Publication
Onboarding a department onto Office platforms
A practical guide for departments and local authorities moving a service onto Notify, Pay, or Hosting for the first time.
The order that works
Teams that onboard smoothly do the same things in the same order. Teams that struggle almost always left the finance and data protection work until the end.
- Name a senior responsible owner in a Commonwealth department
- Complete a data protection impact assessment before you hold personal data
- Build against the sandboxes, which need no approval
- Agree settlement accounts with your finance team early, if you need Pay
- Book your service assessment before you think you are ready
- Request production access once assessment is passed
Realistic timescales
Non-production environments take three working days. Commonwealth ID approval takes about three weeks. Pay onboarding currently takes six to eight weeks because of phasing. Assessments are booked four to five weeks ahead.
Plan for the sequence rather than the sum: most of this can happen in parallel, and teams that plan it serially add months for no reason.
Related publications
Service assessment results 2025 to 2026
Every assessment the Office completed in the year, the outcome, and the conditions attached — including services that were not ready.