Domain Management is a new service that we offer to practices who need a domain solution to host some of MacPractice's additional platforms, such as the Patient Portal, TSYS or MPGo. Domain Management provides a practice the ability to easily sign up and set up a domain with practically zero fuss. There'll be no need to work with an IT or Networking professional in most cases.

This article will review how to get started setting up a domain, and the steps required before you can use this Domain for our web products. If you have any difficulties or require assistance, don't hesitate to contact MacPractice Support.

Network Requirements before Proceeding

Before proceeding, you'll also want to ensure that your office's network router is capable of port forwarding, and will need to have external traffic to Port 80 to forward onto Port 26691, and external traffic to Port 443 to forward onto Port 26692. Without doing this, the network traffic won't be properly handled. MacPractice cannot assist with this step, but an IT or Network professional can assist you.

A Static IP is Recommended

We strongly recommend that you have a Static IP provided by your Internet Service Provider. A Static IP will ensure that, upon a power outage or if you need to reset your router, your IP address won’t change and thus cause a temporary outage to your Domain services until the IP change is reconfirmed. With this, comes a more consistent, reliable, and secure connection.

Static IPs often incur an additional cost, but it is worth the price when you won’t have to worry about contacting MacPractice Support to have us reconfigure your domain to use a new IP periodically.

Accessing the Domain Management Page

First, you'll need Domain Registration enabled on your MacPractice license. This is typically handled by MacPractice and arranged by your Sales Representative.

Open

You may need to re-fetch your license in order for MacPractice to recognize Domain Registration is enabled. You can do this by navigating to the MacPractice Menu, selecting Preferences, then selecting Abilities in the Preferences window sidebar. Once there, click "Fetch License". You will be prompted when the license has been successfully fetched, and you'll be asked to log out and back in.

Open

Then, you'll be able to access "Domain Registration" in the sidebar of the Services/Products Ability in MacPractice. 

If for any reason you are unable to access the Domain Registration page in Services and Products, you may need to contact MacPractice Support. A reset of your MacPractice License Email and Password may be necessary. 

In this window, you'll need to provide your MacPractice Account's Username and Password. This is the username and password you would use to access the MacPractice Download Page and is not your MacPractice User and Password that you use to log into MacPractice.

Once you have successfully logged in, you will be treated to the Domain/DNS Registration page. On the right you'll see your office's information, serial, license renewal date, and domain limit that is based on how many domains you have purchased. At the initial launch only one will be available per license, but this may expand in the future.

Under Registered Domains, we can see how many domains have been successfully registered under your serial. In this example screenshot above, you can see that none are currently registered.

Under Domain Registration, you can see a drop down option where you can select the Domain Option that applies to your situation. There are two options:

• I want to use a domain I already purchased from a third party

• I want MacPractice to acquire a new domain for me

Let's cover both options starting with "new domain", as this will be the most likely option you'll need to choose.

Registering a New Domain

By choosing new domain, you will be prompting MacPractice to reserve a new domain (via CloudDNS) on your behalf. MacPractice will handle the technical details, but you will need to provide a domain name. 

A Domain is essentially a web address's text name. For example, google.com would be a Domain. This will be the web address that will be used to access whatever content is stored on that domain, whether it be a Patient Portal, or accessing services like MP Go.

You'll need to decide on a domain name that you would like. This choice should be treated as a permanent one, so consider carefully! This will also need to be a unique name that no other website uses. Your chosen domain should end with .com.

Examples:

• ABeautifulNewDomain.com

• ThisIsACoolDomain.com

When you've decided, enter this domain name into the "Domain" field, and re-enter it into the "Domain Again" field to verify, then click the Save button. If successful, your chosen Domain should appear underneath the Registered Domains header. 

It may take up to four hours after registering the Domain for the Domain to appear as an option in MacPractice Preferences > Security.

Registering a Third Party Domain

If your practice already has a third party domain, you have the option to utilize this domain as opposed to purchasing a new domain. 

What is Subdomain DNS Delegation?

The term “Subdomain DNS Delegation” refers to the ability to “forward” DNS requests with a specific subdomain to another DNS provider without affecting the whole domain. This is important for existing third party domains as you are almost certainly using the domain for something already (e.g. a website, email). It is important to ensure your provider supports this feature before proceeding. 

While this term is widely used, not finding any mention of the term on a provider’s website does not necessarily mean they do not support it. If you are able to add NS records with a custom host (subdomain) this feature is supported. 

If the registrar supports subdomain delegation using NS records, the 4 NS records from ClouDNS must be entered on the existing domain's hosting page. These NS records can be provided by MacPractice Support upon request.

If you have confirmed that your third party domain has Subdomain DNS Delegation, you can select the "I want to use a domain I already purchased from a third party" option.

Determining a Subdomain Name

Before entering the Domain into the Domain field, you'll need to decide on a subdomain name as well. If for example, your domain name is "AwesomePractice.Com ", then you'll need to add an additional segment to the beginning of it, i.e. "WebPortal.AwesomePractice.Com ". This leading segment can be anything, it just needs to be something unique so we can easily navigate to it.

Enter your third party domain name with the added segment into the "Domain" field and re-enter it into the "Domain Again" field to verify, then click the Save button. If successful, your chosen Domain should appear underneath the Registered Domains header. 

Adding NS Records for Third Party Domains

If the domain is a subdomain, the domain registrar must support subdomain delegation using Name Server (NS) records. MacPractice does not support CNAME or ALIAS for this.

Name Server (NS): A Name Server stores DNS records for one or more DNS Zones. A DNS name server will respond with answers to queries against its database. In laymen's terms, when someone  is trying to find a website, the Domain's name server will be called and asked for the IP address to the domain.

If the registrar supports subdomain delegation using NS records, the 4 NS records from ClouDNS must be entered by the client on the domain. You can refer to the screenshot below to see where these should be pointing to.

Linking your MacPractice Server to the Domain

Once you have registered either a third party or a new Domain, you'll have one last step to link your MacPractice Server to the newly registered Domain.

Navigate to the MacPractice Menu and select "Preferences".

Once the Preferences window is open, scroll down in the sidebar and select "Security." On the Security page, you'll see a button "Set Up Domain" indicated in the screenshot below.

If successful, you should see a message below the button indicating that the domain is Configured.

If this step is taken immediately after registering a domain, there may be a delay in MacPractice finding your registered domain. You can try logging out and back into your Server.