Dear Community Administrator,

We're happy to say that in order to provide you with more features and a more user-friendly site, we are moving our community websites. We will be upgrading hardware, providing better service and improving our calendar feature.

Implications

A representative from your group will be responsible for moving all content from your current site to the new location. We will also be discontinuing the email service previously offered. If you have an email address @lanccounty.com and don't have another email address available to you, you'll need create a new email address for yourself by visiting www.lancmail.com . This service offers free email and will not block communications from LancasterOnline as other email providers sometimes do.

Another difference is that your username will no longer be your email address. You'll be able to choose a username. If you already have an account on LancasterOnline.com you can use that account for your website.

How to Migrate

Before you can begin moving your content you must submit a site request and follow the instructions for requesting a new site. Since you've already been approved for a site previously, just put the text "existing member" in the field that asks for your 501c3 number. We'll use this to expedite your request.

If your group is no longer using your community website, and is instead using a different website, we'd still like to keep you in our directory. Our new site makes it easy for you to simply link your directory listing to your current website. By staying in our directory you'll have access to our improved calendaring system.

We will not be migrating your calendar data, however we will add a prominent link to the old calendar until the cutoff is made in May.

If we will be continuing to provide you with a free website, you'll be able to log in to start creating content once your site is approved. You'll get an email with a link to your new administration area after this has happened. Once you log into that page, you'll be able to access your calendar and your actual website (only if you asked for a free website during signup).

For additional details on the use of your new website please review the Administrator Tools section of our Help page.

Timeline

We are planning to completely turn off the old community websites in May. Until then, your website will remain in our directory but will link to your old site until you email us to turn it off. You'll want to do that after you've finished moving your content and are prepared to make that site live. You should then change your website's category using the tools provided in the Administration Panel.

We will be changing the front page of lanccounty.com so that it redirects people to the new community site . This will happen early next week. Again, your old site will continue to be listed in the directory until you instruct us to turn it off.

Support

We will no longer be offering on-site training, however, Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. and Lancaster Online want to emphasize that the new system is easy to use and understand. Our goal is to make the transition as smooth as possible; we are confident all users will adapt easily to the new system.

If you need to contact someone about your website prior to having one created please email us at community-support@lancasteronline.com . After your site request has been approved we recommend using our online help system to answer most of your questions.

If you need to contact us after your site has been created please use the online help form , otherwise your request will take additional time to process while we locate your site.

New Feature

We are also offering a new promotional feature for your group to provide more exposure to our non-profit group community. When your group makes a new post to your website, a summary of that post will appear on the front page of the community site. This is in addition to your events also being displayed on the front page as they currently do.

Visitors to the homepage will be able to easily access daily events and posts sponsored by your organization, bringing more visitors to your site and, hopefully, more visitors to your events.

The new website address will be http://community.lancasteronline.com .

The LancasterOnline.com Team