How do I do website documentation and maintenance tracking

July 14, 2014 6:49 PM

I need a systematic way to track and show that sites are up to date, links checked, content updated or deleted.

I have one (mostly static) website with 81 pages at the moment. It's hosted by Weebly, so nice and easy CMS for my non-techo type editors/bosses (if anyone else ever is brave enough to edit, which they're not, but they would like to be able to see overview of what's done, what needs to be done, etc).

I have another (quite dynamic) website with similar number of pages, using WordPress with about 800 users (who don't have editing rights).

Whichever system I use needs to be able to be read by absolute Luddites. So, probably a Word or PDF document as these people even struggle with Excel. It's okay if it's as thick as a book.

But how do I structure it and what do I put in it? Are there some good lists somewhere? Some nice templates? Or should I set up a database that creates reports, showing current pages, old content that's been archived, future tasks?

Added difficulty - I can't keep this in my head, I have ADHD. Also, I'm working on it now, so would prefer online resources to books, however excellent they are.

I did search here, but ?!? so many links and I couldn't find relevant questions.

posted by b33j to Technology (3 answers total)

I'd try a text log and a to-do list in a text/Word document with section breaks between them. If you put the to-do list first, you can print only as many pages as you need to provide an update of your activities within the most recent reporting period.

If you need to provide a report on every page, every week, a sorted spreadsheet with some last-checked/last-updated fields exported to PDF would work nicely. You would benefit from being able to use filters, too.

Either way, you can grow out of your simple system as you tweak it and your coworkers (hopefully) grow become more comfortable with the idea of more useful tools.
posted by michaelh at 7:16 PM on July 14, 2014

If I'm reading you right, it needs to be a system for YOU to keep up with the edits, but THEM to refer to/read the status of edits...

Assuming I'm right, what about an Excel spreadsheet that you format to be print-friendly, then periodically save as a PDF and distribute?

Kinda like what michaelh said...
posted by randomkeystrike at 8:08 PM on July 14, 2014

After a crappy performance review, I have been keeping an excel spreadsheet of the things I do each day. I think Excel or Google Spreadsheets can be a useful tool. You can send the link to the latter, which would be housed on your Google drive. Date and time stamp it. Check google apps to see if they have anything you could use for something like this. It seems like they would. A to-do list could be created in reminder or list type app like Evernote too. Sometimes using another whole software or system may be daunting so you might want to just stick to a pdf that people could print out and check things off as you or they work through the site updates.
posted by Jewel98 at 9:17 PM on July 14, 2014