Government checklists
These checklists are for the people in a public body who run an Exponential site or buy services around it: site
owners, site administrators, editors, procurement and contract managers, and hosts. Each one is a list of [ ] items
grouped by stage or owner, and each item links to the page that explains how to do it. Where Exponential has no
feature for something, the checklist says so.
The checklists
| Checklist | Use it |
|---|---|
| Go-live checklist for a public site | in the last weeks before launch |
| Accessibility checklist | at launch and every year; what Exponential provides and what is yours |
| Security checklist | at launch and every year; the defaults you decide on |
| Privacy checklist | at launch and every year; features versus the controller's decisions |
| Records checklist | when website content counts as records |
| Multilingual checklist | when you publish in several languages |
| Quarterly access review | every quarter: accounts, roles, keys, sessions |
| Annual review | once a year: everything on one page |
| Before a tender | before you publish a tender |
| Before signing a contract | after the award, before signature |
| Onboarding a department | when a department starts publishing |
| Offboarding a contractor | on a contractor's last day |
| Incident readiness | before anything goes wrong |
| Backup readiness | to prove a restore works |
| Upgrade readiness | before, during and after an upgrade |
| Editorial quality checklist | before every publication |
| Plain language checklist | while writing |
| Emergency alert readiness | to publish urgent information fast and stay up |
| Election period publishing readiness | before an election period, as practice |
| FOI readiness | to answer freedom of information requests |
| Open data readiness | before publishing datasets |
| Exit readiness | every year, to stay free to leave |
Reading order
- Buying: Before a tender, then Before signing a contract, then Exit readiness.
- Launching: Go-live checklist, which points to the accessibility, security and privacy checklists.
- Running: Quarterly access review, Upgrade readiness, Backup readiness, Incident readiness and once a year the Annual review.
- Publishing: Editorial quality and Plain language every day; the emergency, election, FOI and open data checklists when they apply.
How to use them
- Copy a checklist into your own tracker and add your site's specifics (names, addresses, figures).
- Items that name a legal topic carry a note: the checklists describe features and common practice, not legal advice.
- The pages are free documentation; adapt them freely under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Related pages
- Government: start here (government-start-here.md, the landing page of this help section)
- Procuring Exponential in the public sector
- Checklists for hosts
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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