Introduction to the technical side of your new website

This is a quick introduction to some of the technical aspects related to your new website so that you will be better informed to make the necessary decisions, in particular to your email set up.
As a starting point, wherever you see www.yourdomainname.com.au in this document, substitute your own domain name here. So if your actual domain name is www.cheaptyres-something.com.au you would put that wherever you see www.yourdomainname.com.au.

It is important for you to understand this information in order for you to make the best choices regarding your website and emails.

Hosting:
You need a website host so that your website has computer (server) space to reside on in order to be available on the internet 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week/ 365 days a year. Graphics Online currently hosts all websites on our own servers in Brisbane, which are set up on our unique Website Editor called GOcms (This allows you to change the content of your website yourself).

You will normally have your hosting payments set up on Bill Buddy (Our billing partner). Bill Buddy handle the automatic monthly payments and once you are set up on this the fee will be automatically directly debited from your account to ours. If you do not wish to have a direct debit set up you have the option of paying for 12 months up-front in one invoice and you will then receive an invoice every 12 months after that to cover this.
Having large file attachments sitting in you email accounts can increase the space you need as far as hosting space so normally it is best to set Outlook to delete the email files off the server every 2 days or so. If you require more hosting space please call to arrange. If you have chosen the External Hosting option when you signed off on your quote there are a few things you need to be aware of, which are detailed in your terms and conditions under External Hosting. Hosting externally will increase the amount of time needed to get your site online and may cause delays, it will also mean that some of the features of your site may not work correctly as not every web hosting company offers what Graphics Online does on their servers. An additional fee is charged for this service as there is more work involved in setting up your website this way and that is detailed on your quote.

Domain name:
When you met Graphics Online you would have either had a domain name already (e.g. www.graphicsonline.com.au) or we would have registered a new one for you. In both cases this domain name is owned by yourself. If we registered it on your behalf we will normally invoice you every 2 years. This domain name then gets ‘pointed’ to your hosting server. When we ‘point’ or change the DNS for your domain name it may take anywhere from 4-48 hours to propagate throughout the worldwide system (The time this takes is out of our control as it is dependent on the worldwide DNS system). This may mean a client cannot access emails until the worldwide internet system ‘rolls over’ or ‘propagates’.
** Read warning further down the page for more info

Going live with your website. Re-delegating your Domain name
Normally when a website is ready to go live on the internet (under the correct domain name) it involves re-delegating the DNS (Domain Name Servers). You have 2 options here.

1. Do this yourself (Normally through your own IT staff) or if you are confident you are tech savy.
If you wish to re-delegate your own domain name DNS you will need details of our ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ server, you will also need to confirm that Graphics Online has set up everything needed on our server (email, DNS etc) before making the change. (** Read warning page 3)

2. Ask us to do this on your behalf (Normally included in a new website project).
If you wish for us to redelegate the DNS we will need the Registry Key or any other password associated with your actual domain name in order to access which server it ‘points’ to.

Important note: Domain name companies will only ever take action for the authorised contacts listed on that domain name. (In the same way as a bank or telstra only take instructions from authorised contacts of the account). You will need to contact them to either take the action we suggest or authorise Graphics Online for your account and we can call or contact them on your behalf.
Your website 'going live' date and time is entirely dependent on your chosen domain name registration company and if you do not give us access to your domain name you are responsible for chasing them up and once we have built your site the website is deemed to be finished.
** Read warning further down the page for more info

Email: Your options & why it is critical that you read this!
Email is critical to the running of your business, so now that you are going to have your website hosted with Graphics Online you have a few choices as to how your emails are handled. You may have a system already in place which we can match. Because we may need to make changes to your domain name’s DNS settings it is highly likely it will affect your emails. We need to establish what system you are running or would like to run.

Options are:
1) The preferred option for mission critical Email systems (E.g. companies with 5 or more staff).
Your domain name and emails are hosted by a company like Telstra. They then point the website enquires to our server. Graphics Online only hosts the website.
This option is the best for clients who wish to maintain the most control over their domain name and emails. The domain name remains pointed to a large company such as Telstra. Telstra would handle all emails (Requests for new emails, or change of email passwords etc). They then just point all requests for the website to our server.
What they need: Our server’s IP address (Please confirm this with our programmer):

2) Another preferred option for mission critical Email systems (E.g. companies with 5 or more staff).
Your emails are handled by a separate mail server (normally in your premises).
This means your domain name is pointed to our server but you don’t need us to ‘look after’ or host your email addresses and is normally a good option for companies who would class their email as system critical. It gives you (the client) more control over emails in house and means you do not need to contact us for every mail box change.
What we need: The IP address of your mail server (it must be the external (or internet) IP address; such as 210.8.77.59 – internal IP addresses normally start with ‘192’ or ‘10’ and are only used by your systems)

3) Your emails and website requests are all handled by Graphics Online.
This option is best for smaller businesses who do not run their own mail server or do not wish to pay additional hosting fees to a company like Telstra. It means all emails need to be set up/maintained on the Graphics Online server.

What we will need in order to do this: Details of all staff’s email usernames and passwords. For instance you may have a staff member e.g. steve@yourdomainname.com.au   and his password is ‘frog’. Graphics Online will need these details. You will be required to provide these when you fill out or when you filled out the New Client Website form. These details will be stored securely on our premises. If you wish for us to re-delegate the DNS we will need the registry key or any other password associated with your actual domain name.

What you will need to do:  Once the domain name has been changed over to our server you will need to update the details in every computer which runs an email program to check an email related to your domain name. e.g. Outlook.  Refer to our latest instructions on our website to see how to do this, http://www.graphicsonline.com.au/resources/select-outlook.php
Note: There are some basic instructions on how to do this at the end of this document.
If you wish for our staff to assist you please book an appointment with our IT staff, this is billed at our hourly rate.

**Warning: You must read this!
Once you re-delegate your Domain name to our server or you authorise us to, you will not receive emails unless the server has been set up correctly. It is normally best to do this (for example) on a Friday night when usage is low. Then check everything is running correctly on Sunday morning. If there are problems they can be resolved on Sunday.

If problems persist as a last resort it can normally be changed back to the original settings so Email on a Monday morning is not affected. While total loss of emails is rare delays can be common due to ‘propagation’ throughout the internet. Graphics Online cannot be held responsible for any loss or delay of emails due to this change-over or the speed at which the internet propagates or any other reason associated with the domain name, whether you the client has made changes nor if Graphics Online has made changes to DNS.

Instructions on how to set up Outlook/Outlook Express to check your new email addresses
When setting up outlook express to check your email addresses you will need to have the following key details for each one you set up:
To access this information. 1) Open Outlook, 2) Go to tools>email accounts>  choose to either view/change or add details  3) If there is an account in there, double click it to access the details. Then change the following details.
1) Incoming mail server, which is: mail.yourdomainname.com.au
2) Outgoing mail server, which remains the same as what you have already e.g. mail.bigpond.com.au or mail.optus.net.au. If for some reason this does not work.
3) Username; this is the full email address as above e.g. steve@yourdomainname.com.au
4) Password

If you require more email addresses or need to change your passwords you can normally do this through the GOcms admin area.
You will need to enter your GOcms username and password (There is also one other password that needs to be entered once, if unsure please call); then you will be able to make changes to your email setup. You may need to check back with Graphics Online if you have reached your limit for mail boxes.

Stats:
You can access statistics for your website at any time by clicking on Stats in the GOcms.

Webmail:
As a back up instead of using Outlook you are able to check your emails through the internet at any time (without the need to be at your main computer) by typing in www.yourdomainname.com.au/webmail
You will need to enter the specific email address and password.