Branding, Appearance, and Custom Domain

MySummitKeep lets you put your unit’s personality on the page. You can choose a color theme and upload your unit’s logo, fine-tune how the app looks on your own device, and even point your own web address at your unit page. This guide walks through each of those three areas.

A quick note on who can change what: unit branding (themes, logos, custom domains) is reserved for leaders and admins who have the Settings permission. Appearance preferences are personal to you and your device, so anyone can set those.

Branding themes and logo upload

Open Settings → Branding to set your unit’s look. Changes here apply to every member of your unit, so you are choosing the shared style everyone sees.

The page has several parts:

• Theme Preset — A gallery of five visual styles: Forest, High Contrast, Cool Slate, Sunset, and Desert. Click a preset to select it; the checkmark shows the active choice. These changes apply immediately for all members.
• Accent Color — A row of color swatches (Amber, Pine, Trail Blue, Mulberry, Terracotta, Slate) used for buttons, highlights, and call-to-action elements. Swatches that do not meet the accessibility contrast threshold are greyed out and cannot be selected, so any swatch you can click is safe to use.
• Logo — Upload your unit’s logo and choose a layout option (for example, side-by-side). The logo appears in the app and on your unit page.
• Email Branding — Set an Email Header Color (a hex value like #1d4ed8) and Email Footer Text (up to 200 characters) for the transactional emails sent to your members. A live preview shows the result. Leave these blank to use the MySummitKeep defaults.

After editing the theme selector, logo, or email branding, click Save Branding at the bottom. The theme presets and accent swatches save the moment you click them.

Note

If you see a blue banner reading “Branding is set by your unit’s leadership,” your account does not have the Settings permission. Ask your Scoutmaster or unit admin to make the change, or to grant you access.

Tip

Pick an accent color that contrasts with your chosen preset’s sidebar so buttons stand out. The High Contrast preset is a good choice for members who need maximum readability.

Personal appearance (mode, density, font size)

Open Settings → Appearance to control how the app looks on your device. These preferences are personal and do not affect other members. Everything here applies immediately — there is no save button.

You can adjust three things:

• Theme — Choose Light, Dark, or System. System follows your device’s own light/dark setting automatically.
• Density — Choose Compact, Comfortable, or Spacious to control how much spacing the app uses between elements. Compact fits more on screen; Spacious is roomier and easier to tap.
• Font Size — Choose Small, Default, or Large to scale the text throughout the app.

A Preview tile shows a sample card and button so you can see your choices before committing to them across the app.

Tip

On a phone, Comfortable density with a Large font size is often the most readable. On a desktop where you manage a big roster, Compact density shows more rows at once.

Setting up a custom domain

The address below is where your public unit website lives. To build and publish that site — adding sections, importing from an old website, and controlling what visitors see — use the Site Builder covered in Your Public Unit Website. The theme and logo you set above carry through to it automatically.

Open Settings → Domain to manage your unit’s web address. The page has three sections.

• Your Subdomain — Once your unit has a URL identifier, a yourslug.mysummitkeep.com link is shown here and opens in a new tab.
• Unit URL — Choose a short, memorable identifier for your unit’s public page, served at mysummitkeep.com/units/yourslug. A live preview shows the URL as you type, and you can use the wand button to auto-generate one from your unit name. A yourslug.mysummitkeep.com subdomain is also previewed here, but that subdomain form is marked Coming Soon and is not yet live — use the /units/ link for now.
• Custom Domain (BYOD) — “Bring your own domain” lets you serve your unit page from a domain you already own, such as scouts.yourdomain.com.

To start, type your domain into the Domain Name field and click Set Up Domain. You will need access to your domain registrar’s DNS settings to finish. The platform validates the format first (it must be a real domain like scouts.yourdomain.com), then generates the DNS records you need to add.

Note

A custom domain is optional. If you are happy with your free mysummitkeep.com/units/yourslug address, you can skip this section entirely. To change just the slug, see the Unit URL editor on the same page.

Verifying DNS records

Once setup starts, the page moves into the verification flow and shows a Configure your DNS records panel. Each record lists its Type, Name, and Value in a copy-friendly block — use the copy icon next to Name and Value to grab them without typos.

Add those records exactly as shown in your domain registrar’s DNS dashboard, then return to MySummitKeep and click Verify DNS. If your unit decides not to proceed, Cancel Setup removes the pending domain.

After verification succeeds, the page shows DNS Verified and begins provisioning an SSL certificate so your domain loads securely over HTTPS. SSL provisioning takes a few minutes; the page auto-refreshes while it works. When the certificate shows Active, click Activate Domain to take it live. From the active state you can later Deactivate the domain (keeping the configuration) or Remove Domain entirely.

Caution

DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate across the internet. If Verify DNS reports the records were not found, that is usually normal right after you add them — wait a while and try again.

Troubleshooting domain verification

If verification does not succeed, the page shows a Verification Failed or Verification Expired message along with any specific error details the platform detected.

Work through this checklist:

1. Re-check the records. Compare the Type, Name, and Value in MySummitKeep against what you actually entered at your registrar — a trailing dot, an extra subdomain, or a typo in the value is the most common cause.
2. Give it time. Newly added records can take up to 48 hours to propagate. An “expired” status simply means the verification window passed before the records were found.
3. Avoid conflicting records. If an old A, AAAA, or CNAME record already points the same name elsewhere, remove or update it so it matches the value MySummitKeep provided.
4. Retry. Once you have corrected the records, click Retry Verification. If you would rather start over, Remove Domain clears the configuration so you can set it up fresh.

Tip

You do not lose your free unit page while troubleshooting a custom domain — mysummitkeep.com/units/yourslug keeps working the whole time, so members are never left without a way to reach your unit page.

Still stuck? Reach out through the in-app support tools and include your domain name and registrar so the team can check propagation for you. For setting up the rest of your unit profile, see Unit Settings.