Registering for and Creating Your First Force Platform Site

Your unique Force Platform domain, which hosts your site, is constructed from the unique domain prefix that you register, plus force.com. For example, if you choose “mycompany” as your domain prefix, your domain name would be http:/www.mycompany.force.com.

Note

The construction of the secure URLs for your Force Platform sites depends on the type of organization they are built on. In the following examples, the domain prefix is “mycompany,” the sandbox name is “mysandbox,” the instance name is “na1,” and the sandbox instance name is “cs1”: Organization Type Secure URL Developer Edition https://mycompany-developer-edition.na1.force.com Developer Sandbox https://mysandbox.mycompany.cs1.force.com Production https://mycompany.secure.force.com The domain prefix for Developer Edition must contain 22 characters or fewer. The secure URL is displayed on the Login Settings page.

To get started, register your company’s Force Platform domain by doing the following:

1.	Click Setup Develop Sites.
2.	Enter a unique name for your Force Platform domain. The name is case-sensitive. Only alphanumeric characters are allowed. Salesforce.com recommends using your company’s name or a variation, such as “mycompany.” Caution You cannot modify your Force Platform domain name after you have registered it.
3.	Click Check Availability to confirm that the domain name you entered is unique. If it is not unique, you are prompted to change it.
4.	Read and accept the Force Platform Sites Terms and Use by selecting the checkbox.
5.	Click Register My Force.com Domain. After you accept the Terms and Use and register your Force Platform domain, the change is tracked in your organization’s setup audit trail.

Figure 211. Registering Your Force Platform Domain Name

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Congratulations! You are now ready to create your first Force Platform site. On the Sites page, do the following:

1.	Click New.
2.	On the Site Edit page, enter the Site Label and Site Name (the API name). Select the UnderConstruction page for the Active Site Home Page and the InMaintenance page for the Inactive Site Home Page. Leave your site inactive for now. Note Custom Web addresses registered through a domain name registrar, such as www.mycompany.com, are not supported in Developer Edition.
3.	Click Save.

Figure 212. Creating Your First Site

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Your site is inactive, so when you open your site URL in a browser, you will see the InMaintenance page, as expected. Now activate your site by clicking Activate on the Site Details page. Browse to your site again. You will see the UnderConstruction page, the home page you set for your site when it’s active. If users go to your site, they will see the UnderConstruction page until you replace the Active Site Home Page with the actual pages for your site, which you are ready to create in Visualforce.