Get Your Technology Ready for Training Sessions

• System Requirements - Internet Explorer and Microsoft Silverlight are recommended.
• Training Facility Recommendation / Requirements - Evaluate if you will be using webcams (not needed for onsite training), a conference room, or computer lab. Everyone will need a computer or laptop that has internet access, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and Internet Explorer and/or Firefox browsers.

Invite Everyone Necessary to Attend Training

• To best utilize the time available during training, the learning group will be limited to 12 individuals. Ideally, these will be staff that will be updating the site content on a regular basis and/or in a system administrator role. This allows for individuals to walk through the GCMS (Government Content Management System) with the trainer in hands-on work sessions. Post-training learning materials, including how-to videos, manuals, and online certification tests, are available at CivicPlus University for other staff members that need to learn the system but were not able to attend the initial training sessions, or just a refresher for additional questions. Another training option many clients have found useful, especially those that go through webinar training instead of onsite, is the 'Train the Trainer" model. This structure allows your core staff to teach their peers what they learned in training, as well as direct new users to CivicPlus University for additional training.
• Gather a list of those that will attend the training and their email addresses and share these with your project manager in order set up their accounts within your new site
• Keep in mind that training is an enjoyable opportunity to learn best practices and applications for your new website. No one needs to know any programming code! As long as your staff can follow prompts and fill in the blanks, you will easily master the GCMS system.

Establish Your Best Practices

• Agenda Center - How many years’ worth of agendas and minutes will you house in each category of the module before requiring your staff to archive items to the Archive Center?
• Archive Center - How many years’ worth of documents will you house in each category of the module before requiring your staff to remove items / move them to the site’s internal archive?
• Photo Gallery vs. Slideshow - Establish a limit of photos (CivicPlus recommends 5-7 photos) to be included in a slideshow on a page. Past that limit, photos should be added to an album in the Photo Gallery module.
• News Flash - How long will news items stay active in News Flash?
• Staff Directory - How in-depth will you require departments to go when listing their staff members? Will you include only the main points of contact for each service / department? Or will you include 100% of your employees?

Gather Module Items to Add During / After Training