Maintenance is the planned work that keeps a system healthy. Support is what happens when someone hits a problem: a supervisor can’t log in, an import didn’t run, a total looks wrong. Custom software needs both, because the world around it keeps changing even when the code doesn’t: browsers update, outside services change their APIs, and the database and frameworks underneath reach end of support.
Software maintenance and support services cover four kinds of work:
Where new work starts. A new workflow, a new set of screens, a connection to another system or a new group of users (say, opening an internal tool to your vendors) is a project, not maintenance. We scope those separately, like anything else in our services. When a request sits near the line, we tell you which side it’s on before we start.
For the routine tasks, by month, quarter and year, see our web application maintenance checklist.
