How to Test Your Site Before Going "Live"

One of the best things you can do before going "live" with your site is to go through the process of signing yourself up as a volunteer for your event.  Here are some important items that need checked along the way.

 

1.  Begin the process by visiting your site to sign up as a volunteer.  Instantly you should be greeted by your Welcome Page.  Check the wording and dates on this page.  Is the information clear and correct?  Are there any typos?  This is the first thing your volunteers will see, and you want to make sure that right out the gate, everything is correct and welcoming.

 

2.  Sign in as a volunteer and create a fake email address (e.g. [e-mail]) so that you can test the site multiple times.  Using the same address each time will only show you've already registered with that email address before and will halt you from proceeding further as a new user.

 

3.  Reg Types:  If your site provides multiple reg types, test the system by going through each reg type.  You will want to test access codes on the reg types if applicable to make sure they are working appropriately.  We recommend keeping a spreadsheet of the access codes if you have several of them.  This makes it easier to send to other admins, etc.

 

4.  Group Reg:  If group reg was selected during building, go through the group reg process at least once to see what your volunteers will encounter and to confirm you do not need to add more instructions. 

 

5.  Activity Selector:  Check all activities, capacities, dates/times, and descriptions.  Are they easy to follow?

 

6.  Rules:  If you've set rules in place, see if you can break the rules to make sure they were set appropriately (e.g. if you set a minimum requirement of 2 time slots, but a max of 3, make sure you can't get past this step by only selecting 1 time or choosing too many such as 4).

 

7.  Custom Fields:  Review the options required.  Make sure all the custom fields you need are visible and the ones that should be required are required.

 

8.  If you have a paid site, confirm transactions are going through by testing with a test activity set at $1.  DO NOT GO LIVE WITHOUT TESTING CREDIT CARD TRANSACTIONS.

 

You'll want to repeat this process for each reg type to confirm everything goes smoothly.  You can send the link to other people in your organization to test for you as well.  We also suggest sending it to someone who is not very tech savvy to see if they have any trouble registering.  This is a sure fire way to get to the bottom of a problem before you go live, as sometimes it can be hard to spot problems or errors from the admin side after just building the site yourself.  An outside perspective gives a better idea of what is wrong with your site.