Release Notes: Beginning DocumentCloud migrations to our upgraded platform

Over the course of the next week, a few brave newsrooms are getting upgraded to the new DocumentCloud platform, which offers a variety of improvements from speed and search to mobile-friendly annotations. Here’s how to cut to the front of the line or ask for a delay.

For previous site improvements, check out all of MuckRock’s release notes, and if you’d like updates emailed to you — along with ways to help contribute to the site’s development yourself — subscribe to our developer newsletter here.

Migrating accounts to an upgraded DocumentCloud experience

There’s roughly 3,000 newsrooms and 100 million pages of documents that ultimately we’re working on migrating from the current version of DocumentCloud to our upgraded beta, so we’re taking the process slowly.

Currently, all new newsrooms are starting with the updated version of the site. So if you don’t have a DocumentCloud account yet and you’re a newsroom, just apply and we’ll review your application and help you get started.

Over the next week, we’re upgrading newsrooms that have just one user and no uploaded documents. Maybe they just wanted to kick the tires a few years ago but never found the right time or the right document. This is just a handful of newsrooms — about a half dozen — but will help us identify any issues.

From there, we’ll migrate larger and larger newsrooms, giving roughly a week-long heads up before the migration occurs and a chance to delay the migration temporarily if needed.

Newsrooms can request access for some users for the beta, opt to get entirely upgraded sooner, or delay access until later in the cycle as needed.

If your newsroom already uses DocumentCloud and you’d like some users to have access to the Beta for testing and evaluation purposes, email us with the subject line “Beta Access.”
If your newsroom already uses DocumentCloud and you’re ready to migrate your entire newsroom to the new platform, including old documents, email us with the subject line “Beta Migration.”
If you’d like to delay your migration until at least a certain date, fill out this form as soon as possible and our team will note your delay request as well as offer any support we can to help you prepare.

See an overview of the DocumentCloud Beta in the video below; note that it covers an older version of the site and new features are released regularly.