ManageWP Orion development has been an exciting ride these past two years. We started the closed beta back in January 2015. Your feedback helped us build Orion the way you need it to be. In October 2015 we released Orion in mirror mode because we wanted to share the new dashboard and the new backup with the community. This generated a ton of useful feedback, and gradual addition of new tools helped us nail each tool before moving on to the next one.
It’s March now, and we’re only one milestone away from completing the Orion roadmap. The final SEO milestone will be released next week, and I’ll use this moment to go over our plans for the future.
To-Do List Before Classic ManageWP Goes Away
The Classic dashboard is going away in the next 45-60 days. We’ll use this time to do a bunch of minor things like bug fixes, optimization, security audits, onboarding, release party planning (can’t have too much confetti) and more. I’ve outlined some of the most important ones below.
The new pricing model
We did several rounds of pricing experiments and came up with the right model that we’ll publish next week. We’re talking about flexible, per-site, per-tool pricing. You’ll pick and choose only the tools you need, and mix different levels of service on a single account.
- The free level is getting a lot of love. We’re removing the website cap, so you can add as many free websites to your account as you want. Some of the previously premium features are now free, like Manage Users and Google Analytics integration.
- Custom plans. Instead of paying for all the tools in a plan, simply pick just the ones you need, and lower your subscription fee.
- Mix plans on one account. Instead of just one plan, you’ll be able to have as many different plans on your ManageWP dashboard, including the unlimited number of free websites.
- New payment processor. You’ve grown to hate our current payment processor with passion, offering us good money to have their staff fight polar bears with bare knuckles. The bad news is that the fight’s not gonna happen because of various ethical and legal issues. The good news is that we’re about to switch to a reputable payment processor, which should solve a lot of the payment issues.
Multisite support
You’ll be able to manage multisite networks from your ManageWP dashboard, using all tools except Backup and Clone. Due to the architectural difference (multisites share a single database), we can’t reliably clone or restore a multisite network, so we disabled it.
Classic backups are going away, Orion gets external backup destinations
For a time we thought about keeping the Classic backups in Orion. The reason? Some of you need the backup files in your own storage, because of the way you collaborate with your team, or you simply feel safer with backups in your own Dropbox storage. The problem is that the PHP script WordPress backups are becoming the thing of the past, and supporting them as well as Orion backups would be a nightmare.
In the end we found a way to drop Classic backups without sacfificing the functionality you need, by uploading backups from our infrastructure to an external destination of your choice. Because we <3 you 🙂
EU Data Protection compliance
At the moment, your backups are kept on our AWS cloud infrastructure, located in the US. With the EU directive prohibiting the export of personal data outside of EU borders, we’ll include the option of storing data on the European AWS infrastructure (the Ireland S3 storage, to be exact).
Various Backup and Clone improvements
The Clone to an existing website option will be here shortly. The Backup tool will get the include/exclude option. We’ve also getting a ton of code optimization and fallback methods ready to push live. They will further increase the reliability of your backup, clone and restore processes.
Various Client Report improvements
Some of the Client Report integrations are long overdue, like Uptime Monitoring. We’ll also add the option of further customizing your Client Report to match your brand identity, and more.
To-Do List After Classic ManageWP Goes Away
Once the Classic dashboard is history and Orion is the only ManageWP dashboard, we’ll focus on further innovation.
Automate everything!
Performance Check, Security Check and Client Report will get a lot of love by adding the ability to schedule them on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. In addition, the checks are getting notification options like Slack and SMS, and bulk action ability. Need to run 37 security checks? One click it like a boss.
SEO Audit
We’ve redefined the ManageWP SEO functionality. There’s a lot of room for improvement, so we decided to split it into two separate tools. The SEO Ranking tool that’s coming out soon will measure the success of your SEO efforts, and how you stack up against your competitors. SEO Audit will take things to the next level by running an in-depth analysis of you and your competitors, and providing actionable feedback. We’re very excited about this tool, and I believe that it will be an awesome news for everyone – you’ll drastically cut down the time you spend on SEO, and your clients will literally throw wads of money at you.
…and beyond
We’ve got a billion crazy ideas in our heads. We want to push things to the next level, keep innovating. Heck, this is how we came up with ManageWP in the first place. There are a lot of things done poorly in the world of WordPress, and we’ll give our best to set them right. NoIcan’ttalkaboutourplansforthefutureandthingswe’reworkingon. Whatthingsohstufflikehostingsafeupdatessecurityandmoreit’sallhushhushfornow.
Here’s to an exciting year ahead of us.
james
Please add Slack notifications as an option for uptime monitor tool! That would save us from getting a ton of extra emails and SMS messages! Thanks for all your great work — Orion is awesome so far
Nemanja Aleksic
Good news, James: Slack integration is already on our roadmap. Can’t say exactly when, but it will probably be live some time during the summer.
jpw94
what is the status of cloning to an existing webiste?
Hamid Peya
Glad to hear that you guys are finally seeing the finish line. I am very excited about SEO tools as i give it a try and the results were very satisfactory. But one the most important thing missing in this tool is to evaluate the ranks base of a specific internal url. We can focus each internal url on a specific, different or more than 1 keywords. So there should be an option to enter internal urls on specific keyword to check and analyze the ranks and competition. I bet It would be a great improvement. 🙂
Nemanja Aleksic
Duly noted, thanks! I’ve forwarded it to our Product team.
Let me know if you have any further SEO suggestions.
jack
Will backup be stored on your server or will we have to setup our own storage?
Nemanja Aleksic
Our backup comes with the off-site storage. You will have the option of uploading from our storage to your own.
SusanMarshallVA.com
For those of us that have been part of the beta, what will be the process for merging our beta account and classic account? I’m wondering if you will do this or if I’ll have to disconnect sites from one account and add to the other.
Nemanja Aleksic
Beta accounts are being treated as separate accounts. When Classic gets phased out, both your Classic account and your Orion Beta account will be converted into regular Orion accounts. At that point you can choose to use one or the other.
If you’d like, we can set up a mirrored Orion account like everyone else has, but you’ll be limited by your Classic subscription (e.g. can’t have more websites than your plan limit). In that case we’d need to delete your Beta account after you’ve emptied it.
kenny
I just want to say that I am super excited about all of the changes!! Finding you guys (and gals) has completely changed my website proposals and allowed me to generate additional recurring revenue after completing projects. The ability to customize plans per site will be tremendously helpful! So, a big THANK YOU to everyone on the ManageWP team!
I am curious, what do all or any of these changes mean for the mobile app? I love being able to use the iOS app to perform updates while traveling or on the go.
Also, are there any plans for modifications to the WP backend Support menu link that allows clients to message us? I think it is a phenomenal tool, but it’d be nice if it had a more customizable interface (i.e. customizable form or automatically gather info like browser, OS, etc… like when we submit tickets to you). I use Teamwork Desk for my helpdesk software and that’s where those requests go, but I’d like to gather more information from a client when they initially submit a ticket.
Nemanja Aleksic
Thanks Kenny, it really means a lot to us!
The mobile apps (both iOS and Android) are in desperate need of an overhaul. Since Orion has a completely different API, the apps will stop functioning for a while when Classic gets phased out. We tried outsourcing mobile development in the past and got badly burnt, so we’re very careful about how we’ll proceed with mobile development.
I’ll float the Support idea to our Product team, thanks for the suggestion!
colin
How many versions of the backups are kept? or is there one backup file for each site that gets overwritten each time?
Or can i tell by the calendar that all versions are ket, just like restore points in Windows?
If you need EU S3 where can you set that option or does it happen automatically?
Is it needed to check the subscription i have now because of the change in your pricing plans? if yes, where can i do that?
With kind regards,
Colin Boiten
Nemanja Aleksic
Hi Colin,
All restore points are kept. The backups are incremental, and since they aren’t stored as a single file, we can keep making incremental backups with minimum storage waste and hassle. That’s why we’ve made the decision to keep the restore points indefinitely for the time being.
You’ll have to switch the S3 bucket once we implement this option – it’s not available at this moment.
I’m not sure about the last question, could you tell me more about what you meant?
colin
i read something about a change in the pricing model as you use it now, do i have to check my current subscription or is the current subscription not going to change?
Nemanja Aleksic
We’ll give each active subscriber a choice: stay with the current subscription fee, but with improved tools, or switch to new pricing and get all the benefits and new tools. I’ll publish a thorough explanation in tomorrow’s article.
colin
Ok thank you for the reply, looking forward to the article
kontakt
Love the automate everything … it will save so much time! thank you for beeing open
Frank
edigest
Is Multi-Site working yet? I’m unable to add a MU site to Orion.
Nemanja Aleksic
Not yet, but soon.
carla
Hello, nice work!
Just one question for now, when can we expect to see the Client’s Report changes? Will we have more control over it? … change covers, choose order or design stuff? how far did you go?
Thanks. ; )
c
Nemanja Aleksic
We’ll push minor improvements live in the next month. Major ones are coming 1-2 after the Classic dashboard goes away. I can’t give you the exact details because we’re still working on the details, but the goal is for you to have much more control over it, including the option to localize it, which is a huge deal for everyone outside the US, the UK and Netherlands (iedereen spreekt Engels in Nederland) 😀
matt.rutherford
Great news that you are reaching this milestone – I especially appreciate the ability to mix and match tools per site.
My web ‘business’ is a mixture or things I do for friends, things I help out with a few things I get paid for – I’d like to be able to pare things down for those things I help out with, and then add all the bells and whistles for the paying clients – I have long thought about upgrading to the business plan to get SEO etc, but I only really want to do that for 3/4 sites in the 20ish that I manage.
Appreciate all of your hardwork in making Orion a great tool.
Nemanja Aleksic
Thanks, Matt!
Yeah, the idea is to have clear, transparent pricing, and to be able to mix and match tools as you see fit.
I believe we’ve nailed it, but I’m looking forward to your feedback when we publish the pricing article on our blog this Thursday.
nikos
Hi. Great work.
Is there any functionallity in plan to track all the user activity within the wp-admin? Like aryo activity plugin or like other with the same function? Because manage wp is already there so it could handle that process too.
Nemanja Aleksic
Yes, we’ve got plans for that. I don’t know how deep we’ll go, but for starters we plan on logging the core functions, like updates, plugin installs, user management, etc.
It will be a great addition to the Client Report, because sometimes you update stuff directly on your website and ManageWP currently does not count those updates.
Ian
YYUUSSSSS! Much excite for this. I’d love to be able to track all of that better, plus the ability to prove that something that another user did is what broke something would be valuable 🙂
john.defusco
Great work. However I was expecting more plugin management functionality like that on ManageWP Classic. Especially the ability to see all plugins/versions installed on all/selected sites on one screen, and the ability to install, activate, and de-activate with one click on that screen. That was remarkable. It also made it quick and easy to compare the plugins and versions installed on different sites, which doesn’t seem do-able at all on Orion. I also don’t see any mention of the Server Logs widget in Orion, which I’ve found useful in ManageWP Classic.
Living Miracles
I agree with this. These features have been very helpful for us too.
Nemanja Aleksic
Thanks, John!
Manage Plugins & Themes: no worries, the abilities will be added before Classic gets phased out.
Server Logs: I’ll have to check with the Product team tomorrow and get back to you with the answer.
Nemanja Aleksic
Hi John,
We’re a bit unsure what you meant by “ability to install, activate, and de-activate with one click on that screen”.
a) This functionality is already present in Orion. You just need to select all websites before clicking the Manage Plugins tool. You’ll then scroll through plugins and perform bulk actions, albeit only one plugin at a time.
b) The grid view is not coming back. It’s unwieldy once you go over 10 rows and columns, so we reimagined it in its current form
c) The ability to install several plugins at once on multiple websites will be here soon. E.g. if you installed a set of favourites from WordPress.org on multiple websites, you’ll be able to do it when we integrate other plugin sources (Dropbox, favourites, etc.)
I hope my explanation helped.
Oh, BTW the Server Logs will make a comeback, but some time after Classic goes away.
dale
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet
jjsararas
Thanks Nemanja, fantastic work team, I didn’t know about the external backup decision, makes me very happy too!
Nemanja Aleksic
What can I say, we’re full of surprises!
1lifeincome
Really the only ? i have is regarding backups. Currently, my LiquidWeb server transfers my BU’s to my AWS acct. Is Orions any Different? If so, how? I ask since i currently do Not do bU’s w/in Orion. Pardon my ignorance.
ps: Having found u guys is the Only reason i can see myself going beyond my current 30+ sites w/no worries!
Nemanja Aleksic
Thanks for your vote of confidence!
Orion backups are created directly on our AWS S3 storage. From there you’ll have the option of downloading the backup manually to your computer, or uploading the backup to your own S3/Google Drive/Dropbox storage. The second part is not live yet, but should be within a month.
stephenb
Will this be an automated process? I’d rather not have to manually move backups every time.
Nemanja Aleksic
It’s live now – all you need to do is choose an external storage.
Go to the Backups screen, and click on Backup Settings > Upload to external backups
jay
Will Orion support Maintenance Mode? Or will we need to return to using a third party plugin for that purpose?
Nemanja Aleksic
We’ll implement Maintenance Mode before Classic goes away. It’s a minor feature so we didn’t put it on the roadmap or talk about it.
I think the Product team is toying with a few Maintenance Mode improvements, but I won’t spoil the surprise.
jay
I haven’t seen any mention of Maintenance Mode in Orion. Will you still have that feature? About a third of all sites in our account at any one time are in maintenance mode. Or will we need to return to using a third party plugin for that?
ARS Cons.
Mutlisite…
When you say “except Backup and Clone” … do you mean that we will be able to Backup, but not to do a “Backup+Clone” operation?
Or do you mean that multisite will have no backup whatsoever?
Because I can live with manually restoring a MS backup, but I’d sleep so much better at night knowing my backups are handled BY YOU (and I assume you care about the quality of my sleep, else you wouldn’t have done this whole Orion project)
Nemanja Aleksic
We also care about the quality of our sleep, that’s why we do our best not to half-ass things 🙂
On a more serious note, you won’t be able to run multisite backups. I mentioned in earlier articles that multisites are complex, and to back them up properly and with 99.9% reliability would require a lot of developer hours; hours that we sorely need to create new tools and improve existing ones, not to mention thehushushstuffattheendofthearticle. We initially thought of completely dropping multisite support (we figured that, without backups, multisite support would be useless), but our users persuaded us support it after all.
Personally, when it comes to multisite backups, I’d look for a solution at server level. It’s easier for a hosting company to restore it if things go south.
Lori Newman
Look forward to seeing the new changes, I like the Orion look and feel. Right now I still have to switch over to the classic version to switch between accounts. We created three accounts for each package depending on our clients options. Will we be able to do that or will the new pricing not be needed to have separate accounts? Thanks so much!
Nemanja Aleksic
Separate accounts will become a thing of the past.
I presume you’re aware how tags work in Orion, or groups in the Classic version. It’s pretty much like that: you’ll simply assign a plan to each website, according to its needs. If you don’t assign a plan, it will remain on the Free plan by default.
The only reason we haven’t allowed plan mixing in the past is because it wasn’t supported by our payment processor. Heck, we even had to MacGuyver the ability to change your plan on the fly. The new payment processor is much more capable and flexible, wich opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
JeremyTolbert
This talk of a new pricing model has me very nervous. I have not seen any concrete information about a pricing model change and I thought that we were assured we wouldn’t see a large price increase with Orion. I’ve been generally happy with ManageWP but if I see a large price increase with this I will have to take my business elsewhere. I had very little in the way of issues with the old management tool.
Nemanja Aleksic
Don’t worry, you won’t see a large price hike. You’ll actually be able to trim cost and stop paying for the tools you won’t need.
Nate’s comment below did not take into consideration that he took a couple of new tools that aren’t a part of the Classic ManageWP service.
We’ll publish the pricing model details next week, as soon as we settle on a couple of details that as holding us back.
Jeremy Tolbert
Thanks, Nemanja – that is a relief to hear. The *option* to add new features and set up varying plans is a good one, so I’m glad to see that.
natebald
Hey Great job guys I am super super exited about 2 things.
First I pushed and pushed you guys several times about me being able to store my backups were I want. My guess is I wasn’t the only one and I am so happy you found a solution.
Second is the per-site pricing. I took both your surveys and was really concerned that my pricing was going to go from $135/mo for 75 sites to well over $300. I will be able to choose what features applied to what sites (can we make groups? as in pricing groups? New feature added?) I can even add some free sites in there as well!
The payment processor is good news as well, never liked the interface or anything provided before.
All in all nicely done. Can’t wait to have over 100 sites soon!
Nemanja Aleksic
Thanks!
The custom plans from the pricing survey are actually a way to mix and match different tools for different websites. Here’s an example:
– Your top tier service offers backups and uptime monitoring. So you create a plan that has these two tools, and put your top tier websites there.
– Medium tier offers only backups. You create a plan with just the backups, and put the corresponding website on it.
– The bottom tier is for friends and pro bono service. It’s free, so you can put as many websites as you want on it.
All this on a single ManageWP dashboard, and you’ll be able to create as many custom plans as you’d like.
natebald
Thanks. Just for clarifications, the concern for the big jump I had was selecting ALL features for ALL sites. So moving forward I wont have to do that heck, I might even save some money as one 3 clients want the SEO stuff.
Theresa Jennings
But if there’s an EU directive stating that personal data can’t be exported outside of EU borders, and we have to store our sites on AWS’s Ireland location, doesn’t that mean we can’t export our websites to the US? That doesn’t make sense. Maybe you could explain it more. Because my S3 account is here in the states.
Theresa Jennings
Hmmm, I think I understand. People in the states will be able to store on their stateside S3 accounts, and people in Europe will be able to store in the AWS Ireland location.
If that’s the case, never mind. 🙂
Nemanja Aleksic
That’s correct, Theresa. The US S3 storage is the default one for all ManageWP users, but you’ll have the choice of storing some (or all) of your website backups on the EU S3 storage. There’s really no benefit of switching to the EU bucket (the performance difference is negligible), except to comply with the EU directive.