Mass.gov product overview

Mass.gov product components and the roles and responsibilities of EOTSS and the organizations who author and publish content.

Mass.gov offers several managed components:

• Public website at www.mass.gov for static content

• Web authoring environment (content management system) at edit.mass.gov

• Search functionality at search.mass.gov

• Embedded form creation and management (limited number of accounts per organization)

• Validation tool that continually looks for broken links, misspellings, or accessibility issues

• Stock photo library (for website use only)

  • There are limits to the number of photos that can be requested.

  • Many images are licensed only to be used in digital media and websites and not in any form of print.

• Customer satisfaction survey

• Feedback collection and management

• Web analytics to track content performance

• Ask MA, an enterprise chatbot. (A phased rollout is in progress.)

Mass.gov products and services NOT included in this overview:

• Social Media management

• Custom engagement services

Roles & Responsibilities of EOTSS / Mass Digital:

• Maintain security, scalability and reliability of all Mass.gov components. Make regular enhancements to service offerings.

• Solicit author and stakeholder input to inform planning, development, and improvements.

• Ensure that site templates comply with standards, meet accessibility criteria, and display clearly on both mobile and desktop devices.

• Perform periodic archiving of site content.

• Manage a basic analytics framework and ensure that tracking codes are inserted on sites as appropriate.

• Notify the publishing organization if malicious links or code are identified on the site and take action to remove them.

• Implement friendly URLs or external redirects as requested by site authors and approved by the content team.

• Provide and maintain Ask MA chatbot.

For content management system users, EOTSS/Mass Digital staff:

• Creates accounts and manages all product components.

• Communicates changes, maintenance and incidents related to the managed components.

• Provides content management system support to authors via ServiceNow during business hours.

• Provides guidance on content management best practices including use of analytics, content organization, and search engine optimization.

• Hosts regular user group meetings.

• Provides up-to-date documentation and a knowledge base on use of the content management system.

EOTSS / Mass Digital does not provide backup content authoring services for sites for either standard or urgent content updates. Organizations must plan for staff absences and content changes during non-business hours.   

Roles & Responsibilities of authoring organizations:

Users at agencies and organizations will:

• Always have staff available to post content, including backup authors who can fill this role during vacations or unexpected staff absences.

• Have appropriate internal governance and communication procedures to handle any urgent content publishing, both during business hours and non-business hours.

• Notify EOTSS promptly when a user of a component (CMS, Formstack, Google Analytics, etc.) should be deactivated.  

• Ensure that all authors have ServiceNow accounts and use that system to request support (rather than via Teams, email or phone).

• Ensure that no users are sharing accounts to any of the managed components.

• Report to EOTSS any security issues that involve the website or a user of a managed component.

• Designate a lead content manager for the organization who will

  • Request and approve new user accounts

  • Determine the permission level for users

Content authors at agencies will:

• Create, author, maintain, publish, unpublish, and trash obsolete content as needed.

• Use plain language in content. Avoid government jargon.

• Only change content that they have responsibility over and reach out to other authors if they want to suggest changes to their content.

• Select photographs (including rights management), edit image files to appropriate size and quality, and insert image files on the website.

• Use analytics tools to determine content usage and methods to improve site content.

• Manage any custom-defined HTML code that the site authors embed in web content using iframes.

• Ensure that custom-defined HTML meets privacy policy guidelines and accessibility requirements, works on mobile devices, and complies with Mass.Gov global styles and layout.

• Use the web quality validation tool regularly to correct broken links, misspellings, and accessibility problems.

• Create and manage web forms, configure form submission behavior, review form responses, act upon response data when appropriate, and ensure that sensitive form data is approved by organization management and securely transmitted.

• Review page-based feedback regularly and make improvements to content as needed.

• Review customer satisfaction survey responses at least monthly, make content improvements, and raise any business issues with appropriate organization stakeholders.

• Work with EOTSS to contribute and manage content for Ask MA, the enterprise chatbot.