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Ask while there is still someone to ask

Print this page and work through it with the person who is leaving. If they have already left, work through it anyway to see what you are missing.

Why this works better as a list than a chat

A conversation about "how the website works" tends to produce vague answers, because the person leaving is trying to remember several separate systems at once and you are trying to write it all down as they talk. Going through a fixed list, one item at a time, gets you a specific answer to each question.

What is actually at stake

Most committees only find out what they were missing after the person who knew has stopped replying to emails. At that point you are not asking a favour, you are trying to prove to a registrar or a hosting provider that you have the right to access an account someone else set up. That can be sorted out, but it takes longer and sometimes costs more than it would have taken to ask while they were still around.

If they have already gone

Work through the same list anyway. The live site, any renewal or expiry emails still arriving in a shared inbox, and the committee's own minutes will usually tell you more than you expect. Where the organisation's governing document says anything about who is responsible for the website or its accounts, that is worth checking too, since it sometimes names an officer or a role.

What to do with what you find

Note every answer against the item it belongs to as you get it. The full list of what to ask for, and what to do with each answer once you have it, is set out elsewhere on this page. This section is only about doing the asking while there is still someone to ask.

Before they go

What to get in writing before handover

Ask for each of these by name. Write down what you're given as you get it, because a verbal answer now is nothing to work from once the person has moved on.

  • Registrar login

    The username, the password, and the email address the account is registered to, for whichever company the domain is registered through.

  • Domain expiry date and renewal setting

    When the domain is due for renewal, and whether it's set to renew automatically or needs manual action.

  • Hosting account access

    The login for wherever the site's files actually live, which may be a different company from the registrar.

  • Email accounts tied to the domain

    Every mailbox at the club's or society's domain, plus the login for whatever manages them, so messages don't vanish along with the person who set them up.

  • Analytics access

    The login for any visitor statistics tool in use, if the committee wants to keep seeing who visits the site and when.

  • Social media account logins

    The username and password for each account.

  • File locations for the website's content

    Where the text, images and documents used on the site are kept, whether that's a folder on a computer, a shared drive, or inside the website's own admin area.

  • Who to contact at the registrar or host if something breaks

    Any support contact or account reference the departing person has used before, so the next person isn't starting from nothing.

Some of these may not apply. A site with no social accounts or no analytics simply has fewer items to chase.

Where to keep it once you have it

Getting the items is only half the job. Each one needs a place to live where the next secretary or treasurer can find it without having to track down whoever is leaving now. A committee that collects the details but leaves them on one person's laptop has solved the problem for a few months.

Where to keep it

A shared folder that survives a change of officers works better than an inbox. Google Drive, Dropbox, or whatever the committee already uses for minutes and accounts, set up under the organisation's own account. The point is that access to the folder can be handed on the same way the website itself should be.

How to record it

  • List each item with what it is, where it lives, and who currently has access to it.
  • Note the date it was collected and from whom.
  • Mark which items are due to expire (a domain renewal date, a hosting contract) so the next person sees it coming.
  • Keep this list inside the same shared folder as the passwords.

This list is the record a governing document rarely mentions but every committee ends up needing. Some organisations choose to add a line to their governing document about who holds this information and how it is passed on at a change of officers. What a governing document typically says, or fails to say, about digital assets is covered separately on the site's guide to what your constitution or governing document probably says about digital assets.

If the site itself needs attention once you have taken over

Once the accounts and logins are safely recorded, the condition of the site itself is a separate question: whether it still needs updating by hand, whether it is built on something the committee can maintain, or whether it would be simpler run as a Living Site, a maintained website service built and kept up to date by the practice at webdesign.uk. Find out what that involves at the practice's page about who runs it, or go to webdesign.uk/living-site.html to check the build price and the separate monthly cost, which can be cancelled at any time.

For the general run of handover questions, from registrar logins to committee succession, the full set of guidance on running a club or society website covers each one on its own page.