Building your WebsiteMaking the decision to develop a website for your company or organisation can be an exciting time and as the Internet becomes increasingly popular you want to make sure your potential customers see the best possible image of you and your products and services. For many of our clients this is the first time they will have worked with a software development company like bos web systems. While we have years of experience building websites for literatly hundreds of clients, we're actually a software development company and do more than just websites. Our experience and expertise building a multitude of web-based software systems has allowed us to fine-tune our development process while maintaining the highest standards of quality and service. The information in this section is designed to provide you with an overview of how we go about implementing a website project from the proposal phase prior to commencing work through to the launch of your system and ongoing maintainence. One of the most frequent problems we encounter during website development is that our clients only discover toward the end of their project the importance of key decisions they made for us toward the beginning. This can cause significant delays or vastly increase the cost of your project without you being aware of why. To help you understand how your Website will come together, we encourage you to review this information and ask us any questions you have before authorising us to commence work on your project. Click on the diagram to the right or click Next to begin
1. ProposalThe first step toward developing your website is to meet you and talk about your needs and goals. Before we do any work, we will discuss with you your requirements, deadlines and budget, and provide you with information about our company, our products and our services. This information is formally presented in a Proposal document and will outline the costs involved including any third-party fees. This process is obligation free and will not cost you anything. If you have requested a basic website with standard features like our Content Management, EMailBlast or Event systems, then your proposal will outline the actual costs for implementing your solution. If you decide to go ahead with your project, you must formally authorise us to do so, sign our Software License Agreement and pay any upfront fees. In this situation we will then proceed to Phase 3 - Design. If however you have requested a system that requires more extensive customisations, then we will provide you with an estimated cost and schedule based on our experience with other projects of similar scope, and explain that we need to conduct a formal Requirements Specification. We will only proceed to Phase 2 - Requirements Specification if you authorise us to do so, in which case an upfront fee to perform this process will be payable. Additional Information
2. SpecificationIf during the Proposal phase we identify that you are asking for a system that requires extensive customisations then we will provide you with only an estimated cost and schedule to help you decide whether you wish to proceed and ask you to authorise a formal Requirements Specification. The purpose of a Requirements Specification is to perform a deeper analysis of your requirements by bringing one of our Requirements Engineers into the project. By exploring options and resolving basic problems before we commence work, we can significantly reduce the time and budget required to implement your system ? in fact, every hour we spend revising this document saves us eight hours to make the same change toward the end of the project! We charge an upfront fee to product a Requirements Specification document which is simply to cover our time if you choose not to proceed once we present you with the final costs. Your Requirements Specification document will contain a complete description of the system we will build for you and replaces any previous description contained in your Proposal. As part of this process we can explore options and cost these accordingly if you require. If you decide to go ahead with your project, you must formally authorise us to do so, sign our Software License Agreement and pay any upfront fees outlined within the Requirements Specification document. In this situation we will then proceed to Phase 3 - Design. Additional Information
3. DesignThe first step toward building your website is to produce what we refer to as your "Design" or "Mock Up". Your Design consists of a series of realistic images that are created by our specialist Graphic Designers in liaison with you. Some of these images will demonstrate specific aspects of your site (for example your "home page", "contact us", etc) and others simulate what the design will look like when viewed by your users via a Web Browser. Together these collectivly form your final "Design". At this stage your Design is simply a series of pictures, not the actual website itself. It is relatively easy for us to make changes to aspects of your Design such as general layout, colour scheme, fonts, font size, headers and footers, etc. in response to feedback from you. Once you approve your final design however we will proceed to "cut up" these pictures and convert them into the actual website and it becomes very difficult to make even basic changes like moving your logo from one side of the page to another or changing the background colour. Your proposal will outline how many initial designs and how many revisions we will perform for you during this stage and outline additional fees that will apply if you need to make additional changes. Our experience is that most of our clients do not require additional revisions or designs beyond those included. Because it is so important to get the Design "right" the next step is for you to authorise the final design by formally signing off our Design Authorisation. More Information:
4. Design AuthorisationAt the end of the Design process we will present you with a Design Authorisation. This document will contain copies of each of the images that make up your Design, and an authorisation sheet each which must be signed and returned to us before we can continue to the next phase. It is critical then that you understand that by providing authorisation you are committing yourself to the Design in its final form. Any additional changes you request after this time may occur additional fees even if these are because you misunderstood or misinterpreted. It may also not be possible to deliver your project accoridng to its original schedule. If you determine that a change to the Design is nessesary, you should get in contact with us as soon as possible without signing the Design Authorisation. The sooner you communicate your changed requirements to us, the more likely we will be able to implement them without causing signicant delays or you occuring any additional fees. The purpose of the Design Authorisation is to prevent the situation where you might approve a Design without really understanding what we are asking for and only realise once it is too late that it was not what you really wanted. We will repeat the Design and Authorisation phases as many times as nessesary to get your site "just right", but keep in mind that we won't start work until you sign off on the final Design. If you have a critical launch deadline you need to keep, then it is important to make yourself avaliable during this critical phase so we can move forward as quickly as possible. Once you Authorise your Design we move into the Coding phase. More Information:
5. CodingAround 60% of the work required to deliver your solution at our end occurs during this phase, what we refer to as "Building" your site, and most of this occurs behind the scenes. Your final Design is forwarded to our software development team who proceed to "cut up" the graphics and convert them into Internet compatible formats. We then apply our "Standard Framework", the engine at the heart of all bos web systems applications, and then depending on the options included in your proposal, configure and enable the site's navigation, Content Management System, EMailBlast and perform any custom development work you may have requested. At this stage your Website is generally not accessable, although it is possible for you to ask for an update review where we can demonstrate to you the work done to date from one of our offices. For larger projects we may combine this phase with the next step Deployment so that as we release sections of your website you will be able to view these over the Internet. Generally however the first opportunity for you to view your almost-completed site will be once it has been Deployed. More Information:
6. DeploymentOnce our Developers have determined that your website is stable, our Project Manager initiates Deployment which involves setting up any third party services such as domain names, hosting, databases, etc. Your website is then transferred from our internal server to your publicly accessible server on the Internet and any initial content generated or provided by bos web systems is then entered into the site by our Admin team. If you have asked us to provide content creation and/or data entry as outlined in your Proposal, then we will now provide this service. This may require additional meetings with you and for you to approve the final content. It is important to understand that if your Website includes our Content Management System, unless you have explicitly asked us to do so in your Proposal, you will be responsible for organising and inserting content into your Website once you have the ability to do so. We will now provide you with access details so that you can view your working Website and move to the next phase which is Testing and Training. More Information:
7. Testing & Training
Testing It is important to understand that if a change you request at this late stage involves a significant amount of re-work, you may occur additional fees and there may be significant delays. It is critical to understand the importance of ensuring the accuracy of your Proposal, Requirements Specification and your Design Authorisation before proceeding to help avoid this situation. Our ability to provide your website to you within the budget and on schedule depends on you providing feedback within a reasonable timeframe and with a reasonable understanding of the implications of key decisions. If at any stage you are unsure, unclear or have any concerns at all, you should contact us as soon as possible. The sooner we are aware of potential problems, the more likely they can be resolved without additional delays or fees. If you do not communicate any concerns to us, we will reasonably assume that you are happy and proceed accordingly. Training Training is usually the last service we provide in the development of your solution. The next phase is Go Live!.
8. Go Live!Once we have provided you with training (as appropriate), access to your management tools and you can access your Website online we term your project "Go Live!". This means that the system is essentially finished, pending any content that you are responsible for entering (as appropriate) at your end. At this stage we will issue you with a statement indicating that the project has been completed and provide you with an invoice for any final payment. The "Go Live!" status of your Website does not nessesarily mean that you will be able to or even want to Launch your site to the general public. If you choose to delay the Launch of your site, whether because you need time to create or enter content or because you ask us to provide any additional services, these are not considered part of the timeframe for your original project for the purpose of finalising your account. You should realise that if you request significant changes, additions or other modifications that are not included in your Proposal, Requirements Specification and/or your Design Authorisation (including where you misread or misunderstand these documents) from us then you may occur additional fees and introduce delays to your capability to Launch your Website. As soon as your Website is classed "Go Live!" we move into the Support phase.
9. SupportEvery project undertaken by bos web systems finishes in what we call the Support phase. Strictly speaking this is not part of your project, but simply all activities that are ongoing following the completion of your Website. Support itself has two two stages: Stage One - Warranty Stage Two - Software Support Agreement It is important that you understand that Support and Warranty services provided to you during either stage of the Support phase only apply to the Website as it is described in your Proposal or Requirements Specification (as appropriate). Support services provided in either phase do not cover the addition of new functionality, extending the scope of functionality that is part of your solution, functionality that is outside the scope of this proposal (ie. work that would significantly or unreasonably increase the complexity of this project, the time required to complete it or the resources required by us to do so) or any "defect" that is a result of you misunderstanding or misreading these documents or your Design Authorisation, or where you misrepresented, or failed to disclose, or provide adequate access to, information to allow us to correctly scope your project when writing these documents. More Information: |
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