Moving your site away from SMILE to another provider doesn’t have to be awkward. This article sets out our process and expectations so that you can go into a migration prepared.
The Request Date
The “Request Date” will be considered the date in which you made a formal request to leave SMILE services, unless your account balance is not cleared. If your account balance is not cleared then the Request Date will be considered the date that your account balance was cleared after the request was made.
Timing
To ensure that you suffer minimal downtime for your website, we suggest that you leave enough time to make a smooth transition. We recommend 2 months as a minimum.
In order to begin a migration, you should expect your migration package to be delivered within two working weeks of your Request Date.
Migration Package
After your account balance is cleared in full, you will be provided with a zip file including the database and your public html folder including the website files – we refer to this as the “migration package”. This means that some installation and configuration will be required to get your site up and running on your new host. We do not offer migration support, so it’s important to make sure that you’ve either arranged some additional support from SMILE or another party.
We will prepare and send only one Migration Package. Subsequent Migration Packages will be charged at ÂŁ1000 ex VAT.
Theme
Your theme will no longer receive any updates from SMILE.
Plugins
We sometimes choose to work with plugins that require a commercial license in order to continue using. These are referred to as “Premium Plugins”. The license fees are covered with any Support, Hosting and Maintenance package at SMILE, but without this, you must licence and obtain this software yourself. For example: Gravity Forms is a premium plugin, and you can obtain a copy from https://www.gravityforms.com/ where licences start from $59 per year.
1st Party Microservices
Some SMILE products rely on microservices to enhance the experience. For example, Ping Pong (a SMILE microservice that powers real-time chat functionality) enhances chat functionality in a number of our products, by removing the need to refresh a page to see responses to questions.
You will not receive 1st Party Microservices as part of any Migration Package, and would need to source an alternative solution.
3rd Party Microservices and API Keys
We may use Microservices and APIs from 3rd party vendors. If SMILE holds the API key or license to a 3rd Party Microservice, you can expect that these will be revoked, and that this linked functionality in your site may stop working until you replace the key or license.