Getting started for Partners

Helpful Collection of Pantheon Docs

Before you get started actually moving sites in to Pantheon, it is helpful to review this documentation from Pantheon for a general understanding of how to operate on their platform, with special attention to the Platform Considerations for any site specific functionality that may be limited by the platform.

Steps to Create a New Site Using the Quickstart Upstream in Pantheon

As a partner, you will have to create sites using Terminus, Pantheon's CLI. You will not be able to create sites in the dashboard. Once a site is created from the command line, you will be able to access it in the dashboard.

First, you have to create a new site. (We recommend using a specific prefix for all of your sites to make it easy to identify your sites and make sure that you have a globally unique site name. It's also best practice to avoid using words like "new", "test", or "redesign" as these age poorly.)

terminus -y -n site:create --org "ua-campus-web-services" "your-prefixed-site-name" "your-prefixed-site-name" "3162cc4c-2f75-40cb-8487-0c69bda99f39

Next, you will need to install Quickstart:

terminus -y -n connection:set "your-prefixed-site-name".dev sftp
terminus -y -n drush "your-site-name".dev -- site:install az_quickstart install_configure_form.enable_update_status_module=NULL --account-name="your-admin" --account-mail="noreply@arizona.edu" --site-mail="noreply@arizona.edu" --site-name="Your Site Name" --yes --verbose

Updating/Maintaining Sites on Our Upstream

In addition to rolling out new features and improvements that are specific to the University of Arizona, the Quickstart 2 will manage all of the Drupal core and config module updates as well managing any required patches (including removal of those patches when issues are resolved on Drupal.org). These updates are extensively tested by Campus Web Services and Arizona Digital prior to being release to the Upstream. The goal is to make it easier and less stressful to keep your sites secure and up to date.

However, using a distribution to manage your site's codebase is a new and different process for most Drupal developers, even those with extensive experience. Arizona Digital maintains a Quickstart 2 Maintenance Guide to help guide you through this process for sites on Pantheon or hosted elsewhere

Site Launch Processes and the Implications of Sandbox/Site Hosting Plan

As a hosting partner, you will have full access to all of the steps necessary to launch a site on Pantheon, except for the ability to upgrade a site plan since that has billing implications.

Upgrading a Site Plan

As hosting partners, you can create as many sandboxes as you need at no charge. When you decide to upgrade a site plan your department will be billed a pro-rated rate for the remainder of the fiscal year (July 1st - June 30th).

It is not required to upgrade site plans until you are ready to launch your site by adding your domains. Some teams (including Campus Web Services), choose to upgrade the site plans during development to unlock automatic backups.

When you are ready to upgrade a site plan, submit a request through our Contact Campus Web Services form with the machine name of the site and the requested site plan. (This form can also be accessed by clicking on Ask for help at the top of this page).

Managing Domains

You are able to fully manage all of the DNS changes necessary to launch your site by submitting a Campus DNS Request to the Service Continuity team.

Upon request, Campus Web Services can assist in coordinating DNS changes with Service Continuity. Our team typically works with Service Continuity to manage over 100 DNS changes each year, and have a very close working relationship and dedicated chat channels. If you would like us to help, submit the DNS Request first, and then reach out to our team through Slack with the ticket number.

Downgrading a Site Plan

When retiring a website, make sure to follow the following steps:

  • Submit a DNS Request to disconnect any domains connected to your Pantheon machine
  • Submit a request to downgrade your site plan through our Contact Campus Web Services form, making sure to include the machine name of the site to downgrade.

SSL Certs / HTTPS

All sites in Pantheon get an automatically provisioned SSL Cert from Let's Encrypt. When adding a domain to a new site, you will be given the option to pre-provision the SSL cert for that domain by adding a TXT record for each domain through DNS. If you choose to skip this step, the cert will automatically provision within a few hours of configuring DNS with A records pointing to your site.

Warning: complete this step when you are close to launching your site. If you add a domain to a site in Pantheon and more than seven days pass before the site launches, the SSL provisioning step will permanently fail. You will need to remove the domain from the site and add it back to resolve this issue.

It is also possible to bring your own custom cert if that is a requirement.

Best Practices for Sitebuilding

1. Building a New Website:

  • Deploy to Live Environment First:
    • Before populating content, ensure your website is deployed all the way to the Live environment.
    • This approach allows you to test updates in the Test, Dev or Multidev environment without risking your site-building work.

2. Post-Launch Development:

  • Use Multidev Environments:
    • After your site is live, conduct all development work in Multidev environments instead of Dev.
    • Multidev environments are an advanced feature included in our Edu+ plan on Pantheon.
    • Utilizing Multidevs keeps the Dev -> Test -> Live pipeline clear for the deployment of updates.

By following these practices, you can maintain a stable and efficient development workflow, minimizing risks to your live site and streamlining the update process.

Campus Web Services Platform Support vs. Pantheon Support

As a partner, you have direct access to our Platinum level support with Pantheon, as well as the same level of platform access as Campus Web Services. If you need platform level support for an issue deeper in the stack than you have access to, we most likely don't have access to it either and would likely just have to submit a support request to Pantheon on your behalf. We are happy to do so, but would likely just be a middle man, so it's not recommended.

Reach out to Campus Web Services support for the following types of requests:

  • Upgrading or downgrading site plans
  • Additional support for coordinating DNS changes with Service Continuity
  • Anything involving Custom Upstreams
  • Issues involving successful delivery of emails
  • Questions around CAS certificate bundles and general integration with University SSO
  • General questions around managing Quickstart websites on Pantheon
  • Elevating Pantheon support issues that aren't getting appropriate attention
  • Best practices, tips and tricks, migration related questions
  • Consultations about how to accomplish specific functionality on the Pantheon platform

How to Add Additional Modules to Quickstart Sites

Every site using the Quickstart 2 Upstream has two separate Composer.json files: one that manages all of core and contrib dependencies of Quickstart, and a separate file to manage any site-specific dependencies. The Quickstart 2 Maintenance Guide details the steps for adding contrib modules with Composer. If you do add any modules with this method, be sure to review the release notes for any new minor releases of Quickstart 2, since this is when additional, commonly requested modules can get added to the distribution. When a module gets added to the distribution, this will reduce your team's long-term maintenance burden since you will no longer need to track updates for these modules, but you will need to remove these modules from your site's composer.json file when applying these updates to avoid a merge conflict.