Government tasks
This is the index of the task pages of the government section: short, concrete procedures for the work a public body does with Exponential, from "publish a council meeting agenda" to "remove a leaver" or "write an exit plan". It is for editors, site administrators, IT operations staff, project managers and procurement officers.
Back to the start of the government help: Governments: start here.
Contents
How a task page is built
Every task page has the same parts, so you can scan it quickly:
| Part | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Who and when | the role that does the task and the moment it is done |
| Before you start | the rights, information and decisions you need |
| Steps | numbered steps with the labels the administration shows, or the commands to run |
| Result | how you check that the task worked |
| Pitfalls | the mistakes people make and how to avoid them |
| Related pages | the background pages and the source documentation |
The steps use the labels of the admin4 administration design. Other designs (the classic administration, admin3)
show the same functions with a different layout; the module addresses such as /content/dashboard or
/user/hygiene are the same in every design.
Task groups
| Group | For | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Publishing | editors | publish a council meeting agenda, publish minutes after approval, publish a public notice, correct a published notice |
| Compliance | administrators, security and data protection officers | turn on two-step sign-in, enforce the Content Security Policy, set log retention, archive last year's notices |
| Sites and languages | administrators, website creators | translate a page into the second official language, set up a department subsite, add a right-to-left language |
| Operations | IT operations | maintenance mode for an upgrade, restore a backup to a test server, check that cronjobs run |
| People and permissions | administrators | create a department editor role, remove a leaver, set up an approval workflow |
| Procurement and training | project managers, procurement officers, training coordinators | write an accessibility requirement, run a proof of concept, plan editor training |
Finding a task
- Search the help for the verb and the object: "publish agenda", "translate page", "remove leaver". The help search ranks titles and headings above body text, and task titles start with the verb.
- Filter by audience: the government audience lists every page of this section; the editor and admin audiences list the tasks for those roles across the whole help.
- Start from a topic: each section of the government help links the tasks that belong to it.
Before you start any task
- Work on a test site first when the task changes settings, roles or workflows. A copy of production with its own database is the safe place to rehearse (Install in one command gives you a test installation quickly).
- Check your rights. A task in the administration fails with an access-denied page when your role lacks the policy; ask the person who manages roles (Roles and policies).
- Know where settings go. Site-specific settings belong in
settings/override/or the siteaccess folder, never in the shippedsettings/*.inifiles (Settings page). - Clear the right caches after a settings or template change (Caches).
- Record what you changed in your change log; the audit trail records who did what in the administration (Audit trail).
Related pages
- Governments: start here
- Editing content and Publishing and versions
- Operating a site
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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