Digital Products Decommissioning

Checklist

Website: Insert Website Name here >

The purpose of this document is to:

  • clarify what you need to do to decommission a digital product/website
  • clarify the roles and responsibilities for decommissioning
  • record the signoff for the decommissioning.

Document control

Version / Date / Changes
1.0
1.1
1.2 / 11 October 2016
12 October 2016
15 February 2017 / General release
Comments from PROV & IM unit
Minor edits to improve readability

Assumptions

This document assumes:

  • the digital product/website is ready to be decommissioned
  • the digital product/website may have specified custodian responsibilities and appraisal in the Quality Assurance section of the Website Approval form - Refer to Website approval form – D16/166876
  • the product’s content has been moved or is no longer required
  • a specific request has been made to decommission the digital product
  • this document will be completed by those whose actions are required to decommission the digital product/website.

Roles

These areas will be involved in the decommissioning process:

  • business area (usually the ‘owner’ of the website)
  • Information Management and Technology unit (DPC)
  • the business owners (as Custodians) have responsibility for appraisal of website at development and decommissioning stages to determine if website or part of should be preserved as a record.

Name of digital product: / URL:
Name of owner: / Contact details:

Reason/s for decommissioning

There may be one or more reasons.

Reason / Explanation
Integration of service delivery / Information and services provided by the website have been integrated with information and services provided by other areas of the agency or by another area in government.
Program completion / The website was established to support a particular activity and is not required following completion of the activity.
User or business needs not being met / An analysis of website usage, user feedback and website evaluation found that user and business needs are no longer being met.
Infrastructure and operational costs / Where separate websites were supported by different infrastructures and operational units, it was more cost effective to consolidate and close one or more websites.
Lack of support / The website was no longer adequately supported, it was therefore appropriate to close it and move the useful content to another website that is supported.
Machinery of Government changes / Administrative changes required the transfer/closure of the website.
Other (please provide an explanation if “Other” selected) / Change of Government – former Premier’s digital product (web site) requires decommissioning.

Complete these Decommissioning tasks

Please complete all ‘Specific tasks’, ‘Who will dothe work’ and ‘Completed’ fields.

Min area of activity / Specific tasks / Who will do the work (usually business
area) / Complete (Yes/No/NA)
Communicate with stakeholders / List stakeholders who need to be advised about the website’s decommissioning:
Retire or update hard copy assets e.g. brochures, etc. / List collateral that makes mention of the website:
Manage changes to any contracts / List the contract/s such as hosting, support, service level agreement:
Manage changes to licences / List any licence/s such as software that are affected:
Manage any software/hardware / List any software/hardware:
Manage the domain name / Does the domain name need to be maintained? (ie kept)
Does the domain name need to redirect?
For how long should the redirect remain? / If Yes, for how long?
If Yes, redirect to where?
Archive content to Public Records Office of Victoria (PROV) standards.
Retention and Disposal Authority for DPC, PROS 13/06 Variation 1 (14/08/2015)
Web-generated records Advice 20a and 20b (Technical) (2007).
NB PROV reviewing/updating these in 2017
See also advice on data bases:
PROV advice for preserving records in databases / Has DPC Information Management Unit (IMU) been consulted to provide guidance on specific website archival requirements?
Note-different information must be retained for minimum legal retention periods, with permanent value information transferred to PROV.
With IM team & using the RDA for DPC, determine the appropriate minimum retention period.
As the RDA sets the minimum legal retention required, also determine with IMU whether the website needs to be retained for a longer period:
For business continuity
For current/future research
For access/discoverability needs (i.e. FOI applications, Royal Commissions/Inquiries.)
Ensure that retention needs are determined for underlying databases as well as published pages.
List the retention requirements which have been determined. For example, all pages containing instructions on how to submit an application must be kept and retained for a specified period.
List the actions specified by IMU to archive the website or parts of the website.
For example:
- saved all pages needing to be retained as PDF or HTML and
- stored in an identifiable TRIM folder (describe folder). / List who will do the appraisal and who will maintain this record in DPC’s recordkeeping system (TRIM).
Save and/or delete third party database information / Have all relevant parties been consulted and provided specific website archival requirements?
List the action/s specified e.g. by IMT Branch to archive the website, such as download as PDF, and who will maintain this record:
Delete links to the website from other DPC websites / List any internal or external databases and whether they have been saved and/or deleted, for example, email addresses for a newsletter or registrations for a conference:
Website infrastructure (SERVERS) decommissioning / List known links:
Website feedback / List exactly what is involved with making the website inaccessible to the public:
Disable website feedback email address / List any feedback mechanisms and Make sure all outstanding issues have been closed off:
Other action/s as identified and/or required / List any actions need to be performed to delete or disable an email address for website feedback:

Issues DPC can’t control

Decommissioning actions outlined in this document may not erase all traces of the website. The digital product/website could still be available to some users for some time through search engines, caching (website caching is explained at

If other websites have copied part of the content, the copied content will appear on the website where it was copied to. Links to the decommissioned website, from other websites, will be broken until the linking website repairs them.

Signoff (by Business Area requesting decommissioning)

I request the <insert website name> website be decommissioned.

I agree to perform the actions allocated to my Business Unit as described above, and liaise with other areas as necessary.

I understand some remnants of the website may remain on the Internet for a period of time and DCP can’t control this.

Version / Date / Author / Reason

Page 1 | February 2017 | DPC | V1.2 | WoVG Digital Standards Framework