⚿Setting up and handing over Aurora Hive Live

To people who have to change something but do not want to learn anything — and there are more of them than you might think:

• The business owner who changes an opening time twice a year.
• The office assistant who enters the new contact person.
• The club committee member who updates the date of the summer party.

You should not give it to someone who actually wants to design the website. They need the administration, otherwise they will keep fighting against the restrictions.

Rule of thumb: anyone who changes something less than once a month is better served by Aurora Hive Live than by an account for the administration — which they would have forgotten again by the third time anyway.

Little — but not nothing, and the difference matters.

Possible: changing released texts and images, immediately and publicly.

Not possible: creating or deleting pages, rearranging the navigation, changing the theme, touching settings, editing legal texts, managing other accounts.

So the damage that remains is always about content: a wrong price, an unfortunate sentence, an image for which the rights are missing. That is fixed in five minutes — but while it is online, it can do real harm.

That is why the conversation beforehand matters more than any setting.

By releasing the individual areas for editing. Anything that has not been released cannot be clicked.

What you should as a rule not release:

• Prices, if the way they are presented is legally sensitive.
• Legal texts, required details, the legal notice (Impressum).
• Advertising claims that have to be backed up.
• Anything that appears on several pages — there are reusable symbols for that, and they belong in the administration.

What you can almost always release:

• Descriptive texts, opening hours, contact persons, dates, photos of work.

If in doubt: release one area too many and talk about it, rather than one too few — otherwise the customer will phone you after all, and the purpose is lost.

Three steps:

1. Switch on Aurora Hive Live for the website. For a website from Aurora Hive Sites, you do that there in the settings; if the website is on your customer’s web space, you install the two files and set them up when you first open them.
2. Create an account for the person — a separate account for each person, never a shared one. The password needs at least 12 characters.
3. Hand over the link, name and password, ideally separately: the link by email, the password by phone. Ask the person to change it themselves after signing in for the first time.

Afterwards: go through it together once. Five minutes on the phone while the person does it themselves saves five calls later on.

Finally, check yourself that the pencil appears and that a change goes through. An account that does not work on the first attempt will not be tried a second time.

Five sentences, and most problems never arise in the first place:

1. “Whatever you save is public immediately.” The most important sentence.
2. “You cannot break anything — except by writing the text itself wrongly.” This removes the fear that otherwise leads to nobody changing anything.
3. “You must not use images from the internet.” The most expensive mistake a layperson can make.
4. “If something cannot be clicked, that is intentional — get in touch with me then.”
5. “Call me if something looks odd.” Better one call too many than a week with a wrong price.

Write this down on half a page and hand it over. In six months nobody will remember what was discussed.

One account per person — never a shared one, even if that would be more convenient.

The reason is not bureaucracy: if someone later asks who changed the price, there has to be an answer. With a shared account there is none.

In addition: when a person leaves, you switch off their account. With a shared password, everyone would need a new one, and then it ends up on a slip of paper.

Also agree who changes what. Two people working on the same page without coordinating will overwrite each other — Aurora Hive Live has no lock, because it is meant for individual small edits.

Switch it off — immediately when someone leaves or the contract ends.

Occasions on which this is often forgotten:

• A change of committee in a club.
• The end of a working relationship with a service provider.
• A member of staff leaving.
• A suspicion that the password has been passed on.

Check once a year which accounts exist and whether each of them is still needed. With Aurora Hive Live this is done quickly: the list is short.

And if you are unsure whether an account is still being used: switch it off. Anyone who needs it will get in touch within a week.

As what it is: the way to get rid of small changes without having to train the customer in a system.

The model that has proved itself:

• You build and look after the website in Aurora Hive Sites.
• The customer gets Aurora Hive Live for the areas that change: opening hours, contact persons, prices, dates.
• Everything structural stays with you.

The commercial point behind it: requests like “could you just quickly change the phone number” are the least profitable part of any support contract. If the customer can do it themselves, this item disappears, and satisfaction goes up because it happens immediately.

Set out in the contract what the customer may do themselves and what they commission you to do.

Five minutes — and you should take them rather than sending instructions.

The routine that works:

1. Call while the person is sitting at the computer.
2. They open the link and sign in.
3. They change an unimportant word themselves and save.
4. They change it back.

After that, they can do it. What you explain, they forget; what they have done themselves, they do not.

Give them written instructions as well — not as a replacement. They will be needed the second time, three months later.

Four things, and all four can be addressed beforehand:

1. Images from the internet. The most expensive mistake. Say it clearly, and once too often.
2. Text pasted from Word, with formatting that looks wrong on the page. Show them “paste as plain text”.
3. Nothing gets changed. The most common case of all: out of fear of breaking something, nobody touches anything. The only remedy is trying it out together.
4. Too much gets changed. Someone rebuilds the home page as far as texts allow. Then the boundaries were not clear.

What practically never happens: someone damaging the website technically. Too little is released for that.

Through the change history of the website — it shows who changed what and when.

How often you should look depends on how sensitive the released areas are:

• For opening hours and contact persons: not at all. If something is wrong, the customer will notice it themselves.
• For prices and advertising claims: regularly, or do not release them in the first place.

More useful than checking is a different rhythm: go through the site together once a year. That not only brings changes to light, but also whatever has been wrong for three years because nobody reported it.

Yes — and it is particularly obvious there, because a one-pager is often built for someone who will never open an administration area.

The procedure is the same: switch it on, create an account, hand over the link and password, go through it together once.

What needs particular thought with one-pagers: there is only one page. Everything that is released sits close together, and an unfortunate text is noticed immediately. So go through the boundaries more carefully than with a multi-page website.

And: one-pagers are often built for individuals — interim managers, consultants, the self-employed. There, the text is the product. Point out that a change is public immediately.

Releases are tied to the sections. If you replace a section, the old release is gone — the customer no longer finds the area they knew.

That is why a short check belongs after every rebuild:

1. Open the website with the Aurora Hive Live account and see for yourself what can be clicked.
2. Set the missing releases.
3. Let the customer know if something has moved.

What happens otherwise: three months later the customer wants to change an opening time, does not find the pencil in the usual place, and phones you instead of reporting it. Then the rebuild has cancelled out the relief again.

Not with the technology, but with the purpose: Aurora Hive Live is for texts, not for building.

A comparison that goes down well: you can fill up your car and pump up the tyres yourself. For the cambelt you go to the garage — not because anyone distrusts you, but because it takes tools and know-how.

What helps:

• Say what is possible instead. Not just “Aurora Hive Live cannot do that”, but “write to me what it should be and I will do it by tomorrow”.
• State the time and cost. When a customer knows that a new subpage costs an hour, they decide for themselves.
• The same request keeps coming up? Then perhaps it is worth a release after all — or the customer needs an account for the administration.

As safe as the password you assign, and as limited as what you have released.

What you should do:

• A separate password for each person, not reused.
• Send the password separately from the link.
• Switch the account off as soon as it is no longer needed.
• Only release what is meant to be changed.

What Aurora Hive Live limits simply by being Aurora Hive Live: even if an account falls into the wrong hands, it can only be used to change a released text — no data leak, no deletion, no access to other websites.

The realistic damage is therefore: an unpleasant change that you undo in five minutes. Annoying, but not a security incident.