Terms of Service
Please read this onlineiq Terms of Service document prior, and indicate your agreement prior to commencement of work.
Website Development Work
The process of our website development work is as follows:
- Initial Consultation
We will arrange a time to discuss your website needs in detail, so we gain an understanding of what you want to achieve. Following the consultation, we will discuss the project with our designer and developer and come up with a project estimate based on the information provided.
- Provision of Estimate
We will present you with an estimate in writing, together with any other relevant ongoing costs such as hosting or maintenance if you require this. Please note that all sites built with the Adobe Business Catalyst platform need to be hosted with this platform.
- Project Initiation, and Detailed Brief creation
If you accept the Estimate, we then provide you with a detailed brief document, which you complete and send through to us. We review this document, and get back to you with any further clarifications. Sometimes at this point new requirements or changes arise as a result of the detailed questions.
These are then reviewed and added / removed from the Estimate and a Fixed Price Quote is presented to you.
If you have specific images you wish to supply us with, or logos, you will be asked to provide these now; alternately we can select and purchase images for you.
Upon acceptance of the quote, we will issue an invoice for 50% of the quote. As soon as we the funds for the deposit have cleared, we begin the website design process.
- Website Design
We will work closely with the brief you have provided on your website design - the look and feel of your site. We design the home page concept. The number of changes and revisions of your design depend on the design package you have selected.
- Design Signoff
When you are happy with the design, we ask for confirmation from you that you have 'signed off' on the design. This means we can start the website build, and further changes to design are not encouraged. It is possible to make changes after sign off, but it will add to the timeline, and may add to the cost of the project.
- Website Build Initiation
Website build starts once the design has been finalised. It is generally the most time consuming part of the project, as each element of the site needs to be configured with both the design element and the functionality specified in your brief.
As each project is unique, the timeline for the build depends on the details of your project, and our current workload - so we will give you an estimate at the Project Initiation phase.
While we always do our best to meet a release date, factors which affect this include the speed at which we receive feedback/required information from you, additions which may become apparent as desirable, or factors outside our control - eg. customised coding requirements which may take longer to program than anticipated.
We recommend that you do not create any marketing dates or launches until after the Soft Launch of the website.
- Content Creation
Unless you have also commissioned us to create the content for your website, we will ask you to create the content to include on your site. This will include text, images (outside the any images part of the design), and details of any automated email responses sent to your website customers when they are interacting with your site (if this is a requirement of your website)
- Website Initial Release
At the point of initial website release, we will invoice you for a further 30% of your Fixed Price Quote. You will be able to view your working website and interact with it. This interaction will include...
- Customising and Testing
Until a website is released, there is only the 'idea' of what you think it will be like - despite the design being settled. This part of the process is very important and we ask you to spend some serious time reviewing and testing the site in all aspects of its operation.
We will ask you to compile a list of any fixes and changes at this point for our review.
We sometimes receive requests for changes and additional work at this point. In general we prefer to complete the project and then scope and quote for any changes, however if this is considered essential prior to the Soft Launch, we will quote and apply the additional work at this point. Again, unless these additions are very minor, they will add to the completion time frame of the project.
- Project Completion
Soft Launch.
Once you are happy with the website, and we receive your final payment*, we Launch it. This means that we have your actual domain name now point to your live site.
We encourage you to again test all functionality at this point, and show it to friends and family, so you have some people unfamiliar with the site interacting with it - this can bring up some minor fixes which have not been picked up before.
- Support and Training
Both of the platforms which we use have great built in support & training mechanisms and communities, however if you do not have the time or inclination to use these, you can purchase a support & training package from us, or use us on an as needs basis at the casual support and training rates.
Web Development Platforms
Following an initial consultation, onlineiq will provide a recommendation as to the platform in which your website will be developed. We mostly recommend the Adobe Business Catalyst online business platform, or the open source WordPress platform, however onlineiq have experience in a range of other products and will recommend these if your requirements fit outside of what can be achieved with our core product recommendations.
Both platforms have simple built in content management systems - so once a site is built it is easy to update. onlinieiq is able to maintain and manage your website if you prefer.
Guarantee
We guarantee the quality of our work, and will make certain that all aspects which have been outlined in the agreed quote and brief are working as described. If something is not working correctly we will fix it free of charge on the proviso that -
- it is related to our work
- it is not related to a limitation or a bug of the platform it is built on (this is not something we have control over, though we will always try to come up with an alternative solution or a workaround)
- it is not related to something being 'broken' by you as a result of accessing the admin functions of the site and making changes here
Hosting & Email
If your site is being built using the online business Adobe Business Catalyst platform, your hosting agreement is with Adobe Business Catalyst, and the terms and conditions are covered by
this agreement.
Adobe Business Catalyst servers are PCI compliant, and your site can be hosted in one of the three primary data centres - Asia Pacific, Europe or USA. If you have a specific requirement for where you want your site to be hosted, we need to know this at the beginning of the project.
If your website is built using another platform, feel free to ask us for recommendations of hosting providers.
*onlineiq reserves the right to postpone release the completed website until the final payment has been received. In the event that a website has been released, the access details for the website may not be released until final payment is made.