Organizations and domains

An account becomes an organization once it has a verified email domain. Nothing else changes about it: same projects, same members, same roles.

What a verified domain does

• Members and open invitations at any other address are labelled External · outside acme.com, in words rather than only in colour.
• Inviting an address outside the domain asks you to confirm first, so a contractor's personal address is always a decision rather than a typo.
• The account is marked Organization in the account switcher.

What it does not do: nobody joins by having an address at the domain, and it is not single sign-on. Every member is still invited by an admin.

A subdomain counts as the domain: bob@eng.acme.com is inside acme.com. An account can verify several domains, for example after a rebrand, and anyone at any of them is inside.

Adding a domain

Under Account → Domains, an admin enters the domain, like acme.com. It starts Not verified yet, and there are two ways to prove it.

Public email providers, such as gmail.com, outlook.com and proton.me, can never be claimed. An address there says nothing about which organization someone belongs to.

Verify by DNS

This needs no approval, and it is verified the moment the record is found.

1. The screen shows a TXT record, each part with a copy button:
   • Name: _analyticstrend.acme.com
   • Value: analyticstrend-verify= followed by 32 letters and digits
2. Add a TXT record with those at whoever hosts the domain's DNS.
3. Choose Check DNS.

The name field usually wants less than the full name

Most DNS hosts, including Cloudflare, Namecheap, GoDaddy and Route 53's console, add the domain for you. Enter only _analyticstrend as the name or host. Entering the whole _analyticstrend.acme.com often ends up as _analyticstrend.acme.com.acme.com, which is never found.

A new record can take a few minutes to appear, and occasionally longer. If the check finds nothing, wait and try again; it can run once every 10 seconds. To see what the world sees:

dig +short TXT _analyticstrend.acme.com
# or, on Windows
nslookup -type=TXT _analyticstrend.acme.com

The record is only read when you choose Check DNS, so removing it afterwards does not unverify the domain. Leaving it in place costs nothing.

Verify by approval

If you cannot change the domain's DNS, choose Request approval. An AnalyticsTrend operator reviews the request, with how many of your members already have an address at the domain, which is the strongest sign it is really yours. You get an email with the decision.

A declined request shows the reason on the Domains screen. You can still verify by DNS after a decline: the decision was about the request, and a published record proves control of the domain on its own.

Removing a domain

Remove takes a domain off the account at any time, verified or not. If it was the only verified domain, the account stops being an organization and the External labels disappear.