 |
Launch: Getting Started
Last Modified: 9/25/2000
|
|
|
General Notes
This document should provide you with a solid overview of getting started with Dispatch, in conjunction with the Launch: Task List document here in the support section.
- All correspondence regarding Dispatch should be emailed to support@desert.net, even when intended for an individual DesertNet staff member. This ensures that all matters are handled promptly, as well as providing a tracking mechanism for us internally to ensure that all questions are being addressed.
- Dispatch's documentation is predominantly located online, which includes print friendly versions of all documentation.
- Optimization in Dispatch is largely dependent on standards. That means consistent and unique use of Quark styles, adherence to the file naming guidelines we'll provide, and the use of online documentation and the support email address to gain clarity on any issues causing confusion.
- The timing of your launch will depend on several items. These include: time it takes to get server ordered, setup, and connected at your publication's offices or ISP (local installations only); delivery time of documents, creative, and editorial information requested from your publication; bringing your existing content over to DesertNet servers (hosted sites only); other clients also in the pipeline; and the ability to schedule training. We'll provide revised launch projections as we move along based on progress on both sides.
Getting Started: A Few Questions To Begin
- Who is going to be your main support person? Please provide their full name, staff position, email address, phone number with extension, and general work hours. Also, a general idea of the level of their technical expertise would be helpful. We require that each publication have a primary production and support contact that has been trained for Dispatch. Questions about the process referred to us need to come through this person--additional blocks of support time are available should you want more than your primary support contact to have access to DesertNet support personnel.
- What software and hardware will your production staff be using on their desktop, at least initially? We're looking for information like:
Computer manufacturer, processor speed, and amount of RAM; operating system; web browser; email client; FTP client; Quark version; image editing software, etc. We'll want to review some basic configuration issues with you, especially with regards to setting up your ftp client.
- FTP access information for your current web server. We'll need the following information so that we can begin analyzing your existing site:
- User id
- Password
- Host name/address
- Your publication's web and editorial staff will need to decide on the use of information we call User Defined Fields or UDFs. This information is used to more fully utilize some of Dispatch's advanced features. More information on UDFs can be found here in the documentation. The process of defining these will be one of the last steps we take in your setup, but should be examined and considered by relevant online production and editorial staff throughout the process. The Austin Chronicle (http://www.auschron.com/) is a great example of utilizing these fields, as is Film Vault (http://www.filmvault.com/). Here are a few examples:
- Film - Many publications have decided to utilize film based UDFs such as, Film Genre, Film Director, Film Title, Actors, Rating, Studio
- Music - Artist, Rating, Genre, Article type (interview, live review, album review, etc), Label, Producer
- Politics - Scope (Local, National, State), Type (profile, election coverage, environment, media, growth, etc)
- Books - Author, type (fiction, non-fiction, biography, autobiography, pictorial, etc), Publisher, Format (hardback, softback)
- Arts - Performing Arts, visual arts, style, etc.
Please feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss this farther as we understand there are lots of questions and concerns in utilizing this feature.
- What day of the week does your print publication hit the street? What day is the book closed? What day and time does your online version publish?
- Please provide a list of employees and their email addresses for those that will be involved with Dispatch so that they can be added to the Dispatch Announcements mailing list and Dispatch Technical Forum mailing list.
At the least, this will be your primary support person, but it is preferable to have anyone involved in document control, image processing, or template design also subscribed to this mailing list.
- For a full, detailed overview of the launch process, please see the Launch: Task List page here in the Dispatch Support documentation.
|
|
