Today, on September 22, as promised we have released our Automated Security Check. You can go ahead and try it out now. For all of the information on how to activate it, and use it, have a look at our announcement post, you will also find helpful tips in our user guide. Let me tell you about our journey with the Automated Security Check, as well as what’s up next.
Automated Security Check Journey
As you know we aim to create features that our customers need to improve their workflow, and our motto is to automate your workflow, so that you can focus on things that matter. When we first talked to you about the Security Check, on December 7, 2015, and introduced it to Orion, we got a very positive response. The technology was all in place, and you were happy with the performance and elegance of the scans, but there was one thing that we could do better.
You told us…
You expressed your wish for Automated Security Checks, and here we are today, 9 months later, post Orion launch with fully automated scans. For us it’s important that you keep telling us in what way we can help you achieve maximum productivity. We aim to fine-tune Orion until it becomes a completely flawless product that fully takes away all of the boring legwork, and really let’s you be creative while you work.
The People Behind The Automated Security Check
I want to introduce you to some of the crew behind the Automated Security Check. As you know each feature that we make, we work on it together. We have experts from all areas.
We sit down and talk about how it will work from a development point of view. Our developers do the heavy lifting, they are the ones that work the long hours to make it a smooth running feature. Nothing would be possible without our design team, they discuss how to make the feature as user friendly as possible, and they work closely with our front end developers to bring it to life. We also have a mean QA team, that we all love to hate. They find every possible bug, test it and test it again. When all of that is done, that’s where I come in.
I chat to you about our features. I make sure you get all of the details about how to use it, and most importantly I listen to your feedback. This way every time you tell us what you like or don’t like, I take it back to my team and we can fix it for you. This allows us also to make new features that will make your day that little bit better.
Next Up On Our Automation Journey
We have a few exciting months ahead of us. The next thing that we are working on is making Performance Checks automated. You can expect this feature to be ready next month. After we release the Performance Check, we will start working on automating Client Reports, this is a big one you have all been asking us about. The Client Reports will be released the following month, so you can expect them around November.
Here is a quick automation plan for you to keep track.
Thank you all for helping us make Orion what it is today, keep up the good work!
bill
Was terrific, however has not worked on my account for a month.
Nevena Tomovic
Hey Bill,
Client Reports have not worked for a month? Could you send an email to our support and they should be able to fix it asap for you. Apologies for this inconvenience.
Thank you,
Nevena
ucheng.wang
This is awesome. Great job!
Daniel
Thanks for all! All this features are awsome.
I have a petition: clients reports in other languages to send to my customers.
Thanks.
Nevena Tomovic
Hey Daniel,
Yes translations of CRs are on the list! It’s a great idea, and I know how important it is to have something sent to you in your native language.
Regards,
Nevena
Syrehn
Looks like automation costs extra. Is this the plan going forward for all auto-mated features? If we pay for client reporting we’ll also need to pay for auto-reports?
Sort of feels like we’re about to start getting nickel and dimed…
Jason Brothers
I agree. I didn’t realise I would have to pay for this as an extra. Is that the way going forward, any new features are charged extra?!
Nevena Tomovic
Hi Syrehn,
The automation and notifications are a premium feature. For Security and Performance checks, there will still be a a free version, you can run either on all websites manually for free. However, what the automation means, is that you will be sent any issues that are detected on your websites via email or slack, so that you don’t have to go in a check each website individually. The Client Reports already come in a premium and a free version, the automation and notifications will be added to the premium version and the cost will remain the same.
Just also to mention that if you are using our all-in-one-package, the price of it remains the same and will include all automated features.
We in no way plan to nickle and dime you, we are creating features that can be used on different levels and suit the needs of all of our customers.
I am here if you have any other questions or worries.
Kind regards,
Nevena
Craig
For what it’s worth. I don’t feel nickel-and-dimed.
If there is any general statement that can be made about WordPress professionals in general it’s that they are cheap.
People need to start figuring out how to charge their clients properly and they won’t complain about having to pay for features of quality software. Their bad business model isn’t ManageWP’s problem! I’m baffled by how people would expect you to shell out money for all of these API calls from Sucuri or wherever you’re getting it from and then just give the feature away?
Great feature, great price. If there wasn’t the free non-automated version of this feature it might be a little harder to stomach, but I don’t understand how people can think this is unfair in anyway.
Figured after I teased you guys last week about the GoDaddy acquisition I’d stand up for you on this one. haha.
Nemanja Aleksic
Thanks for chiming in, Craig. Your ManageWP karma is once again in balance 😀
Syrehn
@Craig – While I can appreciate you wanting to come to ManageWP’s defence your comment was exceptionally rude.
I am a paying ManageWP customer, same as you, and I (as well as anyone else) have a right to voice our concerns without being called “cheap WordPress professionals” that have “bad business models” and don’t “charge clients properly”.
I didn’t say I was getting nickel and dimed, I said that it felt like we were about to be. I was concerned that there would be fees for all automation, including additional fees for premium services already subscribed too. Nevena’s comment alleviated those concerns without being insulting; unlike your comment.
Billy
Good stuff, glad to see some of the automated features ready for use to make our workflows more efficient.
Recently you did a survey on how much we charge for clients for our managed service. It would be interesting to see what all webmasters are charging clients for this stuff as I am currently going through this process. Is there any plans to release this information?
Nevena Tomovic
Hey Billy,
Thanks for the Q. Yes there is indeed, my colleague is working on crunching all results and writing us a post with the information. You will be able to see it soon.
Regards,
Nevena