What's the process for bringing a new site online?

If you have formal RFP, we'll gladly respond to the RFP. If you aren't sure what you're looking for, or prefer a less formal approach, a member of our sales staff will discuss your needs and summarize them in scope document. We will then provide a quote based on the functionality outlined in that document. If you choose to engage our services, we'll draw up a service contract for you to review and sign.

Upon receipt of the signed agreement, development of your website will begin. On or before the date specified in your contract, we'll deliver your site for your review. You'll then review the site and request any modifications that are within scope of the contract. Once you are satisfied with the site, we'll deploy the site to our production servers and you can begin publicizing its availability.

How long will it take for my business's new site to be online?

Since most business portals involve a certain degree of custom programming, there's no hard and fast rule about how long your project will take. Your contract, however, will stipulate a develoment timeframe to which we'll be bound. Furthermore, at the time we supply a scope document or respond to your RFP, we will generally provide an estimate of the development time required for your project.

Can I use SSL to secure my business's site?

Yes, SSL certificates can be used to secure your website. If you activate Online Payment Processing and wish to accept payments from within your own website an SSL certificate will be required. Because we maintain maximum availability for your solution by hosting on a "web farm", you'll need to acquire one certificate for each server where your app is hosted. Contact us to determine the correct number of certificates.

The cost of the SSL Certificate itself will vary based on the provider you purchase the certificate from. We use, and recommend, Thawte, http://www.thawte.com/ and Verisign, http://www.verisign.com/.

Is a long-term contract required to use this service?

Yes. We generally require at least a one year service committment for business portals with payment due upon deployment to production. The nature and complexity of your project may warrant a longer service committment.

Can I use a subdomain for hosting my site?

Absolutely. If your business already uses a domain, such as http://www.ization.com/, and you'd like your Ization Business Portal at a subdomain, such as http://customers.ization.com/, your ISP or IT staff will simply need to add a DNS entry that will point the subdomain at our servers.

Can I require users to register to use the site?

Yes. One of the available options for securing your site is to allow users to self-register. There are actually two types of registration that we support - auto-registration will give users access to the site immediately upon registering while validated-registration will queue the registration request for the person(s) you designate to approve the registration before the user can access the site.

Are there any restrictions on how this service can be used?

Of course there are, our lawyers wouldn't have it any other way! Your contract will outline the specific restrictions, key to which are limitations on use of our service for illegal products and services, unrequested email delivery (aka "Spamming"), as well as delivery of pornographic or sexually explicit materials.

Can I use a custom site design and/or integrate with the design of my existing site?

Yes. We support custom designs and integration with existing websites. We'll gladly include this in our quote if requested.

Can you integrate with... ?

Given enough time and money we can make almost anything happen. Most business portals require custom backend integration with existing systems and processes. We can help you to identify those related systems and we'll include the integration fees in the quote we provide.

Can we host this application on our own servers?

The infrastructure that supports Ization Business Portal is significant and robust. As such, the investment in hardware and software to support a standalone installation is significant. We can generally offer significant savings by hosting the application on our servers over a standalone installations. Additionally, our capacity-on-demand model allows us to easily add capacity to our hosted solutions as they grow, allowing you to focus on more important things.

That being said, we can quote your project for standalone installations on your own servers. If you are interested in installing your application on your own servers, please ask your sales representative to include this in your quote for services.