FAQ

We have separate documentation based on each version of SiteNow. If you are unsure which version your site was built on, feel free to contact us.

SiteNow v1  - also known as "SiteNow Standard".

SiteNow v2/v3

"SiteNow Custom" websites can refer to SiteNow v1 documentation for some things, but ultimately, these sites were developed based on custom requirements from the site owner and may differ from SiteNow v1. Contact us to find out if any documentation was written specific to your website.

The web team offers SiteNow v3 tutorial sessions via Zoom. Each session covers the basics of building effective digital content in SiteNow v3. It's also an opportunity to ask questions and address any feedback you may have regarding the new Layout tool. In future, the sessions will become a workshop space for site users to discuss digital content ideas and works-in-progress. 

More training information can be found on the UI Web Community website.

If you need assistance with a particular issue, first check out our documentation and if that doesn’t help, we suggest contacting the ITS HelpDesk and describing what you are trying to do. One of our team members should be able to respond to the issue.

The SiteNow v1 platform will not be supported after November 2023 due to underlying software end of life schedules. That underlying software change does not allow the possibility to upgrade a v1 site in place. SiteNow v2/v3 was built as a replacement for SiteNow v1 on a separate platform with v3 being the recommended version now.

The current recommendation is to request a SiteNow v3 in advance of the November 2022 deadline and manually migrate your content. Once you have migrated all your content and are ready to launch, we would make the new site live and remove the old site.

Webmasters within a website can add and grant access to other users that have a valid HawkID. See User Management and Roles. Please try to reach out to the website owner first to obtain access.

In order for us to step in and provide access, we will reach out to the most recently active webmaster on the site and ask for approval before granting access.

In cases where the site owners are no longer with the University of Iowa and are unreachable, you must provide us with certain details that prove you are associated with the department/organization/group related to the site before you are given access.

We currently do not support the placement of social media timeline widgets like Facebook and Twitter. This was available on SiteNow v1.

While we haven't ruled out supporting them in the future, here are a few things to consider:

  • There are accessibility issues with both the Facebook and Twitter widgets.
  • More browsers and browser extensions are blocking the render of these widgets by default through "do not track" concerns.
  • There have been some usability studies that suggest website visitors don't care to scroll through external content and that if they are interested in a website's social media presence they connect through links on the website or directly through their platform of choice.

Alternatively, we do provide embed options for individual Facebook and Instagram posts, Youtube and Vimeo videos and Twitter "tweets." Also, we provide a "Social Media" menu where you can provide links/icons to social media pages that is displayed in the footer of the website.

We have noted on our Request Site form to contact us you want to transition your site from SiteNow v2 to SiteNow v3.

We can either wipe your v2 site and reinstall a v3 website on top of it or we can install a v3 site on an internal-production domain which will allow you to reference and manually move content from your SiteNow v2 website.

Currently, moving to SiteNow v3 would require you to manually recreate your content on the new platform. We are exploring potential automated migration tools to assist you in this process. We will communicate with site owners if/when an automated process becomes available.

This is a generic message displayed by our hosting provider. In most cases, this just a temporary situation that should be resolved by itself, however in situations longer than an hour, please contact us and provide the website or specific URLs affected.