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 11 October 2016 General release

1.1 12 October 2016 Comments from PROV & IM
unit
1.2 15 February 2017
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 (your Department)
 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.

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Name of digital product: URL:

Name of owner: Contact details:

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REASON/S FOR DECOMMISSIONING
There may be one or more reasons.

Reason Explanation

Integration of service Information and services provided by the website

delivery 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 An analysis of website usage, user feedback and

needs not being met website evaluation found that user and business
needs are no longer being met.

Infrastructure and Where separate websites were supported by

operational costs 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 Administrative changes required the

Government changes transfer/closure of the website.

Other (please provide Change of Government – former Premier’s digital

an explanation if product (web site) requires decommissioning.
“Other” selected)

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COMPLETE THESE DECOMMISSIONING TASKS
Please complete all ‘Specific tasks’, ‘Who will do the work’ and
‘Completed’ fields.

Min area of Specific tasks Who will do the Complete

activity work (usually (Yes/No/NA
business )
area)

Communicate List stakeholders who need to be

with stakeholders advised about the website’s
decommissioning:

Retire or update List collateral that makes mention of

hard copy assets the website:
e.g. brochures,
etc.

Manage changes List the contract/s such as hosting,

to any contracts support, service level agreement:

Manage changes List any licence/s such as software that

to licences are affected:

Manage any List any software/hardware:

software/hardwar
e

Manage the Does the domain name need to be If Yes, for

domain name maintained? (ie kept) how long?

Does the domain name need to If Yes,

redirect? redirect to
where?

For how long should the redirect

remain?

Archive content to Has your Department’s Information

Public Records Management Unit (IMU) been consulted
Office of Victoria to provide guidance on specific website
(PROV) standards. archival requirements?
Retention and Note-different information must be
Disposal Authority retained for minimum legal retention
for DPC, PROS periods, with permanent value

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Min area of Specific tasks Who will do the Complete
activity work (usually (Yes/No/NA
business )
area)

13/06 Variation 1 information transferred to PROV.

(14/08/2015) &
With IM team & using the RDA for DPC,
Web-generated determine the appropriate minimum
records Advice 20a retention period.
and 20b
As the RDA sets the minimum legal
(Technical) (2007).
retention required, also determine with List who will do the
NB PROV IMU whether the website needs to be appraisal and who
reviewing/updatin retained for a longer period: will maintain this
g these in 2017 record in DPC’s
For business continuity
recordkeeping
For current/future research system (TRIM).
See also advice on
For access/discoverability needs (i.e. FOI
data bases:
applications, Royal
PROV advice for Commissions/Inquiries.)
preserving records
Ensure that retention needs are
in databases
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).

Save and/or Have all relevant parties been

delete third party consulted and provided specific
database website archival requirements?
information
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 List any internal or external databases

website from and whether they have been saved
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Min area of Specific tasks Who will do the Complete
activity work (usually (Yes/No/NA
business )
area)

other DPC and/or deleted, for example, email

websites addresses for a newsletter or
registrations for a conference:

Website List known links:

infrastructure
(SERVERS)
decommissioning

Website feedback List exactly what is involved with

making the website inaccessible to the
public:

Disable website List any feedback mechanisms and

feedback email Make sure all outstanding issues have
address been closed off:

Other action/s as List any actions need to be performed

identified and/or to delete or disable an email address
required 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_cache).
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.

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Version Date Author Reason

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