Avoid the risk of losing your domain or other essential technologies

May 22, 2023 by

Diane Kern

"Don't keep all your eggs in one basket."

It's a good thing websites, domains, and office technology never retire, go on vacation, or resign. However, personnel on your team can. This includes a person, who might be the only one that manages your domain or other essential technologies. Changes may need to happen to their accounts when they are no longer on your team. When no one else has access, things can start to fall apart fast. One issue can create a whole bunch of other problems, and then it becomes even more clear that you shouldn't "keep all your eggs in one basket."

Remember, your website is more than a place for sharing information. It's a tool that works around the clock making everyone's job easier. Here are a few ways how:

• Receptionists answer questions and point people to resources on the website.
• Youth Ministry uploads permission forms for downloading and returning.
• Website calendars are reviewed for reserving ministry meeting spaces.
• Religious Education registrations are all managed within the website.
• The stewardship director adds second collection funds to the online giving platform.
• A wedding next weekend has requested to live stream their event for distant family.

It's hard to imagine if one day everything your website does just sort of stops. Hard to imagine, but it has happened to organizations before.

How one basket can create a huge risk

Here's a story. It's not anyone's actual story, yet sadly it's very similar to many out there. Let's say an organization creates a website by registering a url with a domain provider. Even though a committee is making the decisions, the domain account was created by a single staff member (such as your business manager). When creating the account, they opted for the discounted five year rate. Then, once the website was up and running, they logged out of the domain account without really needing to access it for some time. 

Soon the website is handling so many other tasks and needs of your organization. However, two years later your business manager resigned and his email account is eventually deleted. In two more years the domain registrar sends account renewal notifications to that deleted email address. After no response the domain shuts down.

No one has the former account credentials to renew the domain - not even the original website committee members. The former business manager cannot recall the password, and the "forgotten password" help option won’t work since the cell phone number and email associated with the account have all changed.

Sounds like some pretty unfavorable conditions, no?

Share knowledge in order to reduce risk.

Things handled through one person, or one single point, can be difficult to recover if that person should ever leave. Consider some of these ways to help.
 

1

Create more than one admin for accounts where possible

Some technologies, like your eCatholic website, will allow more than one administrator login for the organization’s account. Therefore, you have another person able to access for those instances when your main admin is on vacation or no longer working with you.

2

Share login credentials securely with a password manager

Using a password management service, like LastPass or Keeper, is a good idea for not only keeping passwords and logins secure, but tracking those associated with your organization's technologies. Some password managing services will also allow account login credentials to be safely used between two or more members of an organization. So even a person who may never use a technology, but has shared access within their password manager profile, will be able to access an account if the main user ever leaves.

3

Log all technologies and their renewal dates.

Account renewals are important to keep on radar; however, they can still surprise you when their terms are good for multiple years. Also, technologies that are no longer necessary could have been set to auto-renew and are being paid for when staff have stopped using them. These are good reasons for someone like a business manager, operations director, or financial officer to keep a list of technology resources used by each department. This list can include the next renewal date and cost so things are anticipated and planned for regularly.

When taking inventory of technologies your organization uses be sure not to record any login information such as usernames and passwords on a list. This is important for security reasons, and because those credentials can be updated at anytime within the technology and not on an inventory list.

4

Record upcoming renewals and upgrades on a work calendar

Another way to track the renewal dates, or upgrades, of the technologies you manage, is by using a work calendar. Don't wait for the company to email you that your renewal is due. Create calendar item dates earlier than deadlines to allow enough time to prepare your payment. Plus, most calendars will let you set an item on repeat, meaning you just have to enter it once and only make slight changes from there. So it's less likely that you will overlook these important steps when your workload picks up and things get busy.

Those are a few ways to track renewals, and have multiple staff members access office technologies like your domain registrar account. Hopefully this gives you some ideas on how to avoid losing technology access or even your domain altogether. See what your staff can do to keep track of technology access and renewals so that you are ready for any future transition your team may go through.