This document outlines the project process for an Online Enrolment Project. aXcelerate’s Online Enrolments Feature utilises a WordPress plugin, which requires you to have a WordPress website in order to use this solution. If your website is not WordPress you have two options:
- Rebuild your site on WordPress
- Use a sub-site (a WordPress website that your primary website redirects to when students enrol)
Tip: There are aXcelerate system requirements and WordPress system requirements that must be met for online enrolments to work correctly via the aXcelerate WordPress plugin. These requirements must be met before the project can commence. Please refer to our WordPress System Requirements and aXcelerate System Requirements for online enrolments help articles for further information.
Please have a look at our demo site which outlines our online enrolment capabilities as well as key information about the project process including the details of the package you have purchased. Please peruse our FAQ page which explains several important points about this project you will need to be aware of. Our Terms of Use are also outlined on the site; this document outlines the process and is necessary to read before we proceed any further.
Note: This project heavily relies on your input and quick communication, in the instance where you cannot respond quickly when information or a task is required, then this will hold up the project and aXcelerate is not liable for this delay. You will also likely need a representative from your company with some technical website knowledge.
Warning: Please note that while Online Enrolments forms part of your client agreement, the implementation of Online Enrolments has many variables and therefore requires its own project scope/agreement. We must have a project scope agreed upon by both parties involved before we can get started with the integration. We typically allow 4-6 weeks from your confirmation of the project scope to complete this project.
Online Enrolment Project process
There are 10 phases to this project:
- Scoping meeting
- Follow up email
- Hand over of requirements for project scope
- Scope finalised
- Confirmation of project scope
- Scheduling of the integration
- Integration/build
- QA Testing
- User Acceptance Testing
- Project completion
Scoping Meeting
The first phase of the online enrolment project process is to have an online meeting with a member of our Online Enrolments Team to discuss your requirements. During this meeting, we will look over your website together so that we are able to determine the best set up for your online enrolments.
We will also cover these questions during the meeting:
- Do you have a WordPress website?
- 2. If yes and the website is public-facing, will you be able to set up a dev version for the integration? (The migration between the two will be your responsibility).
- Have you had a chance to look at our demo site?
- Do you have anything in mind in terms of requirements? (if not we will show you the options).
- What payment options do your forms need? (credit card payment, invoicing or tentative enrolment)
- How do your courses need to be displayed on your site?
- Will you be taking enquiries via the website?
- Do you want both Short courses and Classes displayed for students to enrol into?
- Do you have both accredited & non accredited courses? We will also discuss ETAs on when you can provide us with information we need from you in order to compile your project scope.
Follow Up Email
Following the scoping meeting we will send you an email outlining exactly what we need from you in order to finalise your project scope. Typically this is what we need from you:
- The Form requirements spreadsheet filled in
- Development website (We only need the domain name/URL to quote in your project scope - the website itself does not need to be ready at this point).
Tip: A development website is an exact clone of your live website. We work on your development website rather than your live website to avoid any potential issues that could arise.
Warning:The migration of your development website to your live site website at the end of this project is your responsibility. From the moment the development website is created, all changes made to the live website will also need to be made to the development website. Otherwise your changes will be lost upon the migration.
Requirements Handover
You will need to provide us with the following details as soon as possible:
- Form Requirements Spreadsheet
- Development website
Tip: The sooner the requirements outlined in the follow up email can be handed over to the online enrolments team member the sooner we can finalise your project scope and get started with the integration.
Note: If we require additional information from you this will be specified in the follow up email.
Finalising Project Scope
Once all requirements are handed over to the online enrolments team member we can then finalise and send you through your project scope.
Warning: Please read your project scope carefully, once you confirm your project scope, any changes made outside of the scope may be billable.
Scheduling of the Integration
Once the project scope has been confirmed, we can then schedule in the commencement of your integration.
Tip: Please create the online enrolment team member as an admin user so that we can access the development website for the next phase.
Build/Integration
Once the project scope is confirmed by the client and the online enrolments team member has been given admin login details to the website, we will then get started on the integration. As noted above, from this point of the project it can take 4-6 weeks.
During the integration phase, the plugin will be linked to your aXcelerate staging account. It’s only once the project is complete that we then switch it to link to your aXcelerate admin account.
Once we have finished the integration we will notify you that your project is ready for the Quality Assurance (QA) Testing Phase.
Quality Assurance Testing
The QA Testing phase is when we hand the project over to our QA team who will verify that all aspects of the scope have been upheld and that there are no issues with the site functionality.
Once our QA Tester has signed off on the project, we will then notify you that your project is ready for the User Acceptance Testing Phase.
Note: The length of time this phase takes can vary depending whether there are many issues found or not. The length of time this phase takes can vary depending whether there are many issues found or not.
User Acceptance Testing
The User Acceptance Testing (UAT) phase is where we hand the project over to you for user testing.
We will conduct an online meeting with you at this point to touch on what was agreed upon in your project scope as well as show you what has been implemented on your website and show you what needs testing. We will also set some timelines.
Common areas that the client should test during UAT:
- Test forms fields are what was specified on the Form Requirements spreadsheet.
- Course page layout correct
- Test an enrolment, make sure the booking confirmation etc are correct
- Test custom fields go into aX
Tip: From this phase the ball is essentially in your court as to how quickly the integration can go live. If you have a lot of requested changes at this time then it will delay the project.
Project Completion
Once you’ve finished UAT we will need written confirmation that your project scope has been upheld. We can then switch the plugin over to admin/live.
Once we switch the plugin to live, you can then talk to your hosting provider/IT team/web developer about getting the development website migrated to the live website.
Tip: Once the project is complete and the plugin is pointing to your admin aXcelerate account, we recommend running through the online enrolment process to make sure everything is in order.