SOP: Website Management

1. Purpose

This SOP establishes clear procedures and responsibilities for managing the community website. It ensures consistency, security, and reliability of the web presence while minimizing downtime and risk.

2. Scope

This procedure applies to all staff and volunteers involved in website administration, content management, and technical operations.

3. Roles & Responsibilities

4. Content Update Procedures

• All content changes must be made through the Joomla administrator panel or via the approved deployment pipeline.
• Draft content should be set to "Unpublished" until reviewed and approved by a Content Manager or Site Administrator.
• Media files must be optimized for web (compressed images, appropriate formats) before upload.
• All content must comply with the community's content guidelines and accessibility standards.
• Category and menu structure changes require Site Administrator approval.

5. Template & Design Changes

• Template modifications must be tested on a development or staging environment before deployment to production.
• CSS and layout changes should be made via custom override files, never by editing core template files.
• All template changes must be committed to the version control repository before deployment.
• Visual regression testing should be performed across desktop and mobile viewports after changes.

6. Extension Management

• Only approved extensions from trusted sources may be installed.
• Extension updates should be applied on the development server first, then promoted to production after testing.
• Unused or deprecated extensions must be fully uninstalled, not just disabled.
• A log of all installed extensions and their versions must be maintained.

7. Backup Procedures

• Full site backups (files + database) must be performed at least weekly.
• A backup must be taken before any major update, extension installation, or configuration change.
• Backups must be stored in at least two separate locations (on-server and off-site).
• Backup restoration must be tested at least quarterly to verify integrity.
• Backup retention policy: minimum 30 days of rolling backups.

8. Server & Hosting Maintenance

• Server software (PHP, MySQL, web server) must be kept within supported versions.
• Server access logs should be reviewed weekly for anomalies.
• Disk usage and resource consumption should be monitored and alerts configured.
• SSH access is restricted to key-based authentication only; no password authentication.

9. SSL Certificates & Domain Management

• SSL certificates must be kept current and set to auto-renew where possible.
• Certificate expiration should be monitored with automated alerts at 30, 14, and 7 days before expiry.
• Domain registration renewals must be tracked and set to auto-renew.
• DNS changes require Site Administrator approval and must be documented.

10. Joomla Core Updates

• Joomla updates must be applied within 7 days for security releases and within 30 days for feature releases.
• Updates must be applied to the development environment first and tested before production deployment.
• A full backup must be taken immediately before applying updates.
• Post-update testing checklist: login, frontend rendering, forms, extensions, media, and SEO URLs.

11. Cache Management

• Joomla system cache should be enabled in production for performance.
• Cache must be purged after content updates, template changes, or extension installations.
• Browser caching headers should be configured for static assets.
• CDN cache (if applicable) must be purged when assets are updated.

12. SEO Settings

• Search-engine-friendly URLs must be enabled at all times.
• Meta descriptions and titles must be set for all public-facing articles and pages.
• A robots.txt file and XML sitemap must be maintained and kept current.
• Redirect rules must be created for any changed or removed URLs.

13. Change Management & Rollback

• Step 1: Submit a change request describing the change, its purpose, and its impact.
• Step 2: Obtain approval from the Site Administrator.
• Step 3: Implement the change on the development/staging environment.
• Step 4: Test and verify the change.
• Step 5: Deploy to production during an approved maintenance window.
• Step 6: Monitor for issues post-deployment.

Rollback procedure: If a deployment causes issues, immediately restore from the pre-change backup. Notify the Site Administrator and document the incident.

14. Emergency Contacts

Revision History