Our hand-off document will be an important part of the project, as it opens up access and autonomy to the client in a way that will allow him to control the future of our project. The purposes of this hand-off document will be to instruct the client on accessing, changing, and using the app and code, as well as providing a description on the technical side of the app’s deployment. The client should come away with administrative or owner-level access to all components of the app and codebase as well as an understanding of how he could direct future developments for the project. Hypothetically, new developers should have the information and access to develop the project further.
During the development and testing process we may be temporarily using our own accounts for elements such as the Heroku deployment, but we will instruct the client on setting up his own accounts and access to such items. For example, we can transfer ownership of the MongoDB Atlas account used to set up the database or alternatively help him set up an account himself.
To facilitate the client’s learning, we will have a ReadMe page on the GitHub repository that details instructions on setting up the system, installing all dependencies, and deploying the application. We will provide our contact information (i.e. email, phone number) so that in the event that an issue arises, the client can easily get in contact with any one of us to answer any questions and solve issues. We will also include a section that provides later developers context and information on the app’s codebase and technical stack. This should make a hypothetical take-over process smooth for developers.
The financial side of the app, in the state that we will ideally hand it off to the client, is straightforward. The app’s deployment and database would not require the paid tier of any system we are using. To prevent any large financial expenses from incurring without the client’s knowledge, we shall provide some notes and links to information about the free vs paid tiers of products like Heroku and MongoDB Atlas.
Finally, we will organize a final meeting with our client to showcase the app, its functionality, and the basics of the information on the project set-up and technical side. We will record this video as well as potentially provide a separately-recorded video with more detailed information. These videos will be provided in full to the client via email.