Webmaster Information and Procedures
- Daily: Check the webmaster inbox https://asp-afg.org/webmail/, the email address is webmaster@asp-afg.org, the webmaster will assign him/herself a unique password. This email address is suggested on many of the pages published to our members and is used occasionally when they are having difficulty navigating the site.
- Monthly to update the financial reporting documents. The treasurer will send an update to the ASP membership and will also send a financial report to the webmaster to post.
- Bi–annually update the meeting chairs. Names, email addresses and the date/month of next rotation. https://asp-afg.org/ASP/Business/Meeting_Schedule.htm
- Bi–monthly Business meeting maintenance tasks:
- Meeting agenda
- Motions
- Updates to documents approved by the steering committee and/or business meeting members
- Perform periodic checks of the various links to assure that nothing is broken and that each link opens as expected.
Links in this document may need to be updated!
The ASP site is hosted by Esosoft. http://www.esosoft.com/
We don’t have a specific account manager assigned. We use the Esosoft support link for help with the account. They are very responsive. They should have the List Administrator’s name and the Webmaster’s names listed as their primary contacts and should not give out password or other confidential info to anyone that isn’t cleared by the List Administrator or Webmaster. The webmaster should cc the List Administrator on most ASP specific queries to Esosoft.
SSR: We’ve got a policy that says our Secretary and Greeter Chair are alternate List Administrators. Therefore, it seems to me that they should also be listed on the account with Esosoft. Since the Webmaster is specifically tasked with maintaining the web site AND our Concepts say that no single person has authority over another, IMHO it is inappropriate to think of the LA as having authority over the Webmaster. In other words, the Webmaster should probably be listed on the account with Esosoft, too. That leaves the Treasurer as the only one completely out of the loop, which shouldn’t happen. Therefore, I think that ASP should inform Esosoft of the names of ALL of the ASP officers. They probably don’t give a hoot, but I think that’s what we should do anyway.
The ASP webmail is managed by the List Administrator.
ASP email addresses are managed here:
http://backroom.esosoft.com/index.html
The List Administrator is the primary on this application and the webmaster can serve as backup
The ASP Webmaster is an elected officer of A Serenity Place. The Webmaster serves on the ASP Steering Committee, participates in the ASP Business Meeting and is a member of the ASP recovery meetings.
General Policy:
The Webmaster shall inform the List Administrator and Steering Committee of any changes to the web site other than housekeeping changes that reflect current topics of the Business Meeting and/or recording motions made in either the Steering Committee or Business Meeting, and their outcome. The Webmaster will post motions exactly as they are worded in the business meeting.
The Webmaster will maintain the various pages that are published for A Serenity Place.
These are:
The ASP public pages: this is an informational page available to the general public when searching for information on Al-Anon and online meetings.
The ASP Members page: this page is the table of contents for all information surrounding ASP operations. It is not password protected however, it is expected that it is only for ASP members and that members will not share this info with others.
https://asp-afg.org/ASP/MembersOnly/index.htm
This table of contents, has links to meeting schedules, steering committee contacts, meeting chair contacts, policies, history, general information and instructions, financial contributions — treasury info, FAQ’s, and a link to the business meeting content.
The Business Meeting is a bi–monthly event run by the ASP Secretary. And although the participants must be added to the meeting to participate in the business meeting; these documents are available to all ASP members.
https://asp-afg.org/ASP/nbm/index.htm
Agendas, motions, protocol and steering committee election information is found here. Again the lay–out is in a table of contents format with links to all the areas of our business.
History and General Info:
After the initial transition to the Esosoft environment, many of the documents and pages were updated to reflect the new ASP structure and its domain. Now that these are established, the webmaster is expected to:
- Daily: Check the webmaster inbox https://asp-afg.org/webmail/, the email address is webmaster@asp-afg.org, the webmaster will assign him/herself a unique password. This email address is suggested on many of the pages published to our members and is used occasionally when they are having difficulty navigating the site.
- Monthly to update the financial reporting documents. The treasurer will send an update to the ASP membership and will also send a financial report to the webmaster to post.
- Bi–annually update the meeting chairs. Names, email addresses and the date/month of next rotation. https://asp-afg.org/ASP/Business/Meeting_Schedule.htm
- Bi–monthly Business meeting maintenance tasks:
- Meeting agenda
- Motions
- Updates to documents approved by the steering committee and/or business meeting members
- Perform periodic checks of the various links to assure that nothing is broken and that each link opens as expected.
- With the creation of new links, add this line to the href line of code to allow members to view documents in a new window, target=”_blank” Here is an example: <a href=”https://asp-afg.org/ASP/Business/7th_tradition.htm” target=”_blank”>
The Webmaster currently uses Expression Studio 4 Web Professional (was Frontpage until 2011) to edit the documents posted on the site. The software is designed to allow you to work in MS Word and simultaneously converts to HTML. Some work needs to be done in HTML, using the split screen view allows you to see what’s happening while you are working.
To start, the webmaster should load the software onto their machine and then make a copy of the entire ASP website from the domain and save it locally to their hard drive. As changes need to be made, the webmaster logs in to the software on their PC and works locally on the documents. When complete, there is a publishing process that the webmaster uses to upload those changes to the website.
The purpose of pulling the entire site is a protective one. If Esosoft has a problem, we have a copy of our site. Working locally allows one to work at their own pace and only make changes public when ready. This also prevents inadvertently deleting something that is needed.
Document Management Note:
Remember that a hyperlink is a series of steps that leads you to a document. After the initial website, each backslash in the link represents the names of folders that a document is nested in. The folders are saved in the manner in which they were created. It is with caution that changes to the location or names be made. Changing the location or name of a document in use will cause the link to “break.” Be sure that you know where the document is used on the site so that you can update that name appropriately.
When making major changes/rewrites to existing documentation, save the original document to the archive folder you may need to revisit it.
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Obsolete and not applicable in WordPress
The Voting site has a front end application and back end application. Business meeting members are directed here to vote:
The poll is setup here:
https://asp-afg.org/polls/admin/
Setting up the Voting Poll:
https://asp-afg.org/polls/admin/ (enter login and password)
- Select →Create a poll
- Number of Options → 3
- Enter Poll Title
- Option 1 → Abstain
- Option 2 →Yes
- Option 3 → No
- Poll Start → enter date, this will be DD/MM/YYYY
- Poll End → enter date, same format as above
- User can vote every month (this in an attempt to keep voting to one entry per person)
- Series of radio buttons should be set to: yes, yes, no, yes, yes, no
- Status → on
Voting Webpage
This is straight HTML code
- Line 1, enter the number of the poll – see number highlighted below.
<?php $_REQUEST[‘poll’] = 14; include (“polls/top.php”); ?>
- Scroll down the page to the line that says… ‘Please submit your vote’ – edit this text to reflect the topic being voted on. If there is a motion, it is best to save it to a word document and link it to the page.
- Scroll further down the page and enter the active date range of the new poll
Check your work here:
Updating the Treasurer’s Report:
Treasurer sends a copy of the report to the webmaster and LA.
The webmaster saves the document to their computer and checks formatting. The webmaster will copy and paste this content into published report.
- Go to ASP folder, then
- Business folder, then
- financial_report.htm and open the file
- delete all the excel content
- copy the treasurer’s report and paste it into the htm file.
- Save
- publish
Updating the Business Meeting: