FAQs

Q How much does it cost to become a Kontrolit partner?
A Nothing. Zero. Nil. Zilch. £0.

Q Do I need to know any code?
A No. The admin panel is constructed in such a way so that you can populate and customise sites without any knowledge of code. A small amount of HTML knowledge will enable you to get a little more out of a Kontrolit site but it is not a pre-requisite.

Q How long does it take to produce a Kontrolit site?
A Providing we get a little notice about when you will be sending the design files through then we can normally turn it round here in 2-3 days.

Q I don’t have Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Fireworks on my machine and I prefer a different type of software to design my web sites what should I do?
A No problem. However we would ask you send some sample files to us first to make sure we can read/convert them here. It is important that the design comes through in some kind of layered format so we can slice images as required when building your site.

Q Does Kontrolit allow for any residual income streams?
A If we are working as a silent partner then you are able to mark up hosting and the license fee. You can also help with ongoing SEO work, generation of new content etc. See here for a full list of partner revenue opportunities.

Q I would like to pass off all work as my own and keep your involvement hidden from the customer is this possible?
A To a certain extent yes. We can bill you and you can bill your customer. The front end does not need to include any branding for Kontrolit. The admin panel currently includes a small copyright statement to Kontrolit.net Ltd. Thus if your customer has no admin panel access they would never know about us. We are currently investigating alternatives to even this last point so feel free to contact us for more information.

Q My customer has a list of requirements for their new site and there are a few small bits that I don’t think Kontrolit can do can you still help?
A When looking at any bespoke work there are two main routes forward:

• Firstly if the modification would be useful for all new Kontrolit site owners we will cost the job and provide the additional bespoke work at 50% costs. That mod would then be included in our next Kontrolit upgrade and you would use this new version for your customer’s site.
• Secondly if the modification really is only going to be particular to this customer then we will estimate the job and the bespoke work will be at 100% costs. We would then modify whatever the latest version of the site is for that customer. It is worth noting that any future upgrades for that customer can cost more based on the complexity of the original bespoke work carried out.

Q How do I upgrade to the latest version of Kontrolit?
A In the first instance contact sales@kontrolit.net for a quotation. Sites greater than version 3.50 will be significantly cheaper to upgrade as we are able to transfer content from the old site into the new site easily.

If you log into the admin panel you will see in the bottom footer of every page a number like 3.X.Y.Z.

• Where Z is a new number the upgrade will often happen automatically.
• Where Y is a different number then in some case the upgrade can be applied without the need to apply additional costs but you should contact sales@kontrolit.net to confirm.
• Where X is a different number then in nearly all cases we will need to rebuild the site as the underlying structure of Kontrolit has changed.

Q I am no longer working with my customer who has a Kontrolit site what happens next?
A We will ask to you contact your customer on our behalf to find out what their long term goals are for their site.

If they wish to continue using the Kontrolit system then the annual costs for hosting and the license fee can revert directly to Kontrolit.net if not already in place. If they require support in using the site then they get support directly from Kontrolit.net via our standard support channels. If they require design changes/upgrades to their site we will refer them on to other Kontrolit partners.

If they would like to move away from using Kontrolit then they will need to evaluate the termination options that are most suitable for them see here for more details.

Q What’s the future of Kontrolit?
A We want Kontrolit to be the best business content management system available. We have been developing Kontrolit since 2002 and version 3 of Kontrolit since 2006. In fact Kontrolit.net Ltd is now fully centered on the Kontrolit CMS product. We have many development ideas for Kontrolit to bring in new features and to make it easier to use for partners and end users. With some of the new technologies coming onto the main stream market in the next few years the future of Kontrolit is an exciting one.

Q Can I host the site somewhere else?
A All Kontrolit sites have to be hosted on Kontrolit.net servers. Fundamentally this is to protect the back end code which remains copyrighted to Kontrolit.net Ltd. However it also means that all Kontrolit sites are going to be running on fast reliable servers.

Q Can I make alterations to the source code of the site?
A You are able to edit predefined areas via the admin panel WYSIWYG source code button. If you are looking to make changes to the ASP.NET code itself that powers the site then this will need to be completed by a Kontrolit.net web developer as there is no direct access to the source code. Any such changes will be classed as bespoke work (see above).

Q What’s the different between Kontrolit and Kontrolit.net
A Kontrolit is the product. Kontrolit.net Ltd is the company that makes it.

Q What is Kontrolite?
A Kontrolite is a lite version of the full Kontrolit Product.  It is intended to enable you the partner to provide cheaper and better solutions where the client need or budget is small.

Q Can my customer keep their existing email setup?
A Yes they do not need to move their email to us. The domain can be split easily so that only the web site portion is moved over to our Kontrolit servers.

Q Do we have to buy domains through you?
A No. You can handle the domains yourself. Make sure your provider can give you some kind of admin panel so that you can quickly change name server records to Kontrolit.net or point DNS A records for the domain through to our servers.

Q Can I market / promote Kontrolit myself?
A Simple answer is Yes. In fact we encourage you to do so. You are free to copy any portion of the Kontrolit.net web site for your own site but we would ask you to reword the text so that we do not suffer a duplicate content penalty with the major search engines. If you don’t know what the means then please ask! There is nothing wrong with you saying that your company can provide “Content Management Systems” with the corresponding list of features.

Q My customer wants a new module to be switched on, is this possible?
A If that module was present in their version then yes it is possible to switch it on. There will be a cost to do this (see current price list). You may also want to consider your costs to setup the module. For example the SEO Tools module may need its key phrase list pre-populated by you etc.

Q How do you make Kontrolit?
A The primary language is ASP.NET and the C# flavour. We use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 to program the underlying code. See here for a technical overview of the product.

Q How much should I charge?
A That is up to you. Our prices are fixed and that should be where you start from. You should consider your design time, how long it will take to populate the content and also any training that you may want to provide to your customer. You can use our price list as a guide if you wish.

Q I have a bug and/or have suggestions to making Kontrolit easier to use who should I contact?
A You can contact anyone at Kontrolit.net with your bug or suggestion. We will then add them to our central database of future modifications or insert into bug fixing cycle. It is really important to us that we get regular feedback from our Partners. In fact Partner requests for modifications are normally sent straight to the front of the queue for the next modification cycle.

Q How often do you update Kontrolit?
A Updates can vary depending on the complexity of the changes being made. An approximate development cycle is currently 8-12 weeks.

Q What happens if my customer wants to move away from Kontrolit?
A See here for termination options.