What steps should I take before going live with my site?

Summary

Before going live with a website built on DotNetNuke, it's important to run through a quick checklist to make sure your site is fully functional, useable and secure.

Resolution

The checklist below contains both critical steps and somewhat less than critical steps.  It is imperative that you check your site against those items listed as critical before going live.  It is best to log in to your site with the Host ID for making these changes.

1.  Change the passwords for the Admin and Host user accounts (CRITICAL)

DNN comes installed with default passwords for the Admin and Host accounts.  If you do not change the passwords from the default, your site is at risk for unauthorized access.  Perform the following steps to change each password:

a.  Log in to your site with the Host account

b.  Click on "SuperUser Account" in the upper right hand corner of the screen

c.  Enter a valid email address for the host account where indicated

d.  Deselect the checkboxes for Street through Fax if you do not want them to be required for new users to fill out.  Leave them selected if you want every new user to be required to fill in these fields

e.  Enter the existing password for Host and then enter your new password twice in the fields indicated

f.  Click "update password"

g.  Click "update"

h.  Click "logout" in the upper right hand corner of the screen

i.  Login as Admin and repeat steps b - h

2.  Update your Host Details

Navigate to Host - Host Settings.  Make sure you update these with your site information:

Host Title - Enter the name of your company or site - this will often appear at the bottom of some skins as a hyperlink
Host URL - Enter the URL for your site - this will provide the link when people click on the name of your company
Host Email - Enter an email address that you want questions directed to.

Click "update" at the bottom of the page.

 3.  Turn off copyright credits

Navigate to Host - Host Settings.  Make sure "Show Copyright Credits" is de-selected.  The copyright credits are for the DotNetNuke framework and not for your company.  Most people do not want to show those on their sites.  Click "update" at the bottom of the page.

4.  Enter email information that your site will use (CRITICAL)

DNN integrates with email for administrative features.  If you do not setup an email account that DNN can use, much of the functionality on your site will not work correctly (users who forget passwords, administrative alerts, etc.).  To configure your email, you must first have an email account setup (often something like support@yourdomain.com or help@yourdomain.com).  If you use DNNfx for email, please log in to our Control Panel to setup your email account.  If you use another provider for email, please create your account there and make sure you have the necessary information for the steps below.

Navigate to Host - Host Settings.  Expand the Advanced Settings section.  Expand the SMTP Server Settings.  Enter the information below, replacing yourdomain.com with the name of your domain.

Click "update" at the bottom of the page.

5.  Setup the logging features of your portal

If you would like to take advantage of DNN logging to gauge your website usage and visitor activity, perform the following steps:

a.  Navigate to Host - Host Settings

b.  Expand the Advanced Settings section

c.  Expand the Other Settings section

d.  Set "Site Log History (Days)" to be the number of days usage storage that you keep.  Note that the data is stored in the database and for large volume site can grow quickly.  DNNfx recommends an initial setting of 90 - 120 days

e.  Click "update" at the bottom of the page

f.  Navigate to Admin - Site Settings

g.  Expand the Advanced Settings section

h.  Expand the Host Settings section

i.  Set "Site Log History (Days)" to the same number you entered above

j.  Click "update" at the bottom of the page

6.  Enter the title, description and key words for your site

Navigate to Admin - Site settings.  Update the following with your information:

Title - The title for your portal which will show up in the title bar of the web browser for a visitor
Description - A description of your site which will not be displayed to visitors, but will show up in meta tags and is used by some search engines
Keywords - Keywords that describe your site which will be stored as meta tags for some search engines

Click "update" at the bottom of the page.

7.  Determine the user registration options for your site (CRITICAL)

Navigate to Admin - Site Settings.  Expand the "Advanced Settings" section.  Select a user registration mode for your site.

None - user registration is disabled.  The "Register" button will not appear on your site.  You can, however, still login as Admin or Host to administer your site
Private - users can register on your site, but will not become active until you approve their application
Public - users can register on your site and are immediately added in the "Registered Users" security role (or other roles you have setup as auto-assigned)
Verified - users can register on your site and will be emailed a unique activation code which they must enter the first time they login.  This type of registration is like Public, except it ensures that the email address they entered belongs to the user and is active.  Choosing this type of registration requires you to have the email SMTP integration setup correctly (described above)

Click "update" at the bottom of the page.

8.  Set the copyright text

Most skins include a token for your copyright information.  You can set that by navigating to Admin - Site Settings.  Expand the "Advanced Settings" section.  Expand the "Other Settings" section.  Enter your copyright information in the "Copyright" field

Click "update" at the bottom of the page

9.  Set the default portal time zone

Set the default time zone for your site.  All new user registrations will be pre-filled with this value (which users can override).  Navigate to Admin - Site Settings.  Expand the "Advanced Settings" section.  Expand the "Other Settings" section.  Select the desired time zone from the drop down field

Click "update" at the bottom of the page.

10.  Make sure your domain is set in the portal alias (CRITICAL)

Make sure that your domain name appears in the portal alias list.  This ensures that requests for your website will return the correct data.  This is especially important if you have been developing your website with a temporary URL.

Navigate to Admin - Site Settings.  At the bottom of the page, see if your domain appears in the list of aliases.  In the example below, only a temporary URL shows up:

If necessary, click "Add new HTTP Alias".  Enter your domain name and click "Update"

When complete, your domain should show up with the temporary one.  It is ok to have more than one alias listed here.

11.  Verify Page Settings for each page on your site

For each page on your site, click on "Settings" in the upper right hand corner of the screen

Verify that all the information under "Page Details" is filled out as needed.  Make sure that the Permissions are set correctly for each page to ensure security.

Page Name - This is the name of the page that will appear in the menu system
Page Title - this title of the page will appear in the title bar of the web browser and should be filled in
Description (optional) - description of your site that will only appear in meta tags used by some search engines
Keywords (optional) - key words for your site that will only appear in meta tags used by some search engines
Permissions - permission for who can view and edit your page - Edit permissions should only be enabled for groups other than Administrator if you are sure of what you are doing!

Click "update" at the bottom of the page.