I cringe when I see requests to web teams not managed in a form and done all by email. Sometimes it’s almost blank emails and other times it’s an email with the history of humans long that they have to dig through and piece together what they need to do.

If you are in an organization that does this please install someone to lead review of these requests, like a web manager, before they go to the production team to do.

Most of the time people get too busy to request updates to the site correctly or don’t give enough information. I say this because I see it constantly. Web teams shout to me – “And I got this email… that just says Publish.” They don’t know what or who did it, all it says is “Go Live!”.

Just like a form, your email should contain all the relevant information:

Where: URL of page that requires update

What: What is the update that is requested, be precise and give exact location or old text to new text to replace, provide screen shots if you can.

How: Do you want to review the content before the publisher pushes live or is ok to just immediately go live?

When: When do you need this done by? Is it urgent in the next hour or should the normal Web production SLA come into effect – like when ever possible in the next 3 – 5 business days? Ensure you put a proper expectation to the publisher of when this request is due by.

But best you get out of email ASAP and create a submission form that requires all the relevant information for updates.