When you’re delivering data science insights, every detail matters. The results might be brilliant, your visualizations polished, but the moment you share a URL like `https://abc-consulting–trend.share.connect.posit.cloud`, the experience changes. Not critically, but enough. What should feel like a professional deliverable suddenly looks provisional. Like you’re borrowing someone else’s infrastructure rather than delivering a purpose-built solution.

For analytics teams and consultants whose work is the product, this isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about trust, credibility, and ensuring your work is hosted exactly where it belongs.

The Enhanced and Advanced plans on Connect Cloud now support custom domains, giving you the control to publish client-facing analytics or public dissemination on your own branded URLs, exactly where they belong.

What Custom Domains Enable

Custom domains allow your organization to host content on domains you own and manage. Instead of a platform-generated address, your dashboards, applications, and reports live on your branded URLs.

This means your partner analytics dashboard can live at analytics.yourcompany.com rather than on a longer Connect Cloud custom name. This capability is built for high-value use cases where professionalism and brand trust are paramount, such as:

• Client-facing analytics where branding reinforces your team’s credibility.
• External reporting where stakeholder trust is essential.
• Public-facing dashboards representing your organization’s official data.
• White-labeled delivery for agencies and consultants.

A Practical Example: The Consultant’s Workflow

To see how this works in practice, consider a consultant delivering a custom Shiny application to a client. While the default Connect Cloud URL is perfect for internal testing and iterative development, the final hand-off requires a more polished touch. By using a custom domain, the consultant can host the final product on a URL that reflects their own brand (or even a client-specific subdomain), ensuring the deliverable feels like a premium, integrated service rather than a temporary link.

Step 1: Add the domain in Connect Cloud

The setup begins within the Connect Cloud interface to register your intent to use a specific domain.

• Navigate to the Admin section and select Domains from your dashboard.
• Click the Add Domain button and enter your registered domain name, such as yourcompany.com.
• If you wish to use multiple subdomains for different clients without creating new DNS entries every time, select the Use wildcard checkbox.
• Click Save to make this domain available for your content.

Step 2: Configure your DNS records

To make the connection official, you must update the settings with your domain registrar, such as GoDaddy or Namecheap. Connect Cloud provides two specific CNAME records you must add:

• Routing: Add a CNAME record with the provided host and value to point your web traffic to Connect Cloud.
• TLS (Security): Add a second CNAME record with the provided values. This allows Connect Cloud to automatically manage your SSL certificates, ensuring your branded URLs remain secure via HTTPS.

Step 3: Verify and wait for propagation

Once you have updated your DNS settings, the system must verify the records are in place.

• You can check the current status at any time by clicking Verify from your Domain List in Connect Cloud.
• While verification often happens quickly, it can take up to 72 hours for DNS changes to propagate across the internet.

Step 4: Assign content to the custom domain

Once your domain is verified, you can point specific pieces of deployed content to it.

• Open the content you wish to brand and navigate to the URL tab in the content Settings page.
• Use the domain selector dropdown to choose your custom domain instead of the default Connect Cloud sharing domain.
• If you are using a wildcard domain, you will be prompted to provide a custom name for the subdomain.

Step 5: Manage the content lifecycle

As projects evolve or conclude, you can manage these assignments directly. You can update the underlying code or data for your apps without changing the assigned custom URL. When an engagement reaches its conclusion, you could unassign the content or remove the domain completely to maintain a clean boundary between active and completed projects.

Publishing with purpose

Custom domains enable a high-value publishing pattern that goes beyond simple hosting. They provide the professionalism and flexibility of delivery without the need to build and maintain your own custom infrastructure.

Ready to showcase your work under your own brand? Log in to your account or sign up today to start delivering professional analytics with a custom domain.