The Bones Staff Console: How We Plan to Run the Sites We Look After

The short answer

The Staff Console is our team's side of Bones 9: the internal tool we plan to use to run the installations we look after and to help the clients who use them. The console has been designed and prototyped, and is not yet built. Its specifications are still drafts, and no part of them is approved for production use.

Bones is the web platform we make, and Bones 9 is in development with no release date. The console is an internal tool for our team, not something clients use. We are writing about it because it shapes how the sites we look after are run.

The problem: running many sites consistently

Looking after one website is mostly a matter of care. Looking after many is a matter of consistency. Each installation needs to be kept up to date, and its web address kept working. Each client needs help when something goes wrong, whoever happens to pick it up. And what each client is entitled to has to be written down, not remembered.

Without one place for that work, it spreads across inboxes, notes and the memory of whoever dealt with it last. That is when requests get answered twice or not at all, and when nobody can say for certain who changed what.

When client organisations manage their sites through the Customer Portal, our team needs its own tool for the other side of that work. That is the staff console.

What it is being designed to cover

The main jobs in the design and prototype are:

• See every installation at a glance, with its health as last reported.
• Set up a new installation step by step, with a check before it starts.
• Look after web addresses and their certificates.
• Prepare and roll out updates, release by release.
• Keep a record of what each client is entitled to.
• Review diagnostics a client chooses to send.
• Ask a client for time-limited support access, which the client grants and can end early.

A support inbox and billing administration have been proposed but are not decided.

What you would notice

If your site is one we look after, this is how the console is designed to work. It describes the design, not a guarantee:

• Support access is yours to grant, for a limited time, and you can end it early.
• Every action our team takes is recorded against a named person; there are no shared accounts.
• Each release is checked before it is offered to the sites we look after, and checked again on your installation before it goes live.
• Diagnostics are shared only when you send them.

How it fits with the core and the portal

Bones 9 is made of three connected parts. Bones Core is the part every site runs on. The Customer Portal is the client organisation's side, and the Staff Console is ours. How support requests pass between them is still being decided.

Where it stands today

The console has been designed and prototyped, and is not yet built. Its specifications are still drafts, and no part of them is approved for production use. The Bones 9 staff console case study records what it covers.

Bones 9 as a whole is in development and is not generally available, and there is no release date. Until it is ready, our larger sites run on Bones 8.0. The Bones page shows the roadmap, and Bones from 8.0 to 9.0 tells the story so far.

What this means for you now

Nothing changes for you yet. Today, the sites we look after are cared for through our continuity plans, monthly plans on a 12-month agreement. Essential Continuity keeps the site updated and checked, with a monthly health check, minor fixes and email support, Monday to Friday. Governance and Strategic Continuity add more support and review time.

If you want a site built on Bones today, that is done through Bones Implementation, starting with a Structural Blueprint from Structural Strategy.

The idea behind the console is simple: looking after many sites well should rest on records, not memory. That means a record of what our team did and who did it, what each client is entitled to, and which support access is open and for how long. The design is built around those records.