There are different types of update that we may perform on your place-branded app to ensure it functions how your users expect it to.
Most of the time these updates will take place without the user noticing or any action being needed but occasionally we'll let you know about larger updates, new features or when you may need to speak to your user base.
Over-the-Air Updates (Background Updates)
We regularly deploy over-the-air updates in the background. These can include security improvements, content changes, feature tweaks, or configuration updates.
These updates take effect the next time a user opens the app and require no action from you or your users.
You’ll usually be informed about these updates after they’ve gone live via our product newsletter.
Minor Updates (Recommended Updates)
Minor updates are small improvements such as bug fixes, maintenance, or performance enhancements that require an update from the App Store.
Most users with automatic updates enabled (recommended) will receive these automatically.
Users without automatic updates will need to tap “Update” in the App Store.
The app will continue to work without updating, but we always recommend installing the latest version.
We’ll normally let you know in advance and can help you target users with a push notification or email if they haven’t updated after a set period.
Major Update (Critical Update)
We only deploy major updates when the work we have done is essential to keeping the app working and live in app stores. This may be to fix a major bug, incompatibility issue with new devices or browsers or if Android or Apple change something that's stops the app working as it should.
If this is needed, our team will react and deploy any urgent fixes as soon as they can - we'll inform you of this as soon as we can.
Once the update has been made, we'll support you with wording for an email, in-app message and/or email to your users to keep them up to date and encourage them to make their manual update to the app as soon as possible.
Very rarely, the update requires a user to reset their password or confirm their registration on the app - if this occurs we'll also have our Support Team on hand with enhanced support hours to handle any user queries for a period of time after the update.
System Failure / Downtime
It is extremely rare for our place-branded apps to have downtime due to the software providers we use having very high reliability, reboot times and back-ups.
If there is a critical failure that results in our apps going down, or key features being unavailable to users, we will inform you as soon as we know by email, including any holding statement we'd recommend you send on to your users.
Our team will immediately start to work to diagnose and (where possible) fix the issue. Once this has been fully identified, we'll update you again with more details and an estimated time for this to be resolved.
Sometimes these issues are external to our app software and part of national or international issues/downtime which often affects large numbers of providers. If this is the case we will signpost you to further information about the issue in reliable national media.