Effectively Managing Web Content Administrators and Authors
How to successfully organize and work with contributors to your Web site
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So Many Authors, So Little Time
And they knew it was much more than a hunch,
That this group would somehow form a family.
That's the way we all became the Brady Bunch.
Mike and Carol Brady had it easy; the parents on The Brady Bunch only had to keep track of six children in their blended family. Many web administrators find themselves trying to organize and manage the efforts of dozens or even hundreds of Web content stakeholders (individuals throughout their company or organization who contribute content or other data to their organization’s web site).
Unfortunately, Estrada does not include an Alice the Housekeeper feature to promote harmony within your ranks, but we can offer you strategies for developing protocols for an effective way to keep track of all the people who contribute to your web site and promote effective communication among them.
The Estrada Author List: Here’s the Story of a Man Named . . .
The key to effectively keeping track of your Estrada authors is . . . to keep track of your users. Basic, good record keeping will make an Estrada administrator’s life much easier. Even if you only have a few fellow contributors to your web site now, as your site begins to grow, you may quickly find yourself dealing with exponentially greater numbers of authors. Here are steps to get you in the habit:
- Create a spreadsheet for tracking your authors. You can also use a word processing document with tables or lists, but spreadsheets will allow you to sort and re-sort your records in different ways.
- We suggest the following fields in each new individual’s record: name, to which site(s) s/he had access, email address, and other contact information that you may find helpful. You may also wish to include an additional field for notes, for example, “Background in copy editing. Volunteered to review content on other sites if needed.”
- Each time that you add a new author of administrator to your web site, add them to your list.
- When you remove or change an author or administrator’s privileges, remember to update your list.
With your list in place, when you receive a question about an area on your site, all you need to do is consult your list, find the person or people who manage that site, and direct the question to the source.
Till The One Day When These Authors Met This Admin
You say that you not only have lots of authors but also Estrada administrators and sub-administrators? Have no fear. The same principles will work to let you keep on top of your site administration.
When you begin designating individuals as administrators for your site or sub-sites, just add a field to your existing Estrada Author List to designate whether an individual has author or administrative access to the site.
If you prefer, you can also begin a new list containing information on your Estrada administrators that is separate from your Estrada Authors List.
Let Estrada Do It!
Use Estrada to help you keep your Administrators and Authors Lists up to date.
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