What is an Enhanced Domain in Salesforce in 2023?

Enhanced domains are coming to My Domain in a future version. All URLs within your company—including those for your Experience Cloud sites, Salesforce Sites, Visualforce pages, and content files - contain your business's distinctive My Domain name with enhanced domains. Because Enhance My Domain URLs lacks instance names, they are easier for users to remember and more reliable when your company moves to a different Salesforce instance. The new standard will be upgraded domains that comply with the most recent browser specifications. 

Required Editions 

Availability 

All organizations have access to upgraded domains. Updated domains are automatically granted to any qualifying organizations created in Summer of 22 or later. 

Prior to the Winter '23 release, testing in a sandbox is encouraged and should begin in August 2022 for sandboxes and October 2022 for production orgs. 

Enhanced domains effect all application URLs. 

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URL Changes 

When you enable enhanced domains, your organization's My Domain name is present in every URL, including those for Experience Cloud and Salesforce sites. Your URLs also stay the same when your organisation is moved to another Salesforce instance. Here are some sample URL formats for companies that have My Domain installed with enhanced domains. 

To Enable enhanced domain: 

1. From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter My Domain, and then select My Domain. 
2. Under My Domain Details, select Edit 
3. If more suffixes are available for your org’s My Domain, a suffix dropdown list appears. Enhanced domains can only be enabled for the Standard suffix. 
4. Select Use enhanced domains 
5. Save your changes. 

Enhanced domains provide multiple benefits 

• Branding: Your company's distinctive My Domain name is included into every URL in your organisation, including those for your Experience Cloud sites, Salesforce Sites, Visualforce pages, and content files. 
• Stability: Without instance names, the URLs remain stable when your org is moved to another Salesforce instance.  
• Conformity: Enhanced domains follow the newest browser guidelines. They specifically avoid third-party cookies, also referred to as cross-site resources. 

Potential Impact 

If you don't implement enhanced domains in your Salesforce org before the Spring '23 release, Salesforce will activate them for you. If you don't test and enable enhanced domains before the enforcement date, the following issues could arise.  

• There may be issues for users who try to access Salesforce through Experience Cloud sites, Salesforce Sites, or Visualforce websites.
• Some embedded content that was kept in Salesforce is no longer accessible.
• Third-party programs may no longer be able to access your data.
• Single sign-on sandbox integrations can go awry.
• Integrations for single sign-on with orgs that utilize the domain suffixes  *.cloudforce.com and *.database.com may not work.

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Impact on Salesforce Users 

If enhanced domains are not used, Salesforce content can be offered from a variety of domains. If a user's browser is configured to reject third-party cookies, some Salesforce content might not be viewable. A landing page with the domain name lightning.force.com cannot load any content that is saved in your organisation and accessible via a URL that ends in documentforce.com, for example. As a result, the problem is commonly discussed in terms of "cross-site cookies" or "cross-domain cookies." 

The Solution: - Enhanced Domains 

Salesforce domains that serve content are structurally improved by enhanced domains. Since third-party cookies are not permitted, all Salesforce content is shared under enhanced domains, which permits cookie sharing and access.  

Enhanced domains, the forthcoming standard that is required for all orgs, let your users continue using Salesforce even if their browser blocks third-party cookies. 

Limitations 

Salesforce configures single sign-on to Amazon Connect using your My Domain login URL when you enable Service Cloud Voice. If you change the name or suffix of your organization's My Domain or activate enhanced domains in a sandbox, this configuration will be invalid. As a result, voice is blocked. 

 Reference: Salesforce help