also enables you to set up a single sign-on (SSO). So, I head over to "Setup" and search "My Domain." The first thing I do is examine the options I have in the "Policies" section.

Login Policies for "My Domain"

1. I learn that as an Admin, I can prevent Salesforce users in my org from using the standard Salesforce login URL to access our specific Salesforce org. Why would I do it? To force the users to log in via My Domain (the customized experience).
2. I also discover that the Admin has an option to prevent SOAP API access. SOAP means Simple Object Access Protocol, and SOAP API is typically implemented by Salesforce developers for compliance. I leave this unchecked for my hands-on challenge.

Redirect Policies for "My Domain"

1. I also saw that as an Admin I have control over redirect policies. So, I can control the behavior of the redirect when a user has a bookmark. I can specify how the redirect is going to work if the user is not using "My Domain." I can check the first option in the screenshot above to redirect the user to the same page within the domain. This option lets users continue to access your org from our instanced Salesforce URLs as well as our branded My Domain URLs. While it might be convenient, it won’t require your users to access your branded org. To require that users log in with my org's My Domain, in production, I elect?"Prevent login from https://login.salesforce.com"
2. I can select the second checkbox above if I want to redirect within the same domain with a warning. This enables me to remind users to leverage our org's My Domain URLs, and it will remind them before redirecting them to your org. This can help change user behavior so users transition to the branded URLs.
3. I may decide to not redirect the user. This option will ensure the user actually updates their bookmark, otherwise, the user won’t be able to navigate to the required page. This means I will require users to use our My Domain login URL when accessing the org. There is an expectation with this setting that my users have transitioned to using the new My Domain URLs. If they haven’t, they get an error when they try to use your org's instanced Salesforce URLs. This option is recommended by Salesforce.

Eventually, I want to force everyone to use the branded My Domain URL. But I also want to give our users some time to update their bookmarks. So, in my hands-on challenge, I'll select the redirect policy?"Redirect with a warning to the same page within the domain."

I've learned that Salesforce My Domain allows me as an Admin to configure a login page for my org in accordance with my org's brand identity. Having worked in marketing for over a decade, I understand the importance of doing so. I decide to watch some additional Salesforce Trailhead videos about My Domain.

I discover that My Domain is required if I as an Admin want to set up SSO via external identity providers (those who confirm that my user is the user they say they are and can be authenticated), and those authentication providers can be Google or Facebook, which will enable my users to access our Salesforce org via their socials.

I see that My Domain lets me as an Admin customize my org login page and allows me to have multiple orgs open in the same browser. To use many of the latest and greatest Salesforce features, My Domain is a must-have. See below the list of features that require My Domain.

All Salesforce Trailhead playgrounds are set up via My Domain. In fact, Trailhead is a My Domain subdomain of the Salesforce domain. Salesforce help domain is also a My Domain subdomain of the Salesforce domain. I'm so excited to learn this because I was always curious how come every time I create a new playground, it has a cute and fun animal name embedded in it. Now I know! Salesforce explains:

My Domain is like your empire within the Salesforce universe. It’s a Salesforce Identity feature that lets you personalize your Salesforce org with a subdomain (empire) within the Salesforce domain (universe).

How’s that? With My Domain, your users get a nifty, personalized way to access Salesforce. Instead of a meaningless URL that contains your Salesforce instance, such as https://na30.salesforce.com, your login URL looks like https://somethingReallycool.my.salesforce.com where:

somethingReallycool equals your My Domain name, aka your personal subdomain within the Salesforce domain. Typically, it's your company name or whatever drives your brand.

Having a My Domain isn’t just about convenience and branding an org’s login experience. It's about having more control over your login process and simplifying authentication

Wow! How awesome, I love learning about My Domain, but I need to get my hands dirty, so it's time to do a hands-on challenge! Here's a screenshot showing you how I set up my My Domain policies.

Customizing My Domain Login Page

To customize my My Domain login page, I go to Setup / My Domain, and under "Authentication Configuration," I click?"Edit." Here's what I see.

I won’t change "Login Page Type." This option comes into play when I want to change how users log in. I'm staying with the standard username and password for now.

I uploaded a 250X125 logo I created in Canva (a bright orange picture of me dancing in a white dress after my TEDx talk in 2020), and I changed the login color to hot pink: #F32A8F

To customize the right side of the page, I use https://mydomain-sample.herokuapp.com and I leave authentication options unchecked for now. Then, I click "Save." Here's a screenshot showing you what I did.

Here's my result. It's not pretty but this was not the design test. This was me learning the technical features of Salesforce My Domain, and boom: see my receipt below. But f you want to see how well I do web design, check out SalesforceAnna.com and AnnaSzabo.com, which are the two websites I personally built on two different platforms.

p.s: ok, ok, I'll show you my two websites.

Look ?? and click each picture to go to the respective website I built!