Managing Update Releases
How to manage the changes made to your website in a professional controlled manner…

Mistakes found on your website such as spelling errors, grammatical errors or even factual errors will inevitably creep into your website if you have no checks in place to review the content before it goes live.

If you use your website as a place to review your articles, this will increase the potential of errors staying on your website, as you may never get round to reviewing the new content. If there is more than one editor or contributor to your website, reviewing your content becomes even more of an issue as they may well be unaware of each others work.

With the Netflare 2 phase update process, you’ll get a simple workflow model that caters for multiple editors and the ability to add new content ‘offline’. You’ll get 3 copies of your website: a current release area, live; a development area, latest; and a previous release, backup.

Updates will be performed on the copy of your website known as the development area meaning you are in a completely safe environment. At an agreed scheduled time, once the changes have been approved, the development area will be copied to the live area with minimal downtime. Your current live website will then become the previous release and used as a backup in case things go wrong and a roll-back is necessary.

Using this 2 phase strategy, you will be able to see exactly what your website will look like before it goes live. Approval from upper management can therefore be performed by reviewing this development area. There will be no requirement to use complex workflow management where an assigned publisher logs in and reviews the content beforehand.

Another advantage of this process is that where collaboration with an external supplier is required, they will automatically be given view-only access to the pre-live development area. This will make external contributions easier as control of access privileges will be unnecessary.

To ensure an error-free update, you can co-ordinate with all the editors involved to ensure that all your new content has been reviewed before the scheduled update is made. When the development area is copied to the live area, the switch will be instant and virtually unnoticeable.

If anything does go wrong, the previous release will still exit, meaning you will be able to roll-back immediately.

With no update strategy, you risk introducing errors in your live environment and lead to professional embarrassment if your customers see the errors before you. Implementing a system that allows your manager or external auditor to check for spelling and appropriate content before publishing will ensure your brand and credibility remains in tact.

Summary

With this 2 phase update approach, you benefit from an update strategy that is simple to implement, allows you to collaborate between all parties involved in managing the content without affecting the live site, and still has the facility to roll-back to the previous release in an instant should the need ever arise.

If you feel your hard earned brand and credibility is at risk by uncontrolled updates, remove the unnecessary stress by asking your account manager to implement this 2 phase update strategy now. Call 0800 107 4662 or complete our online enquiry form for more information.