This page is relevant to top-level directories under www.ndsu.edu. What about pages under a "container" like centers, faculty, labs, researchgroups?

"Go-live" refers to the process of replacing your organization's old Web directory with the new one (in CMS) or making it available under www.ndsu.edu for the first time if it didn't exist before.

Before go-live, the new page is not available under www.ndsu.edu, so it is not likely that visitors will find/visit it. This enables you to publish content and preview the contents before being included in www.ndsu.edu search results.

After go-live, the page becomes available under www.ndsu.edu. Once it is live, any changes will be available to visitors immediately after being published.  The login address for authoring live pages doesn't change after go-live (see the login links on the CMS home page).

To go live, you should

1. Review the go-live checklist to confirm the pages are ready to go live
2. Submit a help request with the following information
   • The name/address of the new directory
   • Addresses of your old page, if one existed
     [Note for Ag Ext]
   • When go-live should occur, if there is a certain time window you need to work around. If there is a schedule to work around, we recommend submitting your request at least 3 working days in advance

What happens next?

Upon receiving your request, the proxy service will be configured to map your directory under www.ndsu.edu.  While editing and previewing the pages in CMS, you may have noticed the URL of workspaces.ndsu.edu/yourdept.  This will be mapped directly to www.ndsu.edu/yourdept.

Go-live is generally completed within 2-3 business days. While you wait for this change to occur, you may wish to re-visit the go-live checklist to verify that essential steps are complete.

The live pages will begin to appear in NDSU search after Google indexes the new pages. This may happen as soon as a few days, or may take a few months. Learn more about CMS + NDSU Search.

Files on other servers will not be changed or deleted during go-live. For example, if you're migrating from Pubweb to CMS, all of those old Pubweb files are still on Pubweb. In the event you realize something from the old server was missed during the migration to CMS, you can still connect to that server using your normal methods (e.g. by SFTP/SCP) and download the files to your workstation for reference. After go-live those old files will not be available via a public Web address in your Web browser (unless you upload to or recreate in CMS).

What if people visit your old URL?

During the go-live process, redirects are installed to help visitors find your new page if the URL changed. For example, if there are old brochures or Web bookmarks in use that refer to the old web address. Next time you order new printed media, be sure to update the printed addresses to reflect your new page URL, as the redirects usually only apply for 6 months.

The server administrators will not install redirects for poorly-planned brochures that refer to non-existent Web addresses. Plan early and test often.

Plan ahead for the new page address

If possible, alert your colleagues during the early stages of CMS page creation that your organization's Web address may change so they can proactively order new media using the new URL.

The only address that the new department main page will have is the one approved during the page request process. No matter what anyone else tells you, this is the only address your organization should refer to as "your" Web address. If it is incorrect according to the page request, you should notify us as soon as possible. You should not continue to publish/share the "old" page URL (if it changed) or any other neat or nice-to-have variants, as any redirects expire generally after 6 months.

For example, if the old department page on Pubweb was www.ndsu.edu/bw and the new page in CMS will be www.ndsu.edu/basketweaving, department members should not send email, print posters or brochures, or otherwise communicate the www.ndsu.edu/bw variant after go-live, and should refrain from emailing/printing other variants like www.ndsu.edu/Basketweaving, WWW.NDSU.EDU/BASKETWEAVING , www.ndsu.edu/basket-weaving, and so forth. These other variants either work only temporarily because of a migration redirect, or don't–and won't–work at all.

If the page is arranged under a parent container (Centers, Faculty, Labs, Research Groups) the page is automatically available under www.ndsu.edu when it is created. To counter this immediate-availability, pages are hidden.

To "go live" in this case, you only need to "un-hide" the main page and publish that un-hide (as well as publishing any additional content that should be visible, as usual).

Many Agriculture Extension Web pages are hosted on AgExt servers, such as www.ag.ndsu.edu. If that is true in your case, you should communicate your redirect needs to AgComm for processing. Because NDSU-IT does not manage these servers, we don't have access to install any redirects from the pages on those servers to the www.ndsu.edu/yourdept pages.