BirdPress Site Process

BirdPress is a Lab-branded and web-accessible WordPress theme used by 30+ teams at the Lab. It offers built-in brand compliance and regular update and plug-in support from the Lab’s tech team. If you need to create a website for a project, partnership, or your own research, BirdPress is the preferred option.

This page goes over the process of creating a new site from start to finish and how the Advancement Tech Team (tech team) will help get you started.

Expectations and Timeline

Here are basic expectations of a BirdPress project timeline. Please note that the tech team is a small team and timing depends on our availability and other priorities.

  • The initial brand request can take up to two weeks to get approval.
  • When the site is approved to move forward the tech team will reach out to you within a week to fill out the discovery document and set up a project discovery meeting.
  • After we have a discovery document and initial meeting, the tech team will set up your website within the next couple of days.
  • Once the website is created, the tech team will send a meeting invite for a 1 to 1.5 hour training, within the week. After training, your site will be ready for your team to add content.
  • After your team adds content and the site is ready for review, a brand designer and content editor will review the site. This work is typically done within a week, but could take up to two, depending on availability and current schedules.
  • After the site has the go-ahead to go live, we can usually launch within a week. If the site has a hard launch date, we will do all we can to meet that date, but we must know about it ahead of time.
  • You will be notified if team availability will affect the timeline.

Requesting a New BirdPress Site

Submit a Brand review ticket using the Brand Request Form:

  • Select “New website, URL, or social media account”
  • Add a description of the website
  • Be sure to add the website domain that you plan to use in the description (ex: www.YourProjectName.org or birds.cornell.edu/YourProjectName)

Domain Name

If you did not get an approved domain with your initial site request, submit a Brand review ticket using the Brand Request Form.

  • Add the domain along with reason and justification for it in the description.
  • If the brand team approves the domain, a purchase will be initiated with GoDaddy.
  • You will be contacted when the purchase is complete.

Project Discovery

If the website is approved, the tech team will reach out and send a project discovery document for your team to fill out. Once the document is filled out a discovery meeting will be set up for any questions and clarifications that both the tech team and project team have.

Project Scope

The tech team’s goal is to help get your team started with a Lab-branded WordPress website and comfortable using BirdPress.

In scope for the tech team

The tech team will be responsible for:

  • Site creation and maintenance in WPEngine
  • Adding the site to Google Analytics and Tag Manager
  • Setting up a starter template and basic main pages based on the discovery
  • Uploading the site’s custom logo
  • Setting up a contact form
  • Embedding a newsletter sign up form
  • Assisting editors with BirdPress-related questions
  • Adding content editors and training them
  • Light content brand and accessibility review before launch
  • Basic technical assistance for teams without developers
  • Minor custom styles that will live in the Customize section of the site*
  • Hooking up the site domain for launch*
  • Setting up redirects from old site if applicable*
  • Vetting plugins for accessibility and installing them*
  • Ongoing BirdPress-related support
  • WordPress and default plugin upgrades

*Some of these items may be handed off to your team’s developers.

Out of scope for the tech team

The tech team is not responsible for:

  • Major custom styling and coding
  • Getting custom plugins to work
  • Setting up plugins that do not come with BirdPress
  • Planning site architecture
  • Creating pages
  • Creating Newsletter sign-up forms in the marketing system
  • Inventorying pages and redirects from old site to new site
  • Adding content and media via the editor or FTP
What your project team is responsible for

Project teams are responsible for:

  • Requesting the domain name
  • Filling out the discovery document
  • Planning site architecture
  • Creating pages and posts
  • Writing, adding and maintaining content
  • Accessibility of content (see Accessibility for Content Editors)
  • Gathering and adding media with proper credits
  • Ensuring the site has no broken links
  • Inventorying pages and redirects from old site to new site (if applicable)
  • Creating Newsletter sign-up forms in the marketing system
  • Obtaining site owner and team approvals
  • Viewing reports from Google Analytics when needed
  • Testing the site before and after launch
  • Testing the site after WordPress Upgrades (you will be notified by tech team)

Site Creation

The tech team will create the website in WPEngine, the hosting platform for BirdPress websites. The site will come with the basic starter template and some main pages created based on the discovery document. This site will have a temporary staging URL and will be password protected until launch.

Editor Accounts

Editor accounts will be created for each project team member who needs access. The tech team will contact the editors when this is complete.

An email will be sent to you from the WordPress website, however, this email typically lands in the junk folder. If you do not receive an email, use the Lost Password link to try again. If that still does not work, you may contact the tech team for a manual password reset.

Training

The tech team will set up a 1 to 1.5 hour training session with anyone from the project team who will be responsible for adding and editing content.

If you are not familiar with WordPress, please review WordPress documentation about the block editor so you have some understanding of the content management system. It would also be helpful to get to know what is available in BirdPress by exploring the BirdPress documentation website. A good place to start is the New User Training Outline.

Adding Content

The tech team sets up the site with some sample starter pages. Your team will be responsible for adding the full site content, images, and other media. Refer to the BirdPress documentation website for all of the features available to you and feel free to reach out to the tech team, via email or slack, if you have any questions.

It is important that team members who write or edit on Lab-branded websites go over the Brand Voice Guidebook and Accessibility for Content Editors from our brand website. The Style Guide A to Z and Usage Conventions pages are helpful for answering common questions about spelling, punctuation, capitalization and other matters of Lab style.

Need some inspiration? Check out some of our existing BirdPress websites:

Pre-Launch

Please give the tech team advance notice if you have a launch date in mind so it can be added into their schedules. The sooner they know a date, the better chance that your site will be launched on time.

There are some tasks that must be completed on all Lab branded websites before launch that will take some time and planning:

  • A brand designer will go through the site to be sure all layouts are on brand and that the content is accessible
  • A brand content editor will do a light copyedit to clean up any style guide details and will make recommendations for other larger edits

Launch

When you are ready to go live, the tech team will link the domain to the new website and remove the staging password. Please make sure you give advance notice so this can be worked into the tech team’s schedule.

Post-Launch

After launch, it is suggested that you go through your website to make sure everything converted properly.

Google Analytics (GA4) will be set up on your site after it is live. Contact the tech team to get access to view your site’s reports.

If you have questions, be sure to read our FAQ to see if your question has already been answered. Check out our Troubleshooting page if you are having issues with the editor.

You can reach out to the tech team via slack or email, however, for larger requests or to add new site editors please use the BirdPress Client Form.

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