What is Onboarding?

All new arPlatform + arTeam customers require Onboarding to get started on the right foot with integrated design, publishing, content marketing, community and eCommerce efforts. Design and marketing on arPlatform is about much more than software tools—it’s about transforming your business and empowering people. That’s much easier to do following training and with the personal support of arTeam. And since your long-term success is our goal, we want to encourage those practices that support that goal.

Onboarding includes personal training and consultation scaled to your requirements. Standard Branding may also be applied, including your logo, colors, and standard styles to immediately customize arPlatform for your organization. Initial custom design implementation beyond Standard Branding requires arTeam Pro Support service. 

Onboarding with personal training is generally broken up into multiple sessions to allow customers time for hands-on arPlatform review plus questions and answers together with arTeam.

Am I a good candidate for arPlatform?

If you identity with any one fo the condition below, arPlatform + arTeam is definitley for you.

  • If you are or service an association, nonprofit, or event organization in need of integrated branding and data management; design, content marketing, online registrations, eCommerce, and community features,
  • If your company is struggling to create and maintain WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla websites because you can't get the help you want to make the changes you need, or 
  • If you are being consumed by increasing complexities and costs.

How do I get started using arPlatform?

arPlatform is retained as a single edition with multiple on-demand points of scale. The price you pay may have a limited feature set however you will possess the whole platform, empowering you to unlock functionality when needed and allowing you to be unconstrained when deciding what to use and when to introduce new capabilities. 

Onboarding is scaled to your service level—limited additional training is required with upgrades. arPlatform includes built-in notifications collaboration and email support. Let us show you.

Is arPlatform built on WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla?

None of the above.

arPlatform combines open-source technologies with proprietary tools and creates an innovative, customizable platform alternative to otherwise costly bespoke software and templates. WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are generally deployed as hardened, single instances which provide limited availability for change, upgrades, and scale without additional investment and ongoing developer dependencies.

arPlatform is a multi-tenant solution delivered on-demand to eliminate traditional expenses of up-front development and ongoing maintenance, producing transformative results and immediate ROI.

How am I billed for arPlatform and arTeam services?

arPlatform requires an annual service agreement, you may pay monthly or prepay annually. Prepaid accounts receive a discount equal to 2 months of service. Payment is due by the 1st of the month in which service is provided. When upgrading, a new annual agreement is created and your renewal will then be 12 months from the date of upgrade.

When arTeam hourly fees are billed, e.g. you request production or publishing, we charge progressively, the month following service. Single requests estimated > 10 hours of time/month may require a deposit.

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, all payments are made on account using a major credit card. For complete terms of service, see the arPlatform SLA.

Do I need to pay a year up front for arPlatform?

Your arPlatform contract is an annual agreement which may be paid monthly or prepaid annually—if prepaid you receive a discount of 2 months free. We’ve found that customers who commit to a full year of service will be more successful, increasing ownership with new arPlatform in-house capabilities, and generating more creative opportunity and ROI over the long run. As with Onboarding, since your long-term success is our goal, we want to encourage those practices that support that goal.

Will my site appear in Google results?

Every arPlatform website includes the essential tools for organic search engine optimization (SEO) and indexing with Google. In addition to on-page publishing controls, arPlatform includes accessible META content for global site as well as individual page-level HTML Title, Keywords, Description, ALT tags, URLs, menu text and headings to ensure visibility and understanding of all objects including images and video. H1, H2, H3, and H4 headings are included as standard publishing options within arPlatform's WYSIWYG editor along with an integrated link wizard, media embed, and source view tools. And arPlatform generates user-friendly URLs to ensure search engine recognition of pages and page content, which are published to an automated sitemap used to create a persistent connection with Google for up-to-the-edit indexing and results.

arTeam Pro Support is available to assist with your organic SEO; publishing, site verification, and indexing. 

Does arPlatform include E-commerce?

arPlatform includes eCommerce, integrating essential third party services to enable plug-n-pay setup and management. Service is configured to work with Authorize.net for on-demand card verification and processing, as well, arPlatform's turnkey cart and checkout process includes API integrations for essential third party services including UPS, USPS, and TaxJar for real-time shipping and tax calculations and collections.

Within arPlatform, Administrators have access to create and manage Orders, Payments, Products, Inventory, Catalogs, Promotions, and Reports. Let us show you.

How many Administrator Accounts (Users) do I get?

arPlatform includes a single Administrator account; however, accounts may be shared to extend creative controls to others in your organization. If you wish to have mutliple Administrators active within arPlatform—logged in as concurrent users—they will each require their own account. Training and Support are included with each account.

What CMS platform will be used? How will we access the CMS?

arPlatform includes a built in CMS... Your customizable creative controls for front-end design and publishing as well as back-end management of content, data, records, eCommerce, and community.

arPlatform is in the cloud and accessible through a connected web browser using your Administrator account login credentials.

What back-end language will the website be written in?

arPlatform—the software—is developed using Python, a dynamic scripting language also employed by many including Google for web application development. You are not expected to know Python nor will you have access to platform code. arPlatform provides design and publishing tools on top of Python for customization and management control.

Will arPlatform render the same on all modern operating systems and browsers?

arPlatform is optimized for cross-platform performance (desktops, tablets, phones) and all modern browsers and operating systems. Your website will be mobile-friendly from the moment service is turned on, all arPlatform websites are configured for immediate responsive design and may be easily customized for various views and devices.

arPlatform back-end (cms) is optimized for use with Chrome or Firefox. IE is not supported in the Admin/Edit mode.

How do I connect with a CRM like Salesforce or Infusionsoft?

arPlatform's open-API offers built-in functionality for rapid implementation of third party data integrations and transfers to and from your website. In most cases, one-time API configuration requires arTeam service. Otherwise, script-based embeds are easily configured and may be simply integrated using an arPlatform HTML Module or Section Module without programming. Let us show you.

How will I access my new arPlatform website?

arPlatform is in the cloud and accessible through a connected web browser using your Administrator Account login credentials.

When using arCommunity service, Member accounts offering exclusive access and content will require a username and password. When using arCommerce, you’ll have the option of offering Guest and or Member checkout—Guest checkout requires a minimum commitment of name and email address, Member checkout requires username/password for purchase.

How does arPlatform account for Section 508 compliance?

We place a premium on accessibility with usability, thus arPlatform’s flexible framework offers a variety of creative controls empowering agencies and organizations for implementation and maintenance of custom websites; design and content, to adhere with Section 508 considerations. arPlatform standards and practices for website accessibility include: 

  • Perceivable text alternatives for any non-text content, e.g. ALT image tags and meta,
  • Theme colors allocation and contrast - style and background controls for seizure avoidance,
  • Visual and operable menus and navigation components for easy orientation,
  • Understandable interface design standards for screen reader capability,
  • Consistent, expected and predictable appearance and operations,
  • Understandable alerts to avoid and correct mistakes, and
  • Content and responsive design supports a wide variety of user agents

Part of the Rehabilitation Act, Section 508’s purpose is to ensure electronic and information technology (EIT) are accessible to people with disabilities. Commercial best practices include voluntary standards and guidelines for making Web content more accessible, primarily for people with disabilities—but also for all user agents, including highly limited devices, such as mobile phones.

Will my website be mobile-friendly?

arPlatform is optimized for cross-platform performance (desktops, tablets, phones) and all modern browsers and operating systems. Your website will be mobile-friendly from the moment service is turned on, all arPlatform websites are configured for immediate responsive design and may be customized for various views and devices. arPlatform’s onboard Theme and Grid allow for customization, scale and adaptations when necessary to meet the needs of new and unique audiences and devices.

How do you protect website Form submissions against SPAM?

arPlatform utilize a two-step, XHR-based authentication process (web browser to web server data transfer API) designed to eliminate the vast majority of bot-based form submissions. This feature is built-in to automatically ensure legitimate form use without the need for additional strategies. Additionally, arPlatform includes a CAPTCHA Form Element which may be added to verify submissions and further reduce SPAM. 

Will my arPlatform website include analytics & metrics?

arPlatform is easily configured to use Google Analytics for tracking and performance reporting as well as optimizing for Google indexing and search engine performance.

arPlatform includes access to certain high-level built-in key performance indicators (KPIs; Page views, Logins, Form Submissions, and Search) via an Activity dashboard. These KPIs are not intended to replace Google Analytics but they do provide quick-view into site design and publishing.

I'm new to the web, how easy is it to maintain an arPlatform website?

Our goal is to empower you and your team by eliminating third party develpment dependencies along with IT challenges and cost.  In addition to personal training sessions scheduled together during onboarding, arPlatform comes complete with integrated online written documentation and How-To videos as well as a built-in notification feature for on-demand user support. However if you are short on time or would prefer us to maintain your website, arTeam service is available to assist (hourly) with maintenance, publishing or production needs.

I'm moving my website from WordPress, how will we migrate content?

Migration can be automated or manual. Automated transfers are not exact, WP content may be imported; however, pages, layout, and styles will require review and updating before publishing. The alternative is to migrate content manually and address styles and layouts as you publish which many times is faster than automated import. Manual content migration is recommended with new site designs. 

What is your development process?

arPlatform does not require development or coding. While you may consider design and development on top of arPlatform, many of our customers eliminate technical challenges and costs by leveraging our innovative design-to-web implementation process.

During the Onboarding process, arTeam Pro Services are required for initial configuration; however, arTeam may be extended for further customization and integrations. Let us show you.

What type of quality assurance testing will you do?

arPlatform is tested before each software release and your fully-implemented prelaunch site enables further testing prior to going live.