If you want to use your HarmonySite as a members area only, instead of the full website, that is fine.  Your trial address (e.g. http://mygroup.harmonysite.com) can be used for this purpose. You would retain your existing public-facing website, and continue paying you hosting provider to host it.

If you want, you can elect to use a different domain name for the members area, something like https://members.mygroup.com or https://www.mygroupmembers.com. We have outlined the two options below, including what you need to consider regarding emails. Please note that either way your HarmonySite will be separate from your current website, and therefore you would need to add a link from your current website to your new HarmonySite so that members can easily access the members area.

1. Set up a sub-domain of your existing domain name

If your domain name for your main website is (for example) mygroup.com, you may want to use a sub-domain (e.g. members.mygroup.com) for your HarmonySite. To do this you would need to create that sub-domain in your own website's DNS system (this is technical, and requires you to access your existing hosting account's DNS system). Contact us and we can provide the technical instructions.

2. Register a new domain name

You may decide that adding a sub-domain is not suitable for your group, and that you prefer to set up a completely different domain name for the members area. To do this, you would need to first decide upon the domain name you would want to use. We (HarmonySite) can register this new domain name for you, or you can register it yourselves, using the domain name provider of your choice. If you choose to do it yourselves, let us know the domain name you registered, and then connect it to your HarmonySite using this help guide.

Email

You will also need to decide whether to retain your existing email provider, or switch to HarmonySite for your emails. Your HarmonySite provides a full suite of email services - POP3 mailboxes, auto-forwarders and mailing lists. These can exist on your regular domain name (e.g. mygroup.com, such as president@mygroup.com), or a sub-domain (e.g. members.mygroup.com, such as president@members.mygroup.com). If you choose to retain your existing email provider for all email addresses, then you will miss out on the excellent integration between HarmonySite's member database and email system.

To get the full email functionality that HarmonySite offers, we recommend that HarmonySite is used as your email provider instead of your current provider. If you want this, then you would need to make a change to the DNS configuration of your current domain name. Contact us and we can provide the technical details for doing so.

If you want to retain your existing email provider and still use HarmonySite for emails, then you would need to set up a sub-domain as outlined above. This will allow you to use the email addresses set up in your current domain (e.g. president@mygroup.com), as well as having a separate set of emails addresses set up in your HarmonySite (e.g. mailinglist@members.mygroup.com). These will both operate separately from one another.