How does my Maintenance Package work?

Please note that in response to requests from our customers who enjoy the freedom of changing their site themselves, most of our website plans no longer include additional maintenance units for website changes to be completed by Datasearch. Most plans now only include the minimum number of units that we need to run regular security updates and scans to help keep your website secure.  You may need to purchase additional units if you would like us to add new content to your website for you.  Please check your own plan for further details.

What is maintenance?
Maintenance is a cost effective way of keeping your website up-to-date. Regular maintenance is important to the success of any professional website.

Why is maintenance cost effective?
Maintenance by our staff occurs off-peak. Scheduling the work when we are able to do it and avoiding costly overheads such as staff over-time promotes cost effectiveness.

How long will it take?
Maintenance is usually completed within two business days, however we may take up to 5 working days during busy periods. If your maintenance is urgent, please mark it clearly as urgent and we will endeavour to complete it within 1 working day, however this will incur double maintenance units.

How does it work?
When you need to change or update your site, the time taken to make the change is deducted from the total number of units remaining in your block of maintenance units. No need for order numbers or invoices; the work is simply done and recorded against your maintenance schedule.

Requests for maintenance are emailed to our support staff. Upon completion, you will receive a maintenance report via email indicating the work done and how many maintenance units were used.

How many units will the work take?
Design changes of up to 15 minutes duration will use a single maintenance unit while each 15 minutes of urgent work takes 2 units. Programming changes take 2 units per 15 minutes.  We may charge 1-2 units for quotations.

How long will my maintenance units last?
Maintenance units are valid for 12 months from the date of purchase.  Please note that unused units automatically expire after 12 months and are non-refundable.

How can I purchase more maintenance units?
Just call us on 07 3889 9939 or buy them online here.

What is not maintenance?
Any job which requires a new proposal, design mockups, programming specification, formal quote, or new testing website to be set up, can not be completed under a maintenance plan as it needs to be scheduled during normal hours. Website redesigns or redevelopments and new e-newsletter templates cannot be completed under maintenance.  Please contact us for more information.

The cost of purchasing new website components or plugins is also not covered under maintenance and will be invoiced separately.

What can maintenance be used for?
Maintenance can be used for tasks that you would normally complete yourself, or for tasks that are more technical and that you would like help with.  Some common maintenance requests are:

  • Replacing photos in rotating or static banners (includes resizing, compressing, adjusting the colours, uploading and inserting etc).
  • Adjusting text or adding news articles
  • Adding new pages
  • Inserting new items into existing pages (eg. photo galleries, news snippets, online forms, maps etc).
  • Adjusting your menus
  • Uploading and linking up files
  • Adding social media widgets
  • Embedding videos
  • Adding new users to your website
  • Adding or adjusting online contact forms
  • Training and support
  • And much more – if you aren’t sure, please contact us.

FAQ

I have received a maintenance ticket saying the work has been completed, but I can’t see the changes on the website – what is happening?
Servers around the world do not check constantly for new information as this would use enormous amounts of bandwidth. Instead they “cache” (keep) information and only check for changes periodically – sometimes every hour, sometimes every week. This means that when you open your website, you might see the old information unless you tell your server to check for changes by doing a “hard refresh”. Doing a “hard refresh” is very simple – just open the page that is showing the old information, hold down the control key and press F5.

Sometimes different elements can refresh at different rates on your screen – for example, you may see new text but an old menu on your site. Doing a hard refresh should fix this problem, but sometimes caching occurs at other places in the network.  Check out cachingexplained.com for a great explanation of how caching works.

I need to send you more than 12 MB. What is the best way to do this?
If you need to send us large files, you can either post them to us on USB/CD/DVD or use our maintenance request form, which allows larger uploads.  Alternatively, you may wish to use a free online tool like www.dropbox.com, which allows you to upload files to their website, then share them with us.

I need a change made urgently. Can I contact you?
Of course – you are welcome to call us to let us know that it is urgent, or send us a maintenance request marked “urgent”. Please be aware that urgent changes are charged at double the normal rate.