As you know, we鈥檙e preparing for the launch of a new, user-centred redesigned website. However, like all Grand Designs, it will not be as simple as turning the old version 鈥渙ff鈥 and the new one 鈥渙n鈥.
The Web Team is carrying out a lot of detailed technical and content work behind the scenes to ensure everything transfers smoothly and works as it should.
To ensure a smooth transition and avoid losing work, how you add content to your site will change from Friday, 16 January 2026. We expect this change to be in place for at least two months.
Following feedback from our last Community of Editors meeting, we鈥檝e reviewed the process and are making a small but important adjustment. There will no longer be a content freeze.
From now until Friday, 16 January at 4pm you may edit the website as normal.
However, any edits you make to the site after Friday 16 January at 4pm, must be tracked as they will not be carried over to the new website. Once the new website has been launched, you will have to apply any edits you made after 4pm on Friday, 16 January, again on the new site.
We recommend that you keep documentation of all changes made to the website after 16 January. The Web Team will not be in a position to track these for you.
All changes must be kept to an absolute minimum 鈥 only make updates that are essential. If something can wait until post-launch, that is preferred.
It is vital that every single change is tracked 鈥 you will need a clear record of what you changed and where. This is why it鈥檚 important to only make essential edits, so they鈥檙e easy to keep track of.
You will need to make these edits again to the new site when it goes live at the end of March 2026. We will let you know in good time the official launch date of the new site.
When the redesigned website goes live, your tracked list will be the only reference you have to the edits you need to update on the new site. Remember any edits you make on the current live site after 4 pm on Friday, 16 January until the new site is live at the end of March, will not appear on the new site.
When planning a change to your content in the new year, please consult with your wider team on what your content is, where it needs to go, and when it鈥檚 needed. Unless necessary, your edits should wait until post-launch if possible.
Now is a great time to review the content on your site and make whatever changes are necessary between now and January to ensure you have less work to do in the new year.
We expect the new site to be launched at the end of March 2026.
How to track your changes
Please use a simple tracking sheet such as the example below:
Page URL | Date of change | Description of change | Reason for change | Editor Name | Notes |
| 17 Jan 2026 | Updated staff contact details | Staffing change | A. Smith | Added Dr W Web to the staff profiles |
We recommend keeping this in an Excel sheet stored within your team鈥檚 SharePoint, so it can be easily accessed later when the migration phase begins.
You can also .
Once the new site is live, you will have to redo the edits you made on the existing site on the new site; this is why it's important to log them.
Tracking your edits between January 16 and the end of March 2026 means keeping a clear, written record of every change you make. This ensures you can reapply those changes once the redesigned site goes live; edits made during this time will not automatically carry over.
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding as we work toward launching a new website. These measures will help us maintain content accuracy while ensuring a smooth transition.
If you need Web Team support, please don鈥檛 hesitate to contact us (Marcomms tile, not ITD)
FAQs
For several months now, the Web Team have been testing out our new, redesigned website on a different server that only we have access to.
This server is a copy of the current website, and pulls data from the current website to stay updated. This is so we can test new components and designs on a version of the website that is as up-to-date as possible.
However, every time data is pulled from the current website, it wipes the redesign server clean and undoes all our 'testing', replacing it with an exact copy of the current site.
We need to start preparing the redesign server for launch, as it will replace the current website. This includes manual course updates and updating and applying our new design to core pages with updated information.
So we don't lose this work, we can no longer pull data from the current website as it would erase our progress.
16 January, 4pm is our cut-off point. When the redesigned site goes live, no updates that were carried out on the current site after the cut-off point will be transferred over.
I still don't understand
We know, it's a lot to take in.
Think of the current website as the house you鈥檙e living in now.
For the past few months, the Web Team has been working on a second house, built just next door. This second house is a copy of your current home, and it automatically copies over any new furniture or changes you make in the original house.
This has been really useful while we鈥檝e been testing layouts, fixtures, and room designs, because it means we鈥檙e always working with the most up鈥憈o鈥慸ate version of the house.
However, every time we refresh this copy, it wipes out all the renovation work we鈥檝e done in the new house and replaces it with a fresh copy of the old one. Walls go back, rooms disappear, and all the progress is lost.
Now we鈥檝e reached the point where the new house needs to be properly fitted out and prepared for people to move in. That means:
- Permanently installing new kitchens and bathrooms (course updates)
- Decorating key rooms (core pages and key information)
- Applying the final design across the house
To protect this work, we have to stop copying changes over from the old house.
What the cut鈥憃ff means
From 4pm on 16 January:
- Changes can still be made to the old house (the current website)
- But those changes will not appear in the new house automatically
- If something changes after this point and needs to exist in the new house, it will have to be reinstalled manually later
When the new house opens its doors (when the redesigned website goes live), it will only reflect the state of the old house as it was at 4pm on 16 January 鈥 plus all the renovation work done since on the new house.
That鈥檚 why tracking any post鈥慶ut鈥憃ff changes is essential, and why we鈥檙e asking everyone to keep edits to an absolute minimum during this period.
If you want the change to be on your website when the new redesigned site goes live, yes.
Some information may lose relevancy over time, and might not be needed on the new site. This could include temporary, time-sensitive information.
If you鈥檙e working on a page over the course of a few days, or you make a change on a Monday and then decide to change it again on the Thursday, just enter the date and details for the most current version.
You may discard your previous entry for Monday鈥檚 edits in this case, and just include a copy of all content on the page in Thursday鈥檚 entry.
A Word doc of the completed page content is a good idea here. It can be uploaded to your SharePoint and linked to from the sheet.
This will also need to be tracked as the removed content will re-appear when the new site goes live.
Both will need to be re-created on the new site, however:
As part of our new design, and to improve the user experience, past events will be auto-deleted once the date of the event has passed. Events are used to advertise upcoming events, so having content written in future tense for an event that has passed is confusing to a user.
Past events should be documented as news. When you have re-created your news items post-launch, get in touch with us with a list of each news article鈥檚 URL and your preferred date. We will backdate them for you.
For this reason we would consider pausing your news updates on the website during this time.
Pure profiles can still be created, as the Pure website is different to the main UL website.
Our website pulls data from Pure on a regular basis, and this will continue after 16 January.
When the new site goes live, Pure profiles will be carried over too and won鈥檛 need to be recreated.
However, if you have added a view for Pure profiles, or individual profile cards, onto a page, this action will need to be re-done post-launch.
No, no new editors will be added after January 16 until the new site goes live.
We advise talking with fellow editors of your website and make a plan that works for everyone for tracking changes. If you don鈥檛 know who these other editors are, we can tell you.
Communication surrounding edit tracking has only been circulated to active editors.
Yes! We would recommend doing this for any pages you edited. A good time to do this would be in the days leading up to the new site launch. This ensures you capture the most up-to-date version of your pages.
You can download a webpage by using your browser's "Save page as" function, which offers options to save the complete page or just the HTML, or by printing the page to a PDF.
Navigate to the webpage, then right-click on a blank area and select 鈥淧rint鈥.
Choose "Save as PDF" as the destination printer instead of a physical printer. Save this to your Team鈥檚 SharePoint.
This is a great way to preserve the layout and look of the page as a static document.
Great question! We had initially proposed an entire content freeze on the website. After some careful thought amid feedback, we decided to go with a less-intense approach with edit tracking instead. Hence, it's not a freeze but a frost!
Yes! As long as you use the same page title, news or event title when you recreate the page, the url will be the same for the new page.