Managed Support for a 1C-Bitrix Website
Ad-hoc support is a "fire brigade" mode: something breaks, you call, you wait, you pay by the hour. A managed support agreement is a predictable resource: a fixed monthly hour pool, a priority queue, and accumulated knowledge of a specific project. For a site with ongoing tasks — catalog updates, rotating promotions, evolving integrations — a retainer is more cost-effective than one-off requests.
What Is Included in Managed Support
The hour pool is consumed by tasks of any type — not only emergency fixes:
Technical maintenance: Bitrix core and module updates, server monitoring (CPU, RAM, disk, logs), temporary file cleanup, monitoring with alerts, SSL certificates.
Enhancements and development: small new features, changes to component templates, adding fields to information blocks and CRM, configuring new business processes, layout fixes.
Integrations: maintaining and fixing 1C data exchanges, monitoring API integrations with payment systems, marketplaces, and CRMs.
Content: technical support for editors — CMS section setup, access permissions, fixing incorrectly rendered content.
SLA Structure for Managed Support
| Priority | Incident description | Response time | Resolution time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | Site down, payment failing | 30 min | 2 hours |
| High | Critical feature not working | 2 hours | 8 hours |
| Medium | Error in a non-critical feature | 4 hours | 1 business day |
| Low | Minor enhancement, improvement | 1 business day | By agreement |
Hour Tracking and Transparency
Each task is logged in a tracker (Bitrix24, Jira, YouTrack) with an effort estimate before work begins. The client sees the remaining hour balance in real time. Unused hours carry over to the next month (within one billing period) or expire — the condition is specified in the contract.
Monthly report: what was done, hours spent, infrastructure status (uptime, DB size, disk, response time).
Documentation and Knowledge Transfer
One of the key differences between a retainer and one-off tasks is accumulated project documentation: an architecture diagram, descriptions of non-standard components, a list of integrations with their parameters, instructions for content managers. When switching contractors, this dramatically reduces onboarding time.
As part of managed support, we maintain and update:
- Project README with deployment description
- List of all integrations with keys and logic description
- Changelog with dates and details of all modifications
Case Study: Industrial Chemicals Online Store
Situation: the site was launched 3 years ago by another vendor, no documentation exists, the last core update was a year ago, and the 1C data exchange fails periodically without apparent cause.
What was done in the first month:
- Conducted a technical audit: found 4 critical vulnerabilities (outdated PHP 7.4, unpatched modules with CVEs), 23 GB of garbage in
/upload/ - Upgraded PHP to 8.1 and the Bitrix core (rebuilt on staging, resolved 2 conflicts with custom components)
- Stabilized the 1C exchange: the exchange agent could not write the lock file due to incorrect permissions
- Documented all non-standard components
Ongoing regime: 20 hours/month — approximately 8 hours for planned maintenance, approximately 12 hours for minor enhancements and editor support.
| Work type | Hours/month |
|---|---|
| Core and module updates | 2–3 h |
| Monitoring and server maintenance | 2–3 h |
| Bug fixes | 3–5 h |
| Minor enhancements | 5–10 h |
| Documentation | 1–2 h |
What Is Included in Managed Support
- Fixed hour pool with tracker logging and monthly reporting
- Prioritized task queue with SLA guarantees
- Full technical maintenance cycle: updates, monitoring, backups
- Enhancements within the package without additional cost negotiation
- Ongoing technical documentation for the project