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A Ramblers group or area can request a free NGX review site without changing its current website. The registration service creates the site, brings across the group's own public content for a Full registration, loads its current Walks Manager programme and gives an NGX reviewer the finished result to check. The group is invited only after that review.
\nThis note brings together the complete feature as delivered up to build 956. It covers the public registration form, content migration, the review site, platform administration and the final invitation.
\nRegistration and its background processing are available only on an environment with platform management enabled.
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Lite creates the committee, membership and email facilities with a smaller public site. It does not read an existing website.
\nFull creates a complete review site from the group's existing public pages, photos and documents. Walks and local events come from Walks Manager rather than being copied from the old site.
\nBoth choices create a separate review site. The existing website remains unchanged while the group decides whether to continue.
\nThe applicant chooses Lite or Full, then selects a Ramblers area and, if required, a group. Leaving the group empty creates an area site. The chosen plan, area, group and current step stay in the address, so the page can be bookmarked and restored.
\nFor a public request, the applicant enters an approved committee email address and opens the confirmation message. That message uses the site's built-in email configuration and includes a private return link which restores the saved registration. Platform administrators can manage approved addresses by group or area and temporarily turn off the approved-list check for controlled testing; a valid email address and confirmation are still required.
\nFor a Full site, Find pages follows the old site's internal links and presents every discovered page in a tree. It supports ordinary sites, WordPress, Ramblerswebs and groups whose only web presence is their page on the national Ramblers site.
\nThe proposed structure is based on the source site rather than a fixed menu. The applicant can shape the main navigation without discarding content: pages moved out of the navbar remain part of the migration. The process stops with a clear error if a source page cannot be read instead of quietly producing an incomplete site.
\nFor Ramblers-hosted group pages, the migration keeps the group's own words, sub-pages, linked documents and published committee contacts. National breadcrumbs, promotional panels, national walk listings and other page furniture are left behind.
\nNothing is invented. Optional text tidying is limited to spelling, grammar and punctuation. Old navigation, repeated headers and footers, broken markup, tracking wrappers and other page furniture can be removed without losing the group's real content. Source-fidelity checking is enabled by default and stops the build when source text or images are missing from the result. A platform administrator can turn that check off temporarily while diagnosing a migration.
\nLanding pages start with authentic images from the old site. A single opening photo uses the page width; several suitable images form a carousel or gallery. During the review, images remain on the old website and the new site displays them from there. They are copied into the new site's storage only during the separate content migration, after the group decides to go live.
\nWalk galleries are filed under Photos → year → gallery. Each year page lists its albums as buttons and on a map. When a gallery's date and place identify one Walks Manager walk, the album is linked to that walk and uses its location. The build log explains galleries that could not be matched.
\nThe home page uses the group's own introduction and images, followed by links to the main areas that actually exist on the new site. It does not repeat Walks or Events when they are already in the navbar.
\nThe build creates a separate site address, database, file storage and mail configuration. It uses the selected group's exact Ramblers code, current Walks Manager programme and directory logo. A matching banner is created for the site and its emails.
\nNew sites start with safe settings: their database access is limited to that site's database, platform secrets are not copied into group settings, and no live Brevo sending key is inherited. Sites awaiting review are excluded from estate-wide deployment.
\nThe configured NGX reviewer becomes the first administrator. The group does not receive access until the reviewer approves the result.
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A generated review site using the group's own photograph and introductory content.
\nThe applicant can leave and return through the private registration link. The Progress step shows the current stage and a readable build log. The platform administrator sees the same request under Site registrations, with status filters, build history and the actions appropriate to its state.
\nAn administrator can open the review site, open the reviewer login, stop a queued or running build, retry a failure, find the source pages again and rebuild, mark a result as needing work, or approve it. Retrying resumes from saved progress where possible; finding pages again deliberately refreshes the source inventory first.
\nWhen the site is ready, the reviewer is emailed. Approval creates or updates the registered committee member as an administrator, enables normal estate deployment and sends the group its site address and password-setting link.
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Platform administrators can run site-registration processing immediately while its regular schedule is disabled.
\nThe generated import remains visible under Admin → Settings → Migration Settings. Content sections explain, in plain language, which old page feeds each new page, how child pages are handled, which layout is used and which clean-up steps apply. Advanced site-wide rules stay collapsed until they are needed.
\nThe activity list records migration runs, and the saved settings can be adjusted before another import. This makes the generated site maintainable without requiring somebody to understand the migration code.
\nDestroying a review environment removes that site's files, file versions and delete markers, drops only that site's MongoDB database and removes its own database user. It never drops a shared MongoDB cluster or a shared user. If cleanup is incomplete, the environment record is retained so the same name cannot be silently reused while remnants still exist.
\nOnce cleanup succeeds, the same group and environment name can be registered again without clashing with the earlier attempt.
\nTurn on public registration under Site registrations, open Register your group or area and submit a test registration. For Full, use Find pages and review the proposed content tree before building. Follow the request from the administrator page, open the review site when it is ready, check its navigation, words, photos, documents, committee contacts and Walks Manager content, then either approve it or return it for more work.
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