ScreenSteps

Changes coming to how Sites and Domains work on ScreenSteps (Late August 2018)

Updated on

The purpose of this article is to make you aware of some changes coming to ScreenSteps in late August 2018 regarding how domains and sites work in ScreenSteps.

None of the changes described below have any affect on sites that use their own custom domain (host mapping). These changes only apply to sites that use screenstepslive.com as their domain.

How Sites and Domains have worked up until now

Up until this point each ScreenSteps account has had a single subdomain at screenstepslive.com. For example, one account might be stark-industries.screenstepslive.com and another might be wayne-enterprises.screenstepslive.com. These would represent two separate ScreenSteps customers.

Each account can have one or more Sites. Each site is a separate knowledge base with a separate template and viewing permissions. Sites have been identified by their URL. The stark-industries account could have two site with ids 4991 and 5448. The urls for those sites would be the following:

  • https://stark-industries.screenstepslive.com/s/4991
  • https://stark-industries.screenstepslive.com/s/5448

These URLs are long and hard to remember.

How are things changing?

Starting in late August 2018, you will be able to have a separate subdomain for each site on your account. So, for example, if your account were stark-industries.screenstepslive.com your default site would be available at https://stark-industries.screenstepslive.com. But separate sites on your account could be available at:

  • https://iron-man.screenstepslive.com
  • https://tony-stark.screenstepslive.com
  • https://infinity-stone.screenstepslive.com

How does this help me?

By allowing each site to have its own subdomain we can do the following:

  • You can have shorter, easier to remember URLs for your knowledge bases.
  • You can enable Courses on any site (not only the default site).
  • You will be able to enable the ScreenSteps Browser Extension on any site.
  • You can set up multiple SSO endpoints to different sites within ScreenSteps.

How will this affect existing sites?

Don't worry. Nothing will change at this point unless you ask ScreenSteps Support to change settings on your account for you.

If you would like to add subdomains to your sites, all you need to do is contact ScreenSteps Support and let us know the following information:

  1. Which site should continue to use your existing account subdomain (stark-industries in the example above).
  2. A list of all other sites on your account and the subdomain you would like to assign to each one. Note that subdomains have to be unique across all ScreenSteps sites so there is a possibility that your first choice may not be available.

Once we make the change the following will happen:

  1. You will have a default site available a the root of your account domain (i.e. https://my-company.screenstepslive.com/). Previously this would show a list of all of your sites. The list of sites will no longer be available.
  2. URLs that point to your old site will automatically redirect to the new URLs.
  3. If your account allows it, you will be able to enable courses on the site.

How will this affect my account?

We prepared an article that will ask you a couple of questions to determine what sorts of updates, if any, you will need to perform after migrating to individual site domains. Click the link below to open the article and go through the questionnaire.

Migrating to Site Domains Decision Assistant

For additional details about the change, see below.

How will this affect newly created sites?

Once we enable site subdomains on your account, all newly created sites will require a subdomain. If we do not enable this feature on your account you will not be able to set domains on new sites.

How will this affect logging into sites?

Using the ScreenSteps login

  • Each Site will have its own login page.
  • Logging into one site will not automatically log you into other sites on your account.
  • If a user is an admin user or is added to multiple sites as a Learner or Reader they will be able to use the same credentials to login to each site.

Using Single Sign-on (SSO)

Once individual site domains have been enabled on your account SSO may need to be reconfigured as each site will now have separate SSO settings. This will give you more granular control over provisioning users via Single Sign-on. Previously all SSO users were added to a single user group in ScreenSteps. It became difficult to provision users to different sites. By configuring SSO separately for each site you can ensure that users are assigned only to the sites they are supposed to have access to.

How Do I Upgrade My Account?

To upgrade your account to use separate domains for each site you will need to contact our support team.

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