Install it, configure it, keep it running
Everything an administrator needs to get AlumDeck onto a server and then look after it. Written for the person who will actually do the work, not for a procurement committee.
AlumDeck is a Laravel application on PHP 8.2 or newer with MySQL or MariaDB. If your hosting account has cPanel and a database, it will run.
What is finished and readable today
The documentation is being written alongside the first release. Everything below exists. Anything not on this list is not written yet, and we would rather show you the gap than send you to an empty page.
Installing on cPanel shared hosting
The whole install, from creating the database to your first admin login, with the six installer screens shown in order and the errors that commonly stop people.
Guide - about 10 minutes of reading
Version history and release notes
What changed in each release, what a security fix looks like, and how updates reach an installation you already run.
Updated with every release
Licence terms in plain English
One installation per licence, a staging copy, unlimited members, one year of updates, and what happens after that year. Short sentences, no schedule of definitions.
The operative licence
Starting an alumni association
The non-technical half of the job: a founding committee, a constitution, the first member list, and how the website fits around all of it.
Guide - for new associations
All guides
Longer pieces on running an alumni programme, choosing software and getting a portal live without a development office.
Hub
Ask a person instead
If the answer is not written down yet, send the question. Pre-sales, licensing and technical questions all go to the same place.
Reply within one working day
The chapters being written
These are the reference sections that will land here as the first release settles. They are listed without links because the pages do not exist yet.
Requirements and hosting
PHP 8.2 or newer, MySQL or MariaDB, the PHP extensions the installer checks for, and what to send your host if one of them is missing.
Installing and updating
The six-step web installer screen by screen, then how to apply an update to a live site without losing your settings or your uploads.
Modules and settings
Turning modules on and off, member registration and verification, batch years, directory fields, events, giving, mentoring and the job board.
Theme, menus and homepage
Logo, colours, navigation, footer widgets and homepage blocks, all from the admin panel. What you can change without touching a template.
Per-page SEO fields
Titles, descriptions and slugs on the pages your alumni and search engines actually land on, plus the sitemap the site generates.
Backups and troubleshooting
What to back up and how often, how to move an installation to a new host, and the short list of errors that account for most support email.
Where to get an answer while the reference is unfinished
AlumDeck is new. Pretending the manual is complete would waste your time on the day you need it most, which is the day you are installing.
Start with the install guide
Most first-day questions are installation questions, so that is the page that got written first. It covers the database, the upload, the wizard, the first login and the things that go wrong on shared hosting.
The admin panel explains more than a manual would
Settings are grouped and labelled in plain language, and destructive actions ask before they act. If a screen is confusing enough to need a paragraph of documentation, we would rather fix the screen.
The installer checks before it writes
The server check runs before anything is written to disk or to your database. If your host is missing a PHP extension or a folder is not writable, you find out on screen, in a list, with the exact requirement next to it. You can send that line to your host and they will know what to do.
Ask, and the answer becomes a page
Questions that arrive by email get answered by email first and written up here second. That is how this section will fill out over the first year.
The things administrators ask first
What does the server need to run AlumDeck?
PHP 8.2 or newer, MySQL or MariaDB, and the standard PHP extensions that come with almost every shared hosting plan: pdo_mysql, mbstring, openssl and an image library, either gd or imagick.
You also need a folder your domain serves and permission to write to it. That is all. Ordinary cPanel shared hosting from about $3 a month is enough to start.
Do I need SSH, Composer or a build step?
No. The download is packaged so that it runs after being unzipped. There is no Composer install, no npm build and no command line anywhere in the process.
If you do have SSH, nothing stops you using it. It is simply not required.
How do updates work?
Updates are released as a new version you apply to your installation. Your database, uploads and settings stay where they are; the application files are replaced.
Every release is written up on the changelog with what changed and whether anything needs attention after you apply it.
Can I turn modules off?
Yes, from the admin panel. If your institution does not run a mentoring programme or does not want a job board, switch those modules off and they disappear from the menus and from the public site.
Nothing you switch off is deleted, so you can turn it back on later and your content is still there.
What happens to the installer after setup?
It closes itself permanently. Once the install finishes, the installer routes return a 404 for good, so an old setup URL cannot be used to reconfigure your site later.
This is deliberate. A web installer that stays reachable is one of the more common ways a self-hosted site gets taken over.
Is there a demo I can log into?
Not yet. There is no public live demo and we do not publish demo logins, so anything you find claiming to be one is not ours.
What we do have is a screenshot tour of a real install with real content in it. Every screenshot on this site comes from a running copy of the software, not a mockup.
If it is not written down, ask
Send the question with the version you are on and what your host runs. Pre-sales, licensing and technical questions all reach the same inbox.
hello@alumdeck.com. A person replies, usually within one working day.