wiki:TransitionMaintenance

Version 53 (modified by ed, 2 years ago) (diff)

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Monthly maintenance page

Page to organise the maintenance of TN.org and related servers

Monthly maintenance budget

  • We have a target of 22 hours per month for ongoing site maintenance (equivalent to £770 per month)
  • We seem to be cruising at 24 hours per month (roughly £850) at 16/12
  • We have an absolute maximum of 28 hours per month (equivalent to £1,000 per month) in Q1 2013 (Jan-March)
  • The assumed average hourly rate on which this is based is £35 p/h to take into account different tech's hourly rates. However, if a more expensive tech uses up more time, this can bend the money, while staying the time allowance - Beware.
  • Most of this work will be around website hosting and maintenance, but there will be times when developers (more expensive) do stuff too; this happened a lot in Q3 2013 as we had hard and software problems
  • All work done for this needs to be on tickets categorised with the milestone maintenance; it is possible to have different categories (task, enhancement etc.)
  • There have been various changes over this year which you can read about in the budget confusion section at the bottom of this page, which Ed has kept for posterity and if we need to refer to it later when we are reckoning budgets at the end of March 2014. Please don't delete these.

Monthly process in detail

  1. we have £1,000 per month for maintenance
  2. *all* maintenance work that wants to be paid *has* to be logged in TRAC maintenance tickets
  3. Web ops runs mid-monthly reports to get a feel of how we're doing and let all ttechs know on ttech list
  4. ASAP in a new month: Web ops runs end-month report from month before to sum up a month and assess techs' times and related costs. NB: beware TRAC as it counts all milestones into the 'developer work summary' which you will run to get the developers' times - so you need to match the milestone report total to the developer summary total to make sure you're not counting incorrect tickets.
  5. Web ops adds tech times to 'timesheets for techs' spreadsheet
  6. Web ops assesses tech charges based on different techs' hourly rates
  7. Web ops requests invoices for that month's work from relevant techs on ttech list
  8. Techs check invoice request and produce invoices which they send to Web ops
  9. Web ops checks ttech maintenance invoices, sets the timesheets spreadsheet to orange, saves a copy in business folder, sends them onto Jo for payment cc-ed to Sally for book-keeping (ref: Core budget, Web, maintenance)
  10. Any leftovers go into the general maintenance budget (can be used for agreed site enhancements)
  11. Jo pays the invoices within two weeks if possible and tells Web ops when invoices have been paid
  12. Web ops updates techs and updates the timesheets for techs spreadsheet of payment by making it green
  13. There is a general aim to have quarterly maintenance skypes for all concerned

Month's times ongoing

  • April 2013: 13:35 hrs: £421.89 billed
  • May 2013: 23.68 hrs: £773.39 billed
  • June 2013 34.93 hrs: £1,116.50 billed: Massive month with load spikes in particular and a lot of BOA work.
  • July 2013: 22.55 hrs: £900.69 billed: Another big month, and included 5 hrs of design time to patch up Transition Culture.
  • August 2013: 3.4 hrs: £118.50 billed: Very quiet - all techs on holiday. A lot of site problems though. Lots of time outs.
  • September 2013: 38.34 hrs: £1,367 billed: Big month; lots of drupal and server work to sort out performance issues.
  • October 2013: 33.57 hrs: £1,210.45 billed: Another big month
  • November 2013: 23.88 hrs: £808.81 billed: Calmer month.
  • December 2013: 35.15 hrs: £912 billed: bigger month
  • January 2014: 44.93 hrs: £1586.56 billed: big month, Jim moved on, lots of handover and learning
  • February 2014: 19.3 hrs: £612.31 billed: calmer again
  • March 2014: 33.46 hrs: £1,048 to bill: lots of BOA deliberation, WAGN work, intransitionmovie site archiving, mediawiki upgrade
  • April 2014: 38.3 hrs: £1,203.18 to bill: messy BOA update and related crashes, REconomy site hacked, Code publishing pick up ongoing, Debian updates, Heartbleed crisis
  • May 2014: 7.63 hrs: £635 to bill: SAM to fill in any specifics here - but didn't we publish using Aegir this month? (you can see a list of everything recorded by trac for a specific month using the Timeline, eg ​May 2014 Timeline -- chris)
  • June 2014: 31.33 hrs: £972.82 to bill: biggies were mediawiki upgrade taking longer than planned, publishing issues, and a few at 1-1.5 hrs.
  • July 2014: 31.35 hrs: £979 to bill: Debian updates (4 hrs), more publishing fiddling (6.4hrs and more) and discussion (3.5 hrs) over how and what of security updates, this includes some meets
  • August 2014: 16.61 hrs: £519.06 to bill: Discussions around policy, publishing etc. (5hrs), Debian updates (3 hrs), Annesley getting settled, smaller stuff
  • September 2014: 12.005 hrs: £431 to bill: Debian updates (3 hrs), mixed content giving warnings (2.5 hrs), other small stuff

Quarterly totals and averages

  • Q2: April-June 2013:
    • Hours total: 71.96 hours
    • Time average per month: 24
    • Total billed: £2,311.78
  • Q3: July-September 2013
    • Hours total: 70.44 hours
    • Time average per month: 23.48 hours
    • Total billed: £2,386.19
  • Q4: October-December 2013:
    • Hours total: 93.345 hours
    • Time average per month: 31.115 hours
    • Total billed: £2,954.725
  • Q1: Jan-March 2014
    • Hours total: 97.79 hours
    • Time average per month: 32.6
    • Total billed: £3,235
  • Q2: April-June 2014
    • Hours total: 89.96 hours
    • Time average per month: 29.99
    • Total billed: £2,811.15
  • Q3: July-September 2014
    • Hours total: 62.92 hours
    • Time average per month: 20.97
    • Total billed: £1,928.64

Tickets and handy guide to running reports

Notes about budget confusion here for posterity

Ed realised his budgetary maths was askew on 3/12 and that the monthly amount approved from the board meet was £6,000 + £3,250 = £9,250 = £770 per month. Somehow he had asked them for not enough money based on his assessment of 2013 Q2 (should have been approx £840 per month), and then incorrectly divvied up the money he got, assuming he got £1,027 per month instead of £770. So there is some confusion, and lots of the monthly analysis is now irrelevant, which he has since deleted for simplicity's sake (although you can see it at bottom of this page). During this panic, Sally pointed out that the web and IT budget, within which this maintenance stream lives, is doing well to date and is, as a whole, under-budget, so this stream's confusion could be absorbed as Ed has spent less in other places. THEN: Since this panic, we have uncovered some excess in the Inner Transition budget which can bring £230 per month to the maintenance budget, so we can have a ceiling of £1,000 per month. Ed is targetting 22-24 hours done per month for Sam in 2014. Ed and Sarah discussed this on 11/12/13; in 2014/15 budget, we will have one stream for ongoing website work to cover both 'maintenance' and 'enhancements' with a model to aim for a quarterly/monthly total, and then any leftovers will be rolled up into 'site enhancements'.

Changes made in July following board meeting and new budget and daily rate

Following the web maintenance report to the board at the end of the first quarter (April to end of June 13), the board agreed to raise the web maintenance budget by £3,250, taking it to total £9,250.

This gives us a quarterly budget of £2,312.50, and a monthly budget of £770. Ed took the mean hourly rates from Q1's invoices and will work on a higher estimate of £35 p/h for Q2 onwards to give us some space. So with the higher monthly budget and the higher daily rate estimate, we have a target of 22 hours for maintenance.

NB: this italics is OUT OF DATE: Keeping this here as Ed did some BAD maths - This gives us a quarterly budget of £3,08.33, and a monthly budget of £1,027.77. Ed took the mean hourly rates from Q1's invoices and will work on a higher estimate of £35 p/h for Q2 onwards to give us some space. So with the higher monthly budget and the higher daily rate estimate, we have a target of 29.4 hours for maintenance. ACTUALLY, Ed's maths was bad at assessment, and then break down - as the average monthly maintenance April-June /13 is 24 hours per month. So Ed really doesn't know what was going on.

Month's times ongoing

NB: these are Ed's OLD NOTES - NOT THE ONGOING ONES - SO IGNORE THEM - THEY ARE ONLY HERE FOR POSTERITY

  • April 2013: 13:35 hrs: £421.89 billed. 2.65 hrs leftover
  • May 2013: 23.68 hrs: £773.39 billed. -4.98 hrs leftover, £195.28 in debt.
  • June 2013 34.93 hrs: £1,116.50 billed. -23.91 hrs leftover, £811.78 in debt. Massive month with load spikes in particular and a lot of BOA work.

The board meeting in July agreed to raise the maintenance budget, so the July figures reflect the new budget (explanation below)

  • July 2013: 28.7 hrs: £900.69 billed. 0.7 hrs leftover, £127.08 in credit for the month. Another big month, and included 5 hrs of design time to patch up Transition Culture.
  • August 2013: 3.4 hrs: £118.50 billed. 26 hours leftover, £909.27 in credit for the month.
  • September 2013: 38.34 hrs: £1,367 to bill. 8.94 hrs over-time-budget, £339.23 over-cash-budget. But still 17.76 hrs under running total budget and £697.12. Big month; lots of drupal and server work to sort out performance issues.
  • October 2013: 33.57 hrs: £1,210.45 to bill. 4.17 hrs over-time-budget, £182.68 over-cash-budget. Still 13.6 hrs under running total budget and ££514.44; another big month but we're staying under the quarterly estimate owing to August's incredibly quiet month.
  • November 2013: 23.88 hrs: £808.81 to bill. 5.52 hours under-time-budget, £216-ish under-cash-budget. Calmer month. Good to get some cash under the belt; we're 'in the green' on the running total by approximately 19 hours/£700
  • December 2013: ... [month's total]: [£to bill]. ...