Use your own website with Parkstack

Where to find it: keys are on Developers in the menu (console.parkstack.net/developers). Where guests find your website is under Park settings → Your own website (console.parkstack.net/settings/website).

Before you start: only an owner can make keys or switch where guests find your website. Whoever builds your website needs the Parkstack API pages at parkstack.net/developers; the Developers page lists them under For whoever builds it.

How it fits together

• Your website is designed and hosted wherever you like. It reads your park’s details from Parkstack with a key.
• Parkstack keeps everything you edit, sells your tickets and sends the ticket emails, as it does now. Guests pay on Stripe’s page and the money goes to your bank account.
• Some pages stay on Parkstack: buying tickets and gift vouchers, the page after paying, group enquiries, Privacy, Ticket terms and Contact. Your website links to them.

Make a key for whoever builds your website

1. Open Developers and choose Make a key.
2. Under What it is for, choose A website.
3. Under Name, give the key a name you will recognise, such as Main website.
4. Under Website addresses, add your website’s address, such as https://www.riversideadventurepark.example. Leave it empty if the website reads your details on its own server: whoever builds it will know.
5. Tick Allow testing on a computer while the website is being built, so it can be tried before it goes live.
6. Choose Make key.
7. Choose Copy and send the key to whoever builds your website. Parkstack shows it only once.

A key can read what you have published and start a ticket checkout. It cannot change anything, see your orders or take money anywhere but Stripe’s page.

Make a key for a phone app

If someone is building an app for your park, make a separate key for it on Developers: choose Make a key, then A phone app under What it is for, give it a name such as Park app, and choose Make key. An app key has no website addresses. Its limit applies to each phone, so it keeps working when many guests use the app at once. Guests still pay on Stripe’s page, and their tickets work with the Scanner as usual.

Send guests to your own website

Once your new website is live:

1. Open Park settings → Your own website.
2. Under Where guests find your website, choose Our own website.
3. Enter your website’s address under Your website’s address and choose Save.

Within a minute, anyone who visits your Parkstack pages is sent to the same page on your own website. The pages that stay on Parkstack keep working, and search engines are told to list your own website instead.

While your own website is in use, the Homepage, the seasonal homepage and Menus are not shown to guests. Parkstack keeps them, so nothing is lost if you go back.

To go back, choose Parkstack website and then Go back.

Keep your keys tidy

• See how a key is used: on Developers, each key shows when it was last used and how many times in the last seven days, and Requests by day adds them up.
• Change its addresses: choose Change beside the key, for example when your website moves to a new address.
• Stop a key working: choose Turn off. Any website using it stops showing your details at once. A key cannot be turned back on, so you would make a new one.

Turn off a key straight away if you stop working with whoever built your website, or if it was shared somewhere it should not have been.

Things that stop it working

• Your website shows nothing, or an error. Check the key has not been turned off, and that your website’s address is listed on the key with https:// at the start.
• Changes take a minute to appear. Your website keeps what it reads for about a minute, so a change you publish shows shortly afterwards.
• Guests still see your Parkstack pages. Check Our own website is chosen and saved, then wait a minute.
• You cannot make another key. A park can have five keys at once. Turn one off first.

Related

• Use your own web address, and let search engines list it
• Sell tickets online: what you need first