Five tips for a simpler launch
The Onboarding team here at GovCMS are always finding new ways to help our customers. Recently, the team put their heads together to come up with their top five tips for making your journey to go-live easier.
Tip 1: Register your website’s domain name early
When making the move to GovCMS, don’t forget to register any new website domain names early. This saves time as it ensures your website goes through the approval process and is registered as a government domain. For more information on how to register visit https://www.domainname.gov.au/
Tip 2: Don’t forget your Domain Name Server (DNS) changes
The DNS change is usually booked through your agency’s DNS service provider. Without the DNS changes in place your website cannot go-live as this is what links your website to our GovCMS infrastructure. The GovCMS team has the information you’ll need to provide to your service provider. Some agencies have long lead times for changes like this. Plan ahead and book the change in early.
Tip 3: Raise an event notification for go-live
We need to be certain all tasks are completed in preparation for your website’s go-live date. This means that you need to raise a ticket with the GovCMS Services Desk at least seven days before the expected or estimated launch date. Even if the go-live date is not confirmed, it allows us to change it later if required. This stops your agency incurring any extra set up or resource costs.
Tip 4: Go-live during business hours
Our GovCMS Service Desk business hours are Monday to Friday between 9am to 5pm. If your website does go-live outside of business hours it may require additional resourcing. This may incur additional costs and will require prior approval from GovCMS.
Tip 5: Set out your website's roles and responsibilities
Before getting your website ready to go-live we recommend delegating the different roles and responsibilities of your site. This will save you a lot of time and tailor the workload as required.
An important role to delegate is taking down your website’s shield when it is ready to go-live. This is the responsibility of your agency or development partner. The shield is what stops the public from viewing your website while it is being developed. If the shield isn’t taken down it will prolong your go-live date. We have a set of instructions on how you can take down the shield in our GovCMS Knowledge Base.
Bonus tip: Set up Google Analytics on your website
Set up your website’s Google Analytics before go-live. GovCMS use Google Analytics to track the traffic of websites hosted on our platform. We also use it for www.govcms.gov.au to help us track page views and hits on the website to decide what published content is important and being used by our customers. To find out more information on how to use Google Analytics visit our GovCMS Knowledge Base.
We hope these top tips will help make your website go-live much easier.
Check out our GovCMS Knowledge Base for more tips.