SiteScan setup

You can change pages, filters, and people later in Settings.

What each plan includes

Prices and the current credit amounts are on SiteScan Plans. This table is the working limit for each plan. Yes means that plan includes the function. Scroll sideways if you cannot see every column.

Agency

Plans. Agency. Contact us for the price.

An Agency login has the same features as a Business plan. Your own website can have up to 200 pages. Client websites share one page cap. e.g. Ten clients with 500 pages each fill a 5,000 page cap. Choose the page cap (up to 50,000 pages) you need for your client base at Compare plans. You can move up to a higher cap when you need it.

Open Websites to add a client website, press Scan now, and set the monthly date. The list shows each client’s score and whether the last scan got worse.

Starter is free. Plus, Business, and Pro include credits. Credits cover a specialist review of a bug you add, and for caption and transcript work. Scans do not use credits. Settings → Credits shows what you have left. You can purchase more there when you need them.

Steps for every plan

Plans. Starter, Plus, Business, and Pro.

1. Confirm the organisation and the website. Check the name and the site address.
2. Add pages. Quickly add pages to your page list from your website's 'sitemap', to your plan's page limit. If it's available, just choose the pages you want to scan and track. If your site doesn't have a sitemap or if it is unavailable SiteScan will try other ways to scan your site's pages. Otherwise you can add page address(es) yourself. A page that only opens after someone signs in is usually missing from the sitemap. Type that path yourself, then save a sign-in. See Scan pages that need a sign-in. You can add or remove pages later at Pages. On Business and Pro, once a staging site is saved, SiteScan also asks which environment the new pages belong to. Auto is selected for you. See Choose Staging, Production, or Both.
3. Set the filters. SiteScan starts on WCAG 2.2, levels A and AA. Best-practice checks go beyond WCAG limitations. They are off until you turn them on but you can change this any time in Settings → Filters. Later scans and bug lists follow the filter you saved.
4. Extensions. Tick WordPress, a staging check before you publish, or Jira, if you use them. The short steps appear for the ones on your plan. If one is not on your plan, the step says so. Press Skip this step to do this later in Settings → Extensions.
5. Pages behind a login (optional). If some pages only open after a person signs in, add those pages and a test username and password. The first scan checks them with the public pages. SiteScan deletes that login when the scan finishes, unless you tick Keep this test login for later scans. Press Skip this step if every page is public. You can add a test login later in Settings → Scan filters.
6. Run the first scan. Press Scan now. When it finishes, Pages reloads. You can then open Bugs and Images. On Business and Pro, if you saved a staging site, there are two scans on this step. The first scan is Production. The next scan is Staging.

Business and Pro setup order

Plans. Business and Pro. See Business.

1. Staging site (optional). Save the staging website, or skip. You can add it later in Settings.
2. Add pages. Auto is already selected. A page on both sites becomes Both. A page on one site becomes that site only. Auto also adds pages that are only on the staging sitemap. Choosing Staging, Production, or Both adds only the pages you ticked.
3. Check environments. This step appears after a staging site is saved. It shows how many pages are on both sites, only on Staging, and only on Production. Change a page, or a path, if one is wrong. Continue if the counts look right.
4. Add users (optional).
5. Projects. Open Projects in the menu, between Pages and Bugs. Add a project, such as Checkout, and choose its pages in order. A folder path is optional. SiteScan checks each page. If a page is missing, you see a picture and how far the path got. The project has its own score. This does not change Staging or Production.
6. Filters. Same filters as every other plan.
7. Extensions. Same choices as every other plan. WordPress is on every plan. Jira is on Plus, Business, and Pro. Checking staging before you publish is on Business and Pro.
8. Pages behind a login (optional). Same as every other plan. Add the pages and a test username and password before the first scan, or skip. If you saved a staging site, SiteScan keeps that login until the Staging scan finishes, then deletes it unless you asked to keep it.
9. Scan now. If you saved a staging site, there are two scans on this step. The first scan is Production. The next scan is Staging. The button says Scan Production, then Scan Staging. Setup finishes after the Staging scan. Environment in the page header stays hidden until then. After setup, use it on Pages, Bugs, Images, and the report to see one site at a time. If you skipped staging, there is one scan.

Invite your team

Plans. Plus, Business, and Pro. Starter is one person. See Plus.

During setup you can invite the other people who will fix bugs. You can also do this later in Settings → Team. Plus includes 3 people, Business 10, and Pro 25. That count includes you.

Add a staging site

Plans. Business and Pro. See Business.

Often web teams publish updates to a Staging site for checks before pushing them live to the Production site. So catching bugs on the Staging site lets you fix them before they reach your audience. If you use a Staging environment, add it during setup, or later in Settings. Then say which pages SiteScan should open there. When you add pages, Auto can do that for you. During setup, if both sites are saved, there are two scans. The first scan is Production. The next scan is Staging. You do not pick the site from the header. After setup, Environment in the page header switches between Production and Staging so you can see pages and bugs for one site at a time.

On Business and Pro, the first scan can wait for a quiet time. Pick a time, press the schedule control, and SiteScan emails you when the scan is done, with a link back to your pages and bugs.

Choose Staging, Production, or Both

Plans. Business and Pro. See Business.

This choice appears when you add pages during setup, and later on Pages. It appears after a staging site is saved.

Auto is already selected. SiteScan opens each page on the live website and on staging, then sets the environment:

• The page is only on staging. SiteScan adds it as Staging.
• The page is on the live website and on staging. SiteScan adds it as Both.
• The page is only on the live website. SiteScan adds it as Production.

Auto also reads the staging sitemap and adds any page that is on staging but not already on your list. Those pages are Staging only. They show when you switch to Staging. They do not show on Production.

If the staging site has no sitemap, the message says so. Type those page addresses yourself.

If the page is missing from both sites, SiteScan does not add it. If SiteScan cannot open a site, it does not add that page either. That includes a staging site that asks you to sign in when the staging login in Settings is missing or wrong. The message on the page tells you how many pages went to each environment, and how many were left out.

You can choose Staging, Production, or Both instead of Auto. That choice applies to every page in that batch.

Adding pages does not start the scan. During setup, press Scan now when you are ready. Later on Pages, press Scan pages or Rescan all.

To change one page after it is on the list, open Pages and use Environment on that row. Tick Staging, Production, or both. Leave at least one ticked.

If you add a page again and Auto is selected, SiteScan updates that page's environment to match where the page is now.

Group pages into projects

Plans. Pro. See Pro.

A project is a slice of the site, such as a campaign section or a product area. Create one or more projects, such as 'Shopping Cart' that just contains shopping cart-related pages, then assign pages by path such as /cart/. Use the project filter on Pages and Bugs when you want that slice only.

On Business and Pro, an assign-pages step lets you set many pages at once by path. On Pro, pages under /help/ can go to a Help project. On Business and Pro, pages under /app/ can also be checked on staging. Fix any exceptions in the short list under the rule.

Extensions

Plans. Every plan sees this step. WordPress is on every plan. Jira needs Plus, Business, or Pro. Checking staging before you publish needs Business or Pro.

Setup asks if you use any of these. Tick the ones you use. The short steps appear. Press Skip this step if you want to do this later. You can set them up in Settings → Extensions.

• WordPress. You edit the site in WordPress. Download the plugin from Settings, upload it in WordPress, and paste the address. SiteScan then checks a page again when you publish it. See Check a page when you publish in WordPress.
• Check staging before you publish. After the practice site is updated, the person who publishes the site can ask SiteScan whether that update added a serious bug. See Check a release from your pipeline.
• Jira. You keep bugs in Jira. Connect once, then send a bug from SiteScan. See Send bugs to Jira.

If a choice is not on your plan, the step says which plans include it.

Connect Jira

Plans. Plus, Business, and Pro. See Plus.

After the first scan, you can send bugs to your own Jira Cloud site. Open Settings → Jira, connect, match the columns and the people, and save. The steps, and what stays in step after a bug is sent, are in Send bugs to Jira.

Check a release from your pipeline

Plans. Business and Pro. A client website on Business or Pro has it too. Starter and Plus do not. See Check a release from your pipeline.

After staging is deployed, run sitescan scan and the staging address. Exit code 0 means the release can continue. Exit code 1 means stop. Exit code 2 means the check itself failed. On GitHub, the same command adds a note to the pull request and a file GitHub code scanning reads. Open Settings → Extensions. The steps are in Check a release from your pipeline.

See which client website needs attention

Plans. An agency login.

Open Websites. One list shows each client website, its score, and whether the last scan got worse. Websites that got worse are at the top. A line above the list says how many need attention. Choose a name to open that website.

Press Scan now on a row to scan that website immediately. You do not have to wait for its monthly scan. Starter and Plus still keep their monthly rescan limit. Business and Pro can scan any time.

Scan a client website every month

Plans. An agency can set this for each client website.

Open Websites. In the Monthly scans column, tick the box for that client and choose the first scan date. The choice saves as soon as you make it. The first scan must be today or a later date. Earlier dates stay unavailable, and a typed past date is cleared so you can enter it again. SiteScan runs that website from midnight on that date, Sydney time, then on the same day each month. You do not press Scan.

A shorter month uses the last day. If the first date is 31 October, the November scan is 30 November. 29 February uses 28 February when the year is not a leap year.

Untick the box to turn monthly scans off. They also stop if this login is closed, the bill is unpaid past the end of access, or that client website is deleted.