Upgrades, monitoring and supporting

Just this week we have been scanning through our clients’ hosting to ensure they are on the latest version of PHP (and ensuring the upgrades work).  Our team pulled up a report to show all the PHP versions used across the board.  For example, PHP 7.4 is not supported anymore – and in fact neither now is PHP 8.1.  So we have been working to upgrade everyone to go past that.

It’s easy to forget these things, but our scanner tool picked up that a few sites were on older versions, and on checking, we began to upgrade more of them.  This is more than just a “select the version” and go; you have to ensure other parts of PHP’s Extensions for it to fully work correctly.  We did just that across most of our websites.

WordPress Website Plugin and Theme Updates

Another very important element, for design but also security are the Themes and Plugins.  Sometimes they can be updated just for improvements, but they can also be for security reasons – closing loopholes found for example.  Our scanner tool gets notified of such reasons, so we can see at a glance if a WordPress plugin’s update is for security reasons.

Thankfully we are able to roll out updates across many sites, very effectively.  We had a number of these to do this week, and tail end of last week, which meant keeping everything clean and up to date.

Backend WordPress Fixes

The other element of this kind of support means we can access parts of the back end of a site if a plugin is partially updated.  Sometimes this happens, usually through an automated updated rather than a manual one.  But with our hosting, we can disable any plugin, if it causes an outage, and trace the cause of the problem.  This enables our WordPress Support package to keep your site running smoothly.

Other elements covered this week already have been changing a website’s “amount of products per page” it shows.  ie. by default some sites may show 12 at a time, to keep it running fast.  Some have what’s called Infinite Loading, which is a little like YouTube.  Ever see a “page two” on there?  No.  This is so you just scroll and scroll.  But on commerce websites this isn’t really a good plan, as one never knows where the last one is.  Nor can you reach the footer!

So we were asked to increase that amount, or show them how to do it for themselves.

Simple form editing for restaurant

We were also asked to edit a form on a booking website, where the user may put in 3 seats at a table, or 5+.  Trouble was, 5+ means very little, and our client decided it would be better of it simply said “other”, and enabled a box to enter how many, say ‘7’.  We were able to do this within their existing package, and it works perfectly for them.

We’ve also been working on a new Sectors area for a global client, so they can expand their “coverage” to show new or existing clients the sectors in which they work.  ie.  You might just have residential and commercial. But what if you have Security, Street Lighting, Ground Maintenance and so on?  Good if you can show these – like we do in fact!

Our work is extremely varied.  For example on Thursday and Friday we have consultations with two people in the hair/head industry (more on that if it happens), one in a Charity and one that works with Children.

All totally different requirements, from right across the UK.  We are very lucky to have so many varied backgrounds come to ask us for website help.

And onwards into April.  If you need us, just Contact Us and we are here for you.