Portal & custom domain

Deploy a white-label portal and connect a custom domain by delegating nameservers to Utilified, with auto-polled verification and email routing.

The Portal & Domain tab in Settings lets Organisation Admins run a white-label customer portal on a domain you control, and route inbound and outbound email through that same domain.

This page covers the end-to-end flow: plan requirements, attaching a custom domain via nameserver delegation, verifying it, enabling email, and changing or removing the domain later.

Who can use this

• Portal & Domain is a Business and Enterprise feature. Organisations on the Starter plan do not see the Portal & Domain tab in Settings at all. Organisations with no plan attached (for example, exempt or trial orgs) are treated as entitled and see the tab.
• Only users with Manager or Administrator permissions can edit the Portal & Domain tab.

If your organisation is on the Starter plan and you want a white-label portal or to route email through your own domain, upgrade to Business or Enterprise from Settings → Billing. The Portal & Domain tab appears as soon as your plan upgrade takes effect.

Plan gating

Inside Settings → Portal & Domain, the Deployment section behaves one of three ways:

• Plan includes the portal feature — The Deploy portal button is shown. It is disabled until a verified custom domain is attached; hover the button to see the prerequisite.
• Plan does not include the portal feature — In practice the whole Portal & Domain tab is hidden, so this state is rarely seen. If reached directly (for example, during a plan downgrade in progress), an information notice replaces the Deploy controls: “Portal deployment is available on the Business and Enterprise plans.” Use the Upgrade action in the notice to jump to the Billing tab.
• Plan still loading — A short placeholder is shown so the deploy controls and upgrade notice do not flash on first load.

Server-side checks remain authoritative — attempting to deploy without the entitlement is rejected even if the UI is reached another way.

Add a custom domain

Use a subdomain you control — for example, portal.yourcompany.com.au. The same domain powers the portal URL, outbound email, and DKIM signing.

1. Go to Settings → Portal & Domain → Domain.
2. Enter your domain in the Domain field and select Add domain.
3. UMS provisions a hosted DNS zone for your domain and displays four nameservers in the Delegate your domain table.

ns-123.awsdns-12.com
ns-456.awsdns-45.net
ns-789.awsdns-78.org
ns-012.awsdns-01.co.uk

Utilified uses nameserver delegation, not record-by-record DNS setup. You point your domain (or subdomain) at our nameservers and we manage DKIM, SPF, MX, and the SSL certificate inside that zone. You will not be asked to publish individual CNAME, TXT, or MX records.

Delegate your nameservers

At your domain registrar (for example, Cloudflare, GoDaddy, or Route 53), set the nameservers for the domain shown in the table to the four nameservers listed in UMS.

• If your registrar separates “Custom nameservers” from “DNS records”, you want the nameservers setting.
• Delegation typically propagates in 5–60 minutes, though some registrars can take longer.

Verify your domain

After delegation, UMS automatically polls for verification while the Domain section is open:

• The status badge cycles Awaiting verification → Verified (or Verification failed) without a manual refresh.
• Polling runs every 30 seconds, pauses while the browser tab is hidden, and resumes when you return.
• After about ten minutes of continued polling, automatic checks pause to avoid hammering DNS. The section shows a hint to click Check now to keep checking — doing so resumes auto-polling.
• Check now also surfaces a one-off status message (“Domain verified”, “Verification failed — check your nameserver delegation”, or “Still awaiting DNS”).

Once the status flips to Verified, the Deploy portal button is enabled, and the inbound/outbound email toggles become available.

Deploy the portal

With a verified domain attached and on an eligible plan:

1. Select Deploy portal in the Deployment section.
2. Confirm the deployment in the dialog that appears.
3. UMS provisions the portal stack and shows progress in the deployment stepper. When complete, the portal becomes available at your custom domain.

The Deploy button stays disabled while a deployment is already in progress. Hover the button for the current reason if it is greyed out.

Inbound and outbound email

Once your domain is verified, two switches appear under Email delivery:

• Outbound email — Send notifications and other system mail from no-reply@yourdomain.
• Inbound email — Receive invoices and other mail at addresses like invoices@yourdomain.

Both switches require DNS verification before they can be turned on. If the domain is not yet verified, the switch is disabled with the hint “Requires DNS verification.”

Enabling a direction takes effect immediately. Disabling either direction opens a confirmation dialog that spells out what stops working — for example, “Notifications will stop being sent from no-reply@yourdomain.” — so the impact is explicit before you proceed.

Enable outbound first to start sending branded notifications. Enable inbound only when you are ready to receive mail (for example, supplier invoices) at addresses on your domain.

Change your domain

Domains cannot be renamed in place. Use the Change domain action to move to a different domain:

1. Select Change domain next to your current domain.
2. Read the confirmation dialog carefully — it lists each consequence: which email directions will stop, and whether your live portal at the current domain will be taken down.
3. Confirm. UMS tears down the current domain and returns you to the empty “Add domain” state.
4. Add the new domain following the Add a custom domain steps and delegate its nameservers.

Changing your domain is a full re-provision. You will need to delegate the new domain’s nameservers and wait for verification again before redeploying the portal or re-enabling email.

Remove your domain

Use Remove domain (the bin icon next to the status badge) to revert your portal to the default Utilified domain and tear down email verification entirely.

A confirmation dialog lists the consequences — including taking down your live portal if one is deployed — and requires you to acknowledge that the action cannot be undone.

Confirmation dialogs

UMS shows a confirmation dialog before any destructive or impactful change on this page:

Action	What the dialog tells you
Remove domain	The portal will revert to the default Utilified domain, email verification is torn down, and your live portal (if any) will be taken down.
Change domain	Same teardown as Remove, plus a reminder that you will need to re-delegate the new domain’s nameservers.
Disable outbound email	Notifications will stop being sent from no-reply@yourdomain.
Disable inbound email	Mail sent to addresses like invoices@yourdomain will no longer be received.

You can cancel any of these dialogs to leave the current state unchanged.

Troubleshooting

• I don’t see a Portal & Domain tab — The tab is hidden on the Starter plan. Upgrade to Business or Enterprise from Settings → Billing to make it available. If you are on a higher plan but still don’t see it, check that your role is Manager or Administrator.
• Status stays on “Awaiting verification” — Confirm at your registrar that the domain’s nameservers exactly match the four shown in UMS. Some registrars list trailing dots; the values are equivalent with or without the trailing dot.
• Status shows “Verification failed” — Most often a nameserver mismatch or a registrar that has not yet propagated the change. Re-check the nameservers and use Check now.
• Automatic checks have paused — UMS pauses background polling after about ten minutes to avoid excess lookups. Click Check now to resume.
• “This domain is already enabled for another organisation” — The domain is in use by a different Utilified organisation. Remove it there first, or choose a different subdomain.
• Deploy portal stays disabled with a verified domain — Hover the button for the current reason; the most common cause is an in-progress deployment.