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Development Questions From a Client

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Sep 12.2004

A non-profit group I work with (I’m on the board) is in talks with a web design company to place our membership directory online. The organization is a media-production organization with about 600 members. I have a few questions…

First…one of our requirements is that visitors to the web-based directory need to be able to download PDFs of selected sections. For example, a visitor may just want to download listings for graphic artists or camera operators.

Should the web design firm be able to automate this feature? Once we designate certain sections that will be available for PDF downloading, can’t the web site automatically create updated PDFs at pre-determined intervals (daily? weekly? etc.). Or, it seems to me that there must be software that would allos anyone downloading a PDF to receive up-to-the-minute listings. (Listings will be continuously updated by members.)

And finally–if task can be automated, should there be any monthly maintenance associated with it?

My next question has to do with maintenence. What kind or routine maintenence should we expect from the web developer? We’ll pay a hosting fee, of course. But should we expect back-up services to be covered by our hosting fee? Any other routine items?

And what if their server crashes and our site is corrupted or knocked off the net…should the hosting firm cover any time spent getting us back up and running?

Thanks so much for your help. As a client, these kinds of questions can be perplexing.

Jim

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Full-stack Developer

1 Comments(s) ↴

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@VladdySep 12.2004 — Seems like the site should be database driven. I'm not sure why you need PDFs - visior will always be able to see the up-to-date information in the HTML format. But, whatever software you use to create PDFs from the database - you can run it when DB is updated - that way PDFs are always current.

All of the above is completely automated if developed right.

BTW, it may make more sense to create PDFs per request - depending on the number of possible choices.

Assuming that web developer provides you (as he/she should) with DB interface pages, that allow you to add/edit/delete members/their profile data, there will be no maintenance work for the developer (other than fixing bugs as you uncover them ? - and that should be free of charge). Any additional feature requests would be done as separate contracts.

Good hosting companies do daily data backups, but you need to confirm it with them. In any case it is always a good idea to make your own DB backups.

Good luck with your project.
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