Delivery & Maintenance
You're almost there! But before you can sign off and enjoy your new web site, you need to be sure that all that work you've done will be seen by users of the World Wide Web. Site delivery is one of the tricker technical aspects of web development. A tricky content issue is that of Site maintenance - what strategies do you have to make sure your web site remains relevant and keeps users interested? Finally, who is going to do your technical and content maintenance revisions? IML can offer you a range of Maintenance options.
Site delivery • Site maintenance • Maintenance options
Site delivery
Once web development and site testing are complete and the client is happy with the final product, the project is signed off. The client makes final payment and the web development project is considered complete. During web development, IML staff will arrange the live server location and domain name for your web site. They will also launch the site for you, ie. load it to the live server. Once the site is live on the Internet, it is the client's responsibility to maintain it.
Site maintenance
Web sites don't stay current. Once launched, your web site will need to be maintained regularly for the life of the site. Maintenance tasks that normally need to be done include: adding news, updating outdated or superceded content, correcting errors, adding new images, maintaining back-end databases, etc.
During project planning, in the early stages of web development, you need to select a maintenance option and decide who will produce and authorise new web content.
Maintenance options
Site Manager
Site Manager is an easy-to-use web site content management tool. It has been developed by IML to make it easier for UTS staff to update the content of their own faculty and unit web pages and publish them live to the Internet. They can do this using a web browser and a simple WYSIWYG ('What you see is what you get') interface
If you are going to use Site Manager to maintain your site, you need to:
- provide IML with the name of the main contact person for the site
- provide IML with the name and email address of the site administrator (ie. the UTS staff member(s) who is responsible overall for updating the site's content
- provide IML with the names and email addresses of any other site users (ie. UTS staff who will be updating sections of the web site), and what access permissions to the site each one should have
- arrange for all site administrators and users to attend an IML Site Manager training workshop
External maintenance
In this option you maintain the site yourself, without using Site Manager. If you choose this option, you need to:
- provide IML with the name of the main contact person for the site
- get web authoring software and ftp software
- contact the UTS Information Technology Division (ITD) to arrange access permissions to the live server hosting your site
Internal maintenance
In this option you can elect to have IML maintain the site for you. You may need to arrange a maintenance agreement with IML, for which you will be invoiced periodically. If you choose this option, you need to provide IML with:
- the name of the main contact person for the site, and for the person who is producing updated content for the site
- all updated content for the web site, as required, in a form specified by an IML content developer
If you already have a maintenance agreement signed, you need to fill out a maintenance request form.
