Client co-development - FAQ's
Upshot is built as a community-driven platform. Client co-development is one of the ways organisations can directly influence how the system evolves - helping us deliver features that benefit the whole user base.
What is client co-development?
Client co-development is a way for organisations using Upshot to help shape new and existing features.
It allows clients to:
- Propose new functionality
- Contribute to or fund development
- Collaborate with our product team
For clients this means we can prioritise features they are particularly interested in more quickly. For Upshot, it opens up more targeted development and the ability to develop features to address specific needs or use cases.
Some previous examples can be seen here.
Why doesn't Upshot build everything requested straight away?
As a social enterprise, Upshot balances development across:
- User feedback
- Strategic priorities
- Available budget and resources
- Technical considerations
The Product roadmap is designed to meet the needs of the majority of users, so not every request can be prioritised immediately.
Direct client contributions towards specific features allow us to allocate budget and time to these features more urgently, that otherwise may have taken longer to develop.
To find out more around how, as a Community Interest Company, we make product decisions please read here.
What are the available funding options for this type of project?
Fully funding a feature or co-funding with other organisations.
What is the cost of client co-development?
We go through a thorough process to determine a quote for each development. This involves:
- Detailed conversations with the client organisation to understand the requirements.
- Producing a suggested approach and cost estimate based on a number of factors such as developer time, prioritisation alongside our current Product roadmap, time for testing and quality assurance, roll out and implementation of the feature including updating our support material.
- Presentation of a reliable quote to the client.
If we fund a feature, will only we be able to use it?
No, all features become part of the Upshot platform and available to all users. This reflects our approach as a community-focused social enterprise. Several much-loved features have previously been discussed, part or wholly funded by organisations and are now available to the whole Upshot community – see some examples here.
What timescales should we expect?
This depends on the work agreed and the minimum would be 6 weeks. In most cases client co-development projects are prioritised and progressed at pace, particularly where there is clear scope, urgency, and agreed funding. This will be agreed in advance.
What happens if the development requires additional costs to meet the agreed solution?
As part of any development process, unforeseen challenges and technical complexities can occasionally arise, which may impact timelines and affect delivery schedules. While every effort is made to plan accurately and mitigate risks, some delays are sometimes unavoidable as issues are identified and resolved throughout the project lifecycle. The Upshot team members will update as soon as possible if this is the case. Clients are only liable for the costs presented in the official quote and organisations will not be charged for the additional costs.
What is the development process?
A typical process includes:
- Defining the problem and use cases
- Agreeing a proposed solution that wouldn't negatively impact any other user
- Specification and scoping
- Development and testing
- Review before going live
We’ll guide you through each step and ensure there are opportunities to provide feedback.
The suggested idea is built by the developers and then tested in a sandbox environment (a fake Upshot account) by the developers and the Upshot team.
Depending on the size and nature of the development this is sometimes shared with interested organisations/users for feedback in the development phase before being launched on the 'live' system.
The whole development process happens continuously in the background so users can continue to work on the system seamlessly, rather than having to 'update' or download versions.
Contact us
If you'd like to find out more or explore this further please contact info@upshot.org.uk