Set up your city's web and email address

Your resident site starts on a backup address from Citizen Loop. You can move it to an address on your own city website, for example updates.yourcity.gov. When the address works:

Residents sign up and manage their updates on your address.
Links in your emails and texts go to your address.
Your emails to residents can come from your address.

Only an Admin can set up the address. You also need help from your IT team.

Step 1: Choose a subdomain

Open Settings and select the Web & email address tab.
Enter a subdomain of your city website. Common choices start with updates. or connect.
Select Save domain.

You must use a subdomain. Your main website domain, such as yourcity.gov, does not work. Each city can have one address.

Step 2: Send the DNS records to your IT team

The page shows a table of DNS records. Your IT team adds them to your city's DNS settings.

A CNAME record for your subdomain.
A TXT record at _citizenloop. plus your subdomain. It proves that your city owns the address.
Other records that the page lists, such as the email records.

Select Copy message for IT. Paste the message into an email to your IT team.

Some DNS providers add your domain to the end of each name. If yours does, leave that part off.

Step 3: Check the status

We check the records every hour. You can also select Check now. DNS changes can take a few hours to start working.

Waiting for DNS. The records are not ready yet. Residents use the backup address.
Working. Residents use your address. Emails and texts link to it.
Not working. The address stopped working. Residents get links to the backup address. Every Admin gets an email.

An address that worked changes to Not working only after two hourly checks fail in a row. We email the Admins again when it works again.

The email sender

The email records have their own status. When they work, resident emails come from hello@ plus your address. Replies go to your Feedback inbox. Until then, resident emails come from Citizen Loop.

Common error messages

"No CNAME record found" or "The CNAME record points to …". Ask IT to check the CNAME record.
"No ownership TXT record found". Ask IT to add the TXT record.
"Cloudflare has not verified the hostname yet." or "The security certificate is not ready yet." Wait. We try again each hour.
"Another organization already uses this domain." Choose another subdomain.
"We cannot add more domains right now. Contact support." Contact Citizen Loop support.

A yellow banner shows while the address waits for DNS. A red banner shows when it stops working. You cannot close the banner. Admins can select Fix DNS to open this tab.

Remove the address

Select Remove domain. Residents go back to the backup address. Links in emails that you already sent stop working on the removed address.