Using a Staging or Temporary Site during Construction

There are several consumer features that you cannot use until your site is "live" (details).  I took your web site "live" at a temporary staging site for the time being so that you can learn / use all of the consumer site features.

Your web site is temporarily located at http://NNNNNN.tcostaging.com.  To find NNNNNN please look in Resources | View Tickets | Your Temporary Staging Site.

Your administrative login at TennisConnect is now publishing to that address just as though it was your real web site.  You may register as a player to experience the player registration process, enroll in events on the calendar, book tennis courts, and explore the interactive features of the My Page and Player Pages.

IMPORTANT: Please use this temporary site to explore and learn, but do not build more than a few pages or upload more than a few documents, or put extensive effort into custom navigation menus.  Any hyperlinks that you create (including menu navigation) will have to be changed once your site is moved to its *real* address.

TIP:  Limit "do-over" work.  If you are going to use the standard TennisConnect system generated menus you don't have anything to worry about.  However if you are going to use custom / enhance navigation menus (with fly-outs or drop downs) you should place that task last on your list.  Please consult with your account manager if you have any questions.

Tasks requiring "do-over" when you move your site to its *real* address:

Inter-site hyperlinks (a link on one page that goes to another:

• page
• calendar event
• or a link to a document you upload to your document library

Tasks that do not require any do-over work:

• Calendar events, locations, types and categories (you can totally build out your Calendar)
• Courts, mass court blocks, recurring reservations
• Any TennisConnect set-up features (distribution lists, member types, uploaded member lists, group email templates, uploaded images, your logo, uploaded documents, etc – generally any “system” control is preserved – the only tasks requiring “do-over” are web site page / content / address / hyperlink issues)

For Developers:
When we take a web site "live" we simply attach the domain prefix to a database containing all site files.  Prior to "going live" you are seeing a database driven "view" of what the pages and menus etc are going to look like - but note that the "view" is at the tennisconnect.org URL - which will not work for consumers once the actual site is live.  

Pages are stored in tables (not files) and page content is stored in database columns, so it is not possible to change URL's or our directory naming structure as you would with a traditional FTP site.

You can build everything out if you are willing to go through your code with a mass replace on hyperlinks - but it is generally not worth the effort unless you are building a large or highly customized site.

Details
The features you cannot experience on the consumer site until your site is "live" are:

• Player Registration on the consumer site (since there is no database yet).  This affects a customer's ability to learn / experience the player registration process, making a court reservation, enrolling in a program on the calendar, and using all of the MyPage and Backboard features (networks, find-a-game, buddy lists, etc).
• Any inter-site hyperlinks, including custom navigation menus will need to be updated when you do go live