Frquently Asked Questions (FAQ)

For QLPC Information Technology Solutions (QLPC ITS)


Basic Website Support Questions


We offer website hosting through a partner company. Rates start at $70/year.

We offer development of small non-database websites that are based on purchased templates requiring minimum changes in design and basically only require insertion of customer brand, text, and images.

We offer maintenance of small non-database websites, template or non-template based, requiring minimum changes in design and basically only require insertion of customer brand, text, and images.

Website development and maintenance services generally costs from $300-$5000. However, we do periodically have discounts.

For example, our charges for a basic site built by us customizing a preconfigured template with your provided text and images is found below. For the e-commmerrce store, we provide you access to the store database and you load the data using our convenient tools. If you want us to load the data we can do so at an additonal charge depending on the amount of data you have.

Advanced Custom Software/Website Development/Maintenance Questions


We support development of software in all industries.

We support web/remote, desktop, and mobile phone/apps software and database development.

The customer can either choose to retain complete ownership of the developed software or license the software from us.

In a complete ownership contract, we develop the software and turn everything over to the customer including all licensing rights once all due payment is received.

In a licensing contract, we develop the software and retain ownership and the customer pays us a fee for use of the software to include sublicensing of the software to customers of the customer. Generally, license will restrict us to licensing the software only to the customer but the customer will be free to sublicense the product to others at whatever rate set by the customer.

Customer ownership of course means the customer will be out of more up front cost as the customer assumes all of the risk.

Licensing will generally prove to be less costly to the customer up front as the customer shares the expense and potential profit with us. Under this arrangement we see the initiative as an investment. Since we assume some of the risk we will mitigate the risk in our strategic fee structure balancing both our development expense with potential long term profit.

Under some circumstances, it is possible for customer ownership to transition to licensing and vice versa.

No two software projects are the same and therefore costs vary from low to high. The cost of the project is a function of several factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, functional requirements, placement platforms, complexity, and anticipated level of effort in terms of expertise and time.

We use an agile incremental iterative development and deployment approach. This means we develop and deploy capabilities in stages. This allows the customer to expend resources over time rather than all at once. It also allows the customer to proceed at the customers pace and even suspend or end the project at a certain point.

To support our flexible development and deployment and associated cost processes we offer a month to month contract arrangement which may be canceled with a 30-day written notice. Long term contracts are available which are typically offered at a lesser cost than month to month due to risk factors.

Of course, the relationship between project complexity and customer desired duration affects the types and number of technicians assigned which will consequently affect the cost within a given time frame.

We will only be required to delivery software that meets written customer requirements signed off on by us and the customer. Accordingly customer will only be required to pay for such invoiced software delivery.

Typically our minimum anticipated project cost to the customer is $10,000 for delivery and installation of a fully functional custom website or other software package. Exceptions may be negotiated if it is in our strategic best interest to do so.

We will usually be able to start on a project within 2 to 4 weeks of being contacted by the customer.

The duration of the project will depend on the size and complexity of the project functional and technology requirements. Typically depending on complexity, very small projects take 1-2 months, small 3-6 months, medium 6-12 months, large 12 - 24 months, and very large 24+ months.

For very small projects, we will usually provide the customer with a reasonably precise estimated completion schedule and cost as part of the contract negotiations.

For small and above projects we will usually provide the customer with an estimate within the first month of contract start with refinements made as customer requirements become progressively more well defined.

Since successful software development is a collaborative process, effectiveness and efficiency requires you and/or your representative to be available for involvement throughout the entire process.

  1. Requirements Definition/Discovery
    1. Kickoff: Meet with customer and stakeholders to discover overall project goals, scope, and critical success factors to include any budget and/or time constraints.
    2. Competition Analysis: Who has similar products along with their strengths and weaknesses; what can the customer do/offer better?
    3. Macro Key Functional Requirements: Ascertain functional, privacy, security, and legal (federal, local, copyright) requirements
    4. Macro User Community Features: Ascertain user community user interface (Presentation Map, Process Flow) as to what they need the software to do for them in their usage (job, etc.)
    5. Macro Data Stores and Databases: Ascertain types and location of data, storage, and access (local, remote, frequency, privacy, security, etc.)
    6. External Services and Integration: Ascertain required services such as input data feeds from another organization currently used and/or price of new purchases by customer and systems connectivity
    7. Technology Platforms/Tools: Ascertain front end and back end technology platforms (hardware, software, languages, frameworks,, servers, desktop, mobile, etc.) available and most likely needed
  2. System/Software Design
    1. Layout/wireframe the way screens will generally look (unstyled) using dummy text/data to demonstrate structure, look and feel, user interaction, functionality, data/process flow, etc.
    2. Rapid prototype (clickable and/or unclickable) mockup of screens (Style, color, fonts, logos, images, icons, dashboards, etc.)
    3. Identify test suites to comprehensively ensure quality of software processes and database data and compliance to customer written and sign off on requirements.
    4. Generally, this phase takes at least twice the Requirements Definition phase but for simple projects may be less.
  3. System/Software Implementation/Coding
    1. Generally this involves assigning specific modules or submodules to each team member identifying input, processes, flows, output, privacy, and security requirements with a timeframe for completion.
    2. Coders perform unit/module testing as well as components (sets of modules) integration and whole system integration testing.
    3. Except for very small projects, independent quality assurance and testing personnel perform documentation verification as well as a second set of components integration and whole system integration tests to ensure quality and compliance of the coding to requirements.
    4. User are invited at strategic points to participate in the testing so as to discover potential problems as early as possible to avoid unusable work.
    5. This is an iterative process where quality and accuracy is ascertained in a stepwise fashion.
    6. Generally, this phase takes at least three times the Requirements Definition phase but for simple projects may be less.
  4. Customer/User Acceptance Review and Testing:
    1. Once a major component of the system is completed for operation, users are invited to test the system for deployment.
    2. Review and acceptane of user manuals and system/software documentation
  5. System/Software Deployment/Installation: System is signed off by customer and deployed/installed either by us or by customer according to customer needs/desires.
  6. System/Software Maintenance: Bugs are fixed and enhancements (e.g., new features, capabilities) made to system over an agreed to period of time according to a separate contract.

Depending on the size of the project, a typical team will consist of a Project Manager, one or more software engineers, and one or more quality assurance/testers personnel.

For software we develop we offer software maintenance contracts to include fixes of errors caused by us for no charge within one year of error occurrence. Errors caused by customer incorrect specifications of requirements or changes in requirements may incur a charge depending on the nature of the change. For software not developed by us we offer maintenance contracts as well.

Content of written contracts always supersede anything stated on this site.

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