controlling changes?
I'm a self taught webmaster and have been at the job for about 6 months. I maintain webpages for 5 departments on Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyards INTRANET. Recently I've been getting a lot of requests from the different department to make changes to or additions to current pages. What is the best way to go about maintaining control of these type of requests? I've been accepting change/update requests by email but this doesn't seem to be very efficient because more often than not the emails don't contain enough information about what they want changed. How do other Webmasters handle this type of thing?
Suzanne posted this at 01:22 — 23rd April 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
I accept email requests, actually. I've tried to enforce a request form but it's pointless, people just want to tell you and you figure it out.
Take lots of notes, develop a handbook of styles and procedures and other notes on the job, and use the phone liberally to confirm what needs to be done.
And be thankful they aren't faxing you the changes.
kb posted this at 01:22 — 23rd April 2003.
He has: 1,380 posts
Joined: Feb 2002
i would suggest making a form, and posting the link on your site, at the bottom somewhere.
the form: field for name, field for email address, drop down menu for category of complaint/suggestion, and a field for their input (but make a disclaimer that they must be explicit in their description)
submit the form to a MySQL db, that way you dont have massive amounts of emails. also, maybe include an autoreply that says "we thank you for your complaints/suggestions, but we can not make all the changes you suggest, but we look at each one individually and thouroughly consider them" or something like that...good luck
[side note]
i posted at the same time as suzanne...lol
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