Maintenance and support

Launch is the start of a product’s life, not the end. Dotqode keeps applications secure, up to date and improving after release.

What maintenance covers

We fix bugs, apply security patches and keep libraries and frameworks up to date, so your software does not fall behind. We watch performance and fix slow areas before they hurt users. Between fixes, we deliver small improvements from your backlog.

We also take over applications built by other teams. After a review of the code and infrastructure, we give you a clear picture of the application’s condition and a plan for what to fix first.

Why it matters

Software that is left alone does not stay still. Browsers and operating systems change, payment providers retire old APIs, and security issues are discovered in libraries every week. An application that has gone a year or two without attention can need weeks of catch-up work before a single new feature can be added. Regular, small upkeep is far cheaper than an emergency rescue.

Maintenance also protects the knowledge in your product. When the same people look after an application month after month, they learn its quirks, its users and its history. Fixes get faster, estimates get more accurate, and small problems are spotted before they turn into large ones. We keep notes on what we learn in your documentation, so that knowledge is never held only in someone’s head.

Common situations

Clients usually come to us for maintenance when:

• The agency or freelancer who built the product has moved on, and nobody knows the code
• An in-house team wants to focus on new features and hand routine upkeep to someone else
• The application runs on a framework or language version that is close to losing security support
• Small bugs and requests have built up in a backlog that never gets smaller
• A recent outage showed that nobody was watching the logs

What you get each month

A maintenance arrangement gives you a named team that knows your application, not a ticket queue that starts from zero each time. Each month you can expect:

• A clear channel for reporting issues, and a reply within the agreed response time
• Security patches and dependency upgrades, tested before they reach production
• A short written report of the work done and anything we think you should know
• Time set aside for improvements from your own list

Maintenance can follow on from an end-to-end project we delivered, or cover software built elsewhere. If your needs grow beyond small changes, the same people can continue as a dedicated team working on your roadmap.

Everything we change goes into your repository and documentation, so the knowledge stays with you.