Custom survey URL restrictions

Consider these restrictions when configuring a custom survey URL:

• The company owns and is responsible for the domain.

• Top-level domain names such as example.com are not supported. Use sub-domains, such as example.feedback.com.

• The URL must use HTTPS, which requires an SSL certificate for the domain. The network is configured to automatically redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS.

• Medallia fully manages the SSL certificate for a domain in compliance with the latest SSL certificate standards.

• Medallia does not support client-provided traffic gateways such as Cloudflare or Akamai. Medallia provides integrated traffic security as part of its whole offering.

• Custom survey URL is not compatible with certain Anti-cheating Engine rules. Contact your Medallia expert if you have ACE implemented and you would like to use a custom survey URL.

• $SECURE_SURVEY_URL$ and $OPT_OUT_URL$ point to the Medallia URL and not the custom survey URL, which requires using custom email templates and hand-crafting the survey URLs manually. Typically, this is a k-field which rebuilds the URL making use of static text strings and the e_external_survey_id field.

• Custom URL does not work using Distributions; used HTML templates instead.

• Custom URL does not work in sandboxes.

Configure a custom survey URL

Follow these steps to configure a company's custom survey URL:

1. The company must:

   1. Identify the custom survey URL and acquire the domain, such as feedback.example.com.

      Restriction: By default, only one custom URL is supported per company Experience Cloud instance. To support multiple custom URLs, contact your Medallia expert as it requires additional engineering efforts.

2. Request:

   • The survey URL. If the request is for multiple custom URLs each for a different program, note that.

   • If the survey is an anonymous survey, indicate the default URL to direct the survey taker to.

3. The Medallia expert:

   • Sends you the corresponding DNS record(s).

     Restriction: Similar to other SaaS providers, Medallia requires the use of CNAMEs for these DNS entries, as we must occasionally change the specific values involved. Clients cannot use their own A, TXT, etc. records.

   Pass this information to the company's IT team.

4. The company's IT team must:

   1. Create the DNS record(s) provided by the Medallia expert in step 3.

   2. Confirm when the DNS records have been created and are ready for use.

   3. Optionally, set up uptime and health monitoring for the masked domain.

5. Note that email templates need to be customized to include the custom survey URL, as $SECURE_SURVEY_URL$ points to the Medallia URL and not the custom survey. Write a k-field to rebuild the URL, making use of the External survey ID field (e_external_survey_id). Then, update your email templates to reference the k-field in place of the standard survey URL. Consider this code for a masked URL as an example:

   (function() {
   
   	var extID = a_external_survey_id;
   	var url = a_survey_url;
   	var lang = text(e_clientname_language_enum);
   	var dev = text(e_bp_development_cycle_alt);
   	var country = text(e_clientname_country_codes_enum);
   	var lang_code;
   	
   
   	if (country !=null && lang!=null){
   		
   		var key = (country + "_" + lang);
   		
   		var lookupValue = lookup('lang_code_survey_url_lookup', key);
   		
   		if (lookupValue!=null){
   			
   			lang_code =lookupValue.lang_code;
   		}
   	}
   	
   	if (lang_code!=null){
   		return "https://feedback.clientname.com/?"+ extID + "&lng=" + lang_code;
   	}else{
   		
   		return "https://feedback.clientname.com/?"+extID;
   	}
   			
   	
   })();

The setup is now complete and must be verified.

Verify and validate a custom survey URL

Use a terminal or command-line window to verify and validate the custom survey URL. These instructions use the UNIX dig and curl utilities.

1. Verify the DNS records are correct for the primary and alias URLs. This example uses dig to query the DNS records. They should point to the IP address allocated for the URL.

   $ dig feedback.example.com 
   ...
   ;; ANSWER SECTION:
   feedback.example.com. 229 IN CNAME example-example-survey-lb1.cname.<DC>.medallia.com.
   example-example-survey-lb1.cname.<DC>.medallia.com. 229 IN CNAME survey-lb1.<DC>.medallia.com.
   survey-lb1.<DC>.medallia.com. 229 IN A 147.75.243.92

   If you use SAML for authenticating users during inbound single sign-on (SSO), create a DNS CNAME record for survey alias URLs, also known as vanity domains, so that Medallia automatically generates the certificates. For example:

   survey.customer.com CNAME survey-customer-com.vanity-domains.medallia.com
   _acme-challenge.survey.customer.com CNAME _acme-challenge.survey.customer.vanity-domains.medallia.com

2. Verify that the Experience Cloud network is correctly redirecting the URL(s). This example uses curl to request information from the survey server. The example resolves to the anonymous survey URL https://www.examplefeedback.com/?example-rcpt-survey.

   If your company is not using an anonymous survey, the final curl returns an HTTP/1.1 200 OK instead of a 302 Found redirect.

   $ curl -i https://feedback.example.com
   HTTP/1.1 302 Found : Moved Temporarily
   Location: http://feedback.example.com/
   Connection: close
   Cache-Control: no-cache
   Pragma: no-cache

Renew the SSL certificate

Medallia now uses ACME to automatically rotate certificates under its management, in compliance with the latest CA/Browser Forum guidelines.