common practice regarding access

[kellywt]

Hello all,

I've had a request from a customer, and would like to know what is common practice, before I respond to their request.

I have a website customer for whom I have designed and built a simple site( a few pages, 1 form, etc.) My contract included domain registration and hosting for one year plus one-half hour of webmastering per month. Additonal hours beyond one-half hour per month (after initial approval ) is to be billed. The customer agreed, and is happy with the site.

Now that the site is complete, they have requested to have the ftp access id and password to the site. They say are thinking in terms of wanting someone else to have access to the files "in case" there is an important situation and I am out of reach. They view this as having a spare key to the filecabinet, so to speak. "Someone else has a spare key to the file cabinet -- not just the bookkeeper" -- that is their rationale.

I have given them a good price and our relations are good, but my sense is that they may be giving themselves an option here to pinch pennies and do some future site changes without having to be obligated to me. Yet, I do not feel that this honors the original agreement.

Any input on common practice and how to handle this would be appreciated. Thank you!

[KDLA]

That is strange. In most cases, organizations avoid access, even if offered; they don't want the accountability if something gets messed up and requires your services to fix it.

What I suggest is to ask them, in a helpful way, what types of things they plan to do, if allowed this access. You could point out (in case they "forgot") that they do have 30 min. of "free" webmastering, and you'd be more than willing to take care of anything they want for them. You could also point out that the coding is quite complicated, and it might not be in the best interest of the website to have "too many cooks in the kitchen."

I wouldn't get too defensive, yet. Let your response be an "exploratory mission."

KDLA

[kellywt]

Hi KDLA--

Thanks for the response. I like your "too many cooks in the kitchen" metaphor.

Here's the lowdown. I do a lot webwork for community activists -- much of it is free or very reasonably priced. No one has ever asked me for this kind of access before. I am sort of the go-to person for webstuff in the neighborhood. This fellow was looking for a site, and I was recommended to him and gave him a low-to-moderately priced bid with detailed information of what exactly my bid included. He took the deal, and all has gone well. But--now he is non-chalantly asking for the access information.

I am not comfortable because he does have another volunteer webmaster who runs another site of his, and I do not feel that turning over the code was part of the original deal(even though it is simple code). But, if it is standard or common practice, then I would let it go.

I have checked in with you and your readers at this forum to find out what the usual practice is. I would like to be able to tell this guy that what he is asking for is not standard in the business, but I need to know if that is really true.

Thanks for the input -- and I welcome more!
--kelly

[tracknut]

Good advice. I'm also curious as to why you feel this doesn't honor the initial agreement. Do you have a contract that says you continue to "own" the IP on their site? Frankly my default assumption would be that the customer owns the IP, you were chartered to build the site for them, so it is within their rights to make this request, and frankly to dump you 100% if they chose. Your job is to make sure they have no reason to want to do that...

But certainly I'd approach them as described by KDLA, in an open way, and make sure they understand your goal is to satisfy them 100%, and you'd like to know if they have concerns in any way. The last thing you want to do is get into an argument with them about ownership of info, etc - that's a very last resort.

Dave

[KDLA]

Something you may want to do, in the future, is to have this sort of thing handled in your contract. If you're wanting to be the only "webmaster," then as part of the web hosting package, state that; if you want the design to be solely yours, state that, too. It probably wouldn't be good business to go back and stipulate those terms now, after the fact. They do, as tracknut said, have the right to access their site, for it is theirs.

It could be that they're not happy with the way it looks, but just don't want to confront you about it. As I said before, just do an "exploratory mission." It may be a big deal about nothing.

KDLA

[kellywt]

Here are the two possiblities, since I know they are comforatble with the design, etc.:

1) I am just being too paranoid, and they really just want access "just in case".
They know that I travel from time to time.

2) They are simply being tight with their money and don't want to feel obligated to pay me for tweaks and added links now that the the site is built. I feel that it would be honorable to keep me on, but as with all relationships, I can't force them to treat me with respect!

So, my question simply is: do webdesigner's customarily give ftp information away after a site is built? Is it standard? Does anyone else out there put this in their contract?

[KDLA]

Well, to answer your question: yes, I allow access. (Not only that, but have offered training on how to make simple edits.) But in every case, it's been turned down.

KDLA

[kellywt]

Thanks for the input. All good points.

It seems there is not really a "standard" in this area, and since I don't have much to lose, I'll keep the customer happy by doing what they've asked. If the story gets interesting, I'll post a follow-up here.

Thanks for the forum.