Introducing our new, groundbreaking, BigCommerce app, ThemeBridge. We’re going to talk about how much of a significant positive impact this app has had on our entire company. More specifically how it has improved the processes of our BigCommerce Site Optimization & Support services.
In summary, the ThemeBridge is a true sandbox staging environment built specifically for the BigCommerce platform. This means that you, your developer(s), and any agency partners you work with can use this app to test and preview how the work they’re doing will affect the live website before it actually goes to your live website. No more need to replicate your store in a static sandbox or continuously manage (and pay for) two websites for testing. For those of you who haven’t heard of this new App our software team released last month, please check it out here.
Better, Faster, Safer
Prior to the ThemeBridge, our Recurring Services Team would stray away from using default BigCommerce sandboxes if a website had one. Our developers found that standard sandboxes often included code that didn’t match the live website, or may have included code from a different developer who was working on an update that hadn’t been published yet. Since this had caused several issues for us in the past, our developers opted to work on websites locally, meaning their updates could only be viewed on their own computers. This meant, however, that their updates could not be shared with anyone and often didn’t include the code from apps, etc. that could potentially cause coding conflict. As you can imagine, this was not the safest way to develop on a website.
Now – thanks to the Themebridge – our developers can fully test an update, show it to the client for approval, and even schedule when that update will go live, right within the app. This true staging environment has been a game changer for our team and for our clients’ websites. As we implement conversion rate optimization strategies, SEO initiatives, or simply make general updates to a website, we can now rest assured that these updates will “play nice” with the live website and not cause previously unforeseen issues.
Many Cooks in the Kitchen – BigCommerce Developer Collaboration
Another added benefit of the ThemeBridge is its ability to allow multiple developers to work on one website at the same time. With our monthly managed clients we often have projects that take several months before being pushed live, but also during that time we continuously make smaller updates to a site. Now that we have the ThemeBridge, our developers can switch back and forth between one update to another update without running into conflicts during the launching process.
In addition to the ThemeBridge our team has integrated a version control system into our processes for all of our monthly managed clients websites. A version control system is simply a way to track every detail of what has been changed in the code of a website. This system also enables our developers to collaborate on the same site, merge their code together, and easily test for conflicts. This new process, coupled with the ability to push changes to the ThemeBridge for final testing and approval, has already proven to save us time, headaches, and our clients’ dollars.
Improved Processes Improve Results
Here at IntuitSolutions we strive to provide our clients with solutions that will help their businesses grow – whether it’s a beautifully designed and expertly built website, competitive marketing strategy, or custom app or integration that will improve conversions or streamline their business processes. The ThemeBridge has already begun helping BigCommerce stores in all of these arenas.
During the launch of a Blueprint to Stencil BigCommerce website migration, our development team can now preview how the new Stencil theme will look with their live data before the website even launches. This ensures a successful and smooth launch onto the new BigCommerce framework.
As we strategically improve the performance of a website through our Conversion Rate Optimization services, our team now gets the satisfaction of knowing that once an improvement launches it will work correctly and begin to immediately provide us with accurate data. While incrementally improving a website it’s important to have clean data, and the best way to get that is by launching updates that have been thoroughly tested prior to going live.
The best part is, the use of our ThemeBridge is included free of charge if we are building a new website for you or you are subscribed to Site Optimization & Support services.
Your BigCommerce Elite Partner
Whether you’re seeking to build a relationship with one of our monthly managed plans, would like to get a beautifully designed and expertly built Stencil site, or simply want to purchase the ThemeBridge app for your own team to use, we hope we can provide you with the best solution for your business needs.
Congratulations to the IntuitSolutions Software Team! You can more about how and why our software team built the ThemeBridge here.
