Register and Choose Your Domain Name

Important Note - when using your Membership Toolkit address, there is NO "www" in the URL. Your Membership Toolkit account is over a secure connection and it begins with "https". When you publish your link, it is important to publish the correct link!! 

• We recommend that all organizations have their own domain name and that the registration needs to be owned by the organization and not a third party.
  
• If a third party owns the registration on your domain name, we recommend that your organization have the registration transferred to your account. You will need to set-up an account with a domain registration company and then follow their transfer steps.
  
• If you choose not to create a domain name for your organization, you can still use Membership Toolkit.  
  

• Make It Easy – Your domain name should be easy to remember and easy to type!  Your domain name should be your website name.
  
• Your Name – When possible, it is best to choose a domain name that is your organization's or business' name. 
  
• Keep It Short – Domain names can be up to 63 characters long, plus the ".com" or ".org" at the end. We do not recommend you use ALL 63 characters.
  
• Don't Use Numbers & Hyphens – Both numbers and hyphens make it difficult for you to verbally tell someone your URL.
  
• .COM or .ORG – The ".com" designation is by far the most popular URL in the world. However, many non-profits choose to use a ".org" website to help identify that they are a non-profit. This is a great idea. When possible, you should also reserve the ".com" of your name as well.
  

Domain Names & DNS (Domain Name Server) Management

1. First you need to find the main phone number to ACME Corporation. So you find a phone book and you look up the phone number for ACME Corporation.
   
2. Now that you have the phone number for the main switch board to ACME Corporation, you can call this number and speak to the switchboard operator.
   
3. You ask for Sally, and the operator gives you Sally's direct phone number.
   
4. You hang up and dial Sally's number.
   

1. First it goes to the Registrar (phone book) where ACME.com was registered. The Registrar will give the browser the IP address (which is like a phone number) of the DNS Server (switchboard operator) for ACME.com.
   
2. It then calls the DNS (operator) to ask for the www extension for ACME website (direct phone number).
   
3. The DNS server responds with the IP address of the server for the ACME website.
   
4. The browser then goes to the website for ACME to retrieve the page to show the user.
   

The important thing to remember is there are two key parts to this process: the Registrar and the DNS server.

1. The Registrar is where you register (purchase and create) your unique domain name (the "ACME.com" in our example above).
   
2. The DNS server is where the information about computers for ACME.com are defined.
   
3. The Registrar is responsible for telling the Internet where the DNS server is, and the DNS server is responsible for telling the Internet where everything for ACME.com is located.
   
   

Setting Up DNS Hosting

Step 1 - Add a Domain Name to your Membership Toolkit Account

1. Go to Admin > Domains.
   

1. If your all of your current domain names are listed (you can have more than 1) then you can skip to Step 2.
   
2. If there are domain names that are missing, or you have purchased a new domain, click the "add domain..." button.
   
3. Enter the domain name. Do NOT include "www" or "http://."
   
4. Click the "add domain" button to save your domain to your list.
   

Step 2 - Activate DNS Hosting

1. Click the "add DNS hosting" button on the row of each domain.
   
2. Read the information and then select "Yes, add DNS hosting for my domain" from the drop down menu.
   
3. Click the "add DNS hosting" button.
   

1. You will receive a Success message in green at the top of the screen.
   

1. If the domain you're working with was newly purchased and you have NOT hosted DNS information for that domain elsewhere, you will not have any additional records to add. Membership Toolkit automatically added the two main records you need, so you will only need to update the Name Servers with your Domain Registrar. (Skip to Step 5 below.)
   
2. If your DNS information is currently being hosted elsewhere, you will need to export/import your Zone file from your current host BEFORE updating the Name Servers with your Domain Registrar. (Proceed with Steps 3 & 4.)
   
   

Step 3 - Export the Zone File

1. In a new browser tab go to your DNS hosting service (this may be your Registrar, but it may be someone else). In our example it's godaddy.com.
   
2. Log in to your account.
   
3. Click on your account profile to view "My Products."
   
4. Click on "DNS" in the Domains section.
   

1. This will take you to the DNS Management screen where you will see the list of Records. This is the information we need to transfer over to Membership Toolkit.
   

1. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find Advanced Features section.
   
2. Click the link titled "Export Zone File." This will download a copy of the file to your computer. (In our example, Unix vs. Windows doesn't matter)
   
3. A file will download to your downloads folder, and will have a .txt extension.
   

Step 4 - Import the Zone File

1. Go back to your Membership Toolkit dashboard.
   
2. Click the button labeled "import zone file..."
   
   
3. In the window that appears, select the file you just downloaded from your downloads folder, and then click "upload zone file."
   
   
   
   
   
4. The next screen will show all the relevant records to import from the Zone file. By default, all records will be selected except the one or two that will be managed automatically by Membership Toolkit.
   
5. In most cases, you will want to import all records, so you can just leave them checked. However, if there are records you know you no longer need, you can de-select them to ignore them.
   
6. Click the "import" button at the bottom of the screen.
   
   
7. Once the records have processed, click "continue."
   
8. At this point you will see all of your records listed, and you can edit and/or delete any of the imported records if you need to.
   

For example, if you have recently added email forwarding as a feature with your domain registration, you will need to update the records list and add the MX (Mail Exchanger) Records.

1. Select the Record Type. The provider of the service you are connecting will typically tell you what types of records to add and what values to use.
   

1. Copy/paste the Record Name and Host Name (Value) from the Records list on your Domain Registrar site. The TTL (Time To Live) defaults to 86400 seconds (24 hours), but you can change it if you wish. You shouldn't make this number less than 900, nor greater than 86400 under most circumstances.
   

Step 5 - Update the Name Servers with your Registrar

IMPORTANT NOTE: These 4 server names will be unique for each domain you add, so be sure to copy/paste the exact information from this screen. You can use the "copy" button next to each Name Server to copy the name to your clipboard.

1.  In a new browser tab, go to your Domain Registrar and log in to your account (for your convenience, you can click the hyperlink provided below the Name Servers.)  
   
2. Click on your account profile to view "My Products."
   
3. Click on "DNS" in the Domains section.
   
4. On the "DNS Management" screen, scroll down to the middle to find the Nameservers section and click "Change."
   
   
   
   
   
5. Click the hyperlink for "enter my own nameservers (advanced)."
   
   
   
   
   
6. Copy/paste each Name Server from the Membership Toolkit screen into a server name blank on the Registrar screen. Once you have copy and pasted all 4, click Save. You may be asked to give additional consent to continue. You may also be asked to verify your email address, so be sure you have access to the email address on file with your Domain Registrar.
   
   
   
7. Return to your Membership Toolkit screen and click the refresh hyperlink provided to see if the updates have been made to the Name Servers. (NOTE: Depending on the Registrar, this could take from a few minutes to several hours before the changes appear on the Internet.
   
8. When everything is complete you should see a green check mark next to each Name Server in the list.