To ensure that quality and performance remains high regardless of the time of year, below are some key dates and activity to be aware of, and also some guidance on what you can also to do prepare.
UK Bank holidays
Poq does not work on UK bank holidays and will have small deployment and release freezes to ensure that everything is stable and predictable when we are not in the office. We will continue to have 24/7 monitoring and will react to any Poq caused P1 issues during this time but will not have manned support to react to non-critical issues or client caused issues.
Deployment and release freezes
There will be four small deployments and release freezes lined up with UK bank holidays and two slightly longer freezes to cover peak trading over black Friday and Christmas periods. Having deployment freezes will control the risk of any unforeseen issues that may arise after a release and ensure the app runs well when traffic may be high but dedicated resource is low.
Event |
2018 Bank holiday dates |
Last deployment |
Earliest deployment |
Easter |
Friday 30th March & Monday 2nd April |
Tuesday 27th March |
Tuesday 3rd April |
Early May bank holiday |
Monday 7th May |
Thursday 3rd May |
Tuesday 8th May |
Spring bank holiday |
Monday 28th May |
Thursday 24th May |
Tuesday 29th May |
Summer bank holiday |
Monday 27th August |
Thursday 23rd August |
Tuesday 28th August |
Black Friday & Cyber Monday (23rd & 26th Nov) |
Not a UK holiday |
Thursday 15th November |
Thursday 29th November |
Christmas & New Year |
Tuesday 25th, Wednesday 26th December and Tuesday 1st January |
Thursday 20th December (Dates subject to iTunes connect shut down) |
Thursday 3rd January |
What can you do?
Align with our freeze times
Often issues arise on the app when changes are made on the client side that links to the app. Please sync up with our freeze dates and don’t make changes to any feed structures, check out URL or any other code or integration that is used for the app’s functionality. If you change anything which goes on to cause an issue while we are in a freeze or over a bank holiday, we won’t be able to resolve it until the earliest deployment day.
Inform us of expected traffic spikes
Please also keep us informed of any sales, marketing campaigns or anything else that is likely to significantly increase traffic. We have auto-scaling set up and also will do manual scaling around Black Friday and Christmas sales, but it always better to be able to predict and prepare. Please complete the “sales tab” on your Support Google sheet and let the Support team know in your catch-ups.
US bank holidays
Unless it is also a UK bank holiday, Poq will be working the contracted hours for US bank holidays.
Event |
2018 Dates |
Support covered? |
Martin Luther King Jr Day |
15th January |
Poq is working |
Presidents’ Day |
19th February |
Poq is working |
Memorial Day |
28th May |
No Cover - UK Bank Holiday |
Independence Day |
4th July |
Poq is working |
Labor Day |
3rd September |
Poq is working |
Columbus Day |
8th October |
Poq is working |
Veterans Day |
11th November |
Poq is working |
Thanksgiving Day |
22nd November |
Poq is working |
Christmas Day |
25th December |
No Cover - UK Bank Holiday |
If you have any questions, please contact support@poqcommerce.com
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