Request a new site
5 Steps to Request a new Ensemble Site
1. Choose an address for your Web site
If you want a third-level sub-domain name within the .vt.edu domain (something.vt.edu), contact your department's network liaison and have them request it from hostmaster@vt.edu. Third-level sub-domain names are created only for colleges and departments and a few other specific entities, not for individuals or projects.
- Example: abc.vt.edu, www.abc.vt.edu
If you want an address under the third-level domain of your department (project.something.vt.edu), send an email message to the network liaison(s) for that domain, asking for approval. To find out who to contact, refer to the Network Liaisons page.
- Example: abc.eng.vt.edu, www.abc.eng.vt.edu
2. Notify your network liaison
You will need to notify your Network Liaison that you are submitting a site request. As part of the request, the web team will create a certificate for your future (to be launched) site and set up a stage site. The certificate for your site will need to be approved by the network liaison for the requested domain. When you request a site launch at a future date, having a certificate in place allows for an efficient site launch.
3. Request the site from the Ensemble Team
File a Ensemble support ticket using the "Request CMS Support" link in the bottom-right corner of this page and choose the New Site Request link. In the description section of the form, please also include:
- Title of the website (Example: Sample Site)
- The URL. This is also known as the Web site address (Example: www.abc.vt.edu)
- A short description of the purpose of the Web site to show that it is an organizational Web site, as opposed to a personal Web site.
- A list of Virginia Tech Usernames (formerly known as PIDs) of people who should have administrative privileges
- Your name, department, and phone number
Once your site has been created in Ensemble, you will receive an email. You should then be able to login and edit your site in https://author.ensemble.vt.edu. If you are logged in and have a prior session, you will need to exit and log back in to see the new site.
4. Publish to Stage Site
Stage sites offer a way to work on updated sites while leaving the legacy site up and functional. You'll build out your stage site using the authoring system.
Your stage site, once it gets set up, will be your domain with ".vt.edu" replaced by ".stage.cms.vt.edu". For example sandbox.vt.edu would have a stage site of sandbox.stage.cms.vt.edu. Please note that the stage site never includes a "www" segment before the domain name. Once the certificate creation process is completed, stage sites are protected by VT Username (PID)/passphrase authentication. Anyone with a Virginia Tech Username can view a stage site.
You must publish your pages, images, and other assets to your stage site in order to properly preview your website. Stage sites should be reviewed in Firefox or Safari so that CAS-restricted images load properly.
Note that you need to publish out the site level, the /en/ level, and at least a page called index to activate your stage site and before launching your site.
5. Launch
After you've tested your stage site, file a Ensemble support ticket using the "Request CMS Support" link in the bottom-right corner of this page and choose the Site Launch Request link.. Your site will launch at the next available Tuesday or Thursday DNS reset, typically in the early afternoon.
Problems
For any problems, suggestions, improvements, or questions, please file a support ticket by clicking on "Request support" in the "Help" drop down when you are logged into Ensemble. You may also click on the "Request CMS Support" link on the bottom right hand corner of the browser window of this and every other http://ensemble.cms.vt.edu page.
Community
Ensemble has a Google Group (mailing list) that can be joined: https://groups.google.com/a/vt.edu/forum/?hl=en#!forum/ensemble-cms-users-g
We are also on the official, paid Virginia Tech slack at https://virginiatech.slack.com/ in the #ensemble channel.