Getting started
Who this page is for: prospective and new clients — committee members making decisions, and the volunteers who will run the site.
This page is your map of the whole onboarding process, from your first decisions through to launch day. Read it once, start to finish, before you open any of the other pages in this section. Everything else in Getting started — the decision questionnaire, the costs sheet, and the accounts & access checklist — exists to support one of the phases below.
The onboarding process, phase by phase
Onboarding happens in six phases, always in this order:
- Decisions
- Accounts
- Provisioning
- UAT
- Content loading
- Launch
Each phase has one clear owner, even though both sides are usually involved.
| Phase | What happens | Who's responsible | Typical duration | You receive | You return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Decisions | You work through the decision questionnaire and costs sheet, and send back your answers in one reply. | You decide; your provider advises on anything unclear. | A few days if your committee already has answers ready; up to two weeks if you need a meeting first. | The decision questionnaire and costs sheet. | Your completed questionnaire answers. |
| 2. Accounts | You create each third-party account on the right plan, following the checklist, and invite your provider as a team member — never by sharing a password or card. | You create and pay for each account; your provider is invited into it. | One to three days once your decisions are confirmed. | The accounts & access checklist. | Confirmation that every account exists and your provider has been invited. |
| 3. Provisioning | Your provider sets up two environments — a private UAT site and your (not-yet-public) production site — configures your domain's DNS, and applies the settings from your questionnaire answers to both. | Your provider does the technical work. | Three to five business days once your accounts are handed over. | A link to your UAT site. | Nothing yet — just wait for the link. |
| 4. UAT | You and your team check the UAT site — content, translations, sign-up, everything — and log anything that needs fixing. | Your team tests; your provider fixes what's found. | Commonly about a week; a straightforward launch can be done in a few days. | A UAT-handover email explaining what to test and how to send feedback. | Your feedback, ideally in one shared list rather than several separate emails. |
| 5. Content loading | Your content loaders add your pages, events, and resources on your UAT site, using the Building your website tutorials. | Your content loaders (named in the decision questionnaire). | Best spread over several days to a week; can be compressed to 24–48 hours under deadline pressure, though this is stressful and best avoided. | The tutorial series link. | Nothing further — your site is ready once your content is loaded. |
| 6. Launch | Your provider copies everything from your UAT site into your separate production site, then switches DNS so production becomes what your members see. | Your provider handles the copy and the technical cutover; you handle telling your members. | Same day, once your content is finalised on UAT and DNS is switched. | A launch-day email confirming go-live and what to tell your members. | Nothing further — you're live. |
Overall, allow three to five weeks from returning your decisions to launch day. It moves faster if every account is created on the right plan the first time (the accounts checklist exists specifically to prevent the most common delay: buying a plan that turns out not to support inviting your provider). It moves slower if a decision — especially your organisation's exact name and domain — changes partway through; see the decision questionnaire for why that one is worth getting right up front.
UAT site vs production site
Your UAT site and your production site are two separate copies of your website, both set up during phase 3. The UAT site is where you and your team check everything works, and where your content loaders build your pages, events, and resources during phase 5. Once you've signed off on UAT, your provider copies everything you've built across to your production site and switches your domain to point at it — that's what your members see from launch day onward. Because the two are separate environments, changes you make on UAT after launch don't automatically appear on production; for any future changes, your provider copies them across the same way. This also means your UAT site stays available after launch as a sandbox, where you can try new settings or content before it's copied across to production.
What's next
Start with the decision questionnaire: it's the input every later phase depends on. Read the costs sheet alongside it, since some decisions and some costs affect each other. Once your decisions are made, the accounts & access checklist walks you through phase 2.