Watchful is a collection of tools and services that simplifies the maintenance and management of websites. But Watchful cannot solve every maintenance need for every user. Thus, you can extend Watchful with apps that communicate changes on your website to your Watchful account. What are apps? Watchful apps are WordPress Read more…
With the recent challenges imposed by COVID-19, it’s not surprising that the number of people earning an income from independent work in the U.S. rose 34 percent in 2021 (see below). But making the switch to freelance web development full-time is not an easy decision. To successfully make the switch, Read more…
Automatic software updates are an important tool to help keep your website running smoothly and to minimize maintenance time. Today we are announcing two improvements to our auto update tool: the ability to update core software automatically and the ability to pause automatic updates in a single click. Below, we’ll Read more…
As part of JDay USA, Watchful hosted an Ask Me Anything session focused on website maintenance. We invited a panel of Joomla and WordPress experts to help answer your questions. The session was a great success. The questions and discussion points covered a broad range of topics well beyond simply Read more…
Automatic software updates can speed up website maintenance dramatically. So, managing automatic updates in bulk — enabling and disabling them across many websites at once — is a critical tool for any digital agency. For instance, you may discover that a WordPress plugin breaks your sites or installs a backdoor. Read more…
The ability to schedule client report emails was first introduced at Watchful last Spring. We’ve now refactored the report scheduling and delivery system to make it more reliable as well as easier to use. Why schedule client report emails in the first place? Recurring maintenance plans are responsible for a Read more…
Aside from all of the uncertainty and change brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has been an eventful year for Watchful in terms of new features and improvements in the platform. This was especially true for some of Watchful’s core features such as updates, backups and reports. But we Read more…
eating and maintaining digital agency work-life balance can be challenging. The nature of the work lends itself to an “always-on” lifestyle. And the recent surge in the popularity of remote-work tools like zoom has made it quite easy to be productive regardless of your location. This compounds both the real Read more…
Here at Watchful we help you manage and understand what’s going on with your customers’ sites. We collect key information, including Google Analytics, uptime data, and logs of the important events on your site. Then you can gather that info in reports and pass them on to your clients. So Read more…
We’ll look back on 2020 as the year that auto-updates really became mainstream for open source CMSs. This change has been coming for some time. WordPress has provided auto-updating for minor versions since 2013. However, the pace of change has really accelerated in recent months: Here at Watchful, we’ve come Read more…