Maintenance window announcement process

During project planning

1. Decide on target execution date.
   • Get input from Office of Research staff on critical deadlines and general calendar scheduling.
2. Decide on reasonable latest communication date (at least 14 days prior to execution date).

Prior to Communication Date

1. Compose a draft announcement.
2. Submit for review in Slack and revise until satisfactory.
3. Request review by IT Communications.
4. Add content to docs news page (https://docs.rc.uab.edu/news/) as a new section. You may add additional technical details here not found in the content to be emailed. Review, approval, and merge process should bypass the usual two-week release schedule.
5. Add news section URL to announcement content to be emailed to users.
6. Send content in email to hpc-announce@listserv.uab.edu
7. Compose one-sentence summary of announcement content and add to OOD announcement.md file in https://gitlab.rc.uab.edu/rc/rc-ood-message. Be sure to link to news section URL. Use merge request and get approval.
8. Add same or similar summary to main index page of docs in an announcement admonition.
9. Add maintenance window timing and information to https://status.uab.edu/admin.

Any clarifications or reminders that must be sent to all users should follow steps (1-6) above. IT Communications review may be elided for time-sensitive information.

Changes during maintenance window

Any changes should follow steps 1-6 above. IT Communications review may be elided for time-sensitive information.

If the execution date changes, discuss with Office of Research again.

After maintenance window

Unwind anything that needs unwinding. Do not remove content from news.md only because the maintenance window ended.

1. Send announcement to hpc-announce.
2. End maintenance window at https://status.uab.edu/admin
3. Remove summary from announcement.md.

Use the listed maintenance-window steps as the source of truth; review the docs news page, the main index announcement admonition, and the OOD announcement.md reference. Confirm that the workflow covers planning, communication, changes, and cleanup, and clarify which documentation update this issue expects.