Frequently asked questions
Every question that comes up regularly in a first call, gathered in one place: process and cost, technology, data and hosting, and Hub. Question not here? Drop me a line.
Working together & process
In four steps: a free first call, an analysis with a concrete quote, development with early interim versions (a first prototype usually within 30 to 45 days), then hosting and ongoing development. You have the same point of contact throughout. The process in detail.
I usually work remotely. On-site meetings are possible by arrangement, particularly at the start of a project or for workshops with your team.
Embedded in it. I work in your repositories, follow your conventions and go through your review process if you have one. Where conventions are missing, I bring suggestions. The decision is yours.
You get the complete source code, the documentation and a walkthrough. The aim is for your team to be able to carry on by itself. If you want ongoing support or more development after that, we agree on it separately.
Cost & contract
For mid-sized clients I work with Automation+: a monthly package covering development, hosting, support and a fixed hour allowance for further development, rather than one large up-front investment. There are no per-user licence fees. What that means in your case depends on the scope, and that is exactly what the free first consultation is for.
For technical teams I bill on a day-rate basis, either per project under a fixed-scope contract or as a retainer with a fixed monthly hour allowance. More on working together.
Yes. We go through your process and you find out whether automating it is worth it, even when the answer is “no”. You are not committing to anything.
What decides it is how often a process is repeated and how long it takes each time. A routine that costs a day every month pays for itself quickly in small companies too. It is often worth starting with a single, particularly painful routine rather than rebuilding everything at once.
Because an automation is rarely finished the first time it runs. Processes change, special cases turn up, and somebody has to keep the thing running. Automation+ bundles development, hosting, support and a monthly hour allowance for adjustments. So you permanently have someone who knows your solution, instead of being on your own after sign-off.
Yes. Hosting, monitoring and security updates are part of the monthly package, with no separate operating fee on top. For applications outside Automation+ there is a monthly operating fee per application. More on hosting.
I expect it to, and build the solution with that in mind from the start. Larger changes are agreed separately, smaller ones come out of the monthly hour allowance. There are no upgrade packages or licence tiers pushing you into a bigger scope than you need.
There is no proprietary platform you cannot get back out of. Every solution runs in containers and can be moved to your own data centre or cloud environment. The source code is yours, and it is deliberately written so that your own IT department or another team can take it on. If you end the monthly package, the solution stays with you.
On request you receive the complete source code free of charge once the agreed term ends, documentation included. I build on open-source tools and write code someone else can pick up, so that your own IT department or another team can take the solution over. If you prefer, it runs in your own infrastructure from the start anyway.
Technology & implementation
No, that is the whole point. Excel, Word and PowerPoint stay as what goes in and what comes out. The difference is that the file gets produced automatically instead of by hand. Your team does not have to learn new software to work with the results.
Yes, that is a common starting point. Script collections that have grown over the years without tests, package management or documentation can be stabilised step by step: first a reproducible environment and tests for the critical paths, then refactoring. A big-bang rewrite is rarely the right answer.
Yes. In client environments built on Posit I work with Workbench, Connect and Package Manager: development in Workbench, publishing Shiny apps, Quarto reports and plumber APIs through Connect, controlled package versions via Package Manager. If you are only just introducing these products, I can help with the setup as well.
Where the licence cost does not pay off, Docker with ShinyProxy is the alternative. That is also the stack behind my own hosting, so I know what running it involves first hand. If you want IDEs and deployment on that stack as a finished package, that is what Hub is.
Data, hosting & security
That is your call. Every solution is containerised and runs in your own infrastructure as readily as in my hosting. If data is not allowed to leave your building, it runs on-premise.
On servers belonging to Hetzner Online GmbH in Germany. Both the provider and the location are entirely within Germany, and no data is transferred to third countries. Before any personal data is processed we sign a data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR.
Your staff, through personal accounts, with the permissions you decide on. Plus myself, as far as operations, maintenance and troubleshooting require it. I create and revoke accounts whenever you ask, for example when someone leaves the company.
I use AI where it solves a concrete problem. Which data gets processed in the course of that and where it goes is something we discuss explicitly beforehand. If external services are out of the question, the feature gets solved another way or dropped.
Monitoring reports errors and outages to me automatically, usually before you notice them. I usually get back to you within 24 hours and then take care of the fix.
Yes. Every application runs in containers, so moving to your own data centre or cloud environment is possible at any time. Hosting with me does not lock you in.
Hub
Yes. A trial runs on any spare Ubuntu 24.04 server and needs no DNS: the installer gives it a name under sslip.io, with real certificates. All you need from me is an account. Since the host name does not belong to you, keep customer data off it.
Pricing is not per user. It depends on whether I run the hub for you or you install it yourself, and you get a quote once I know what you have in mind.
I delete your registry account. Your hub keeps running on the images it already has, and
hub deploy keeps working. It gets no further releases, though, and the layer
with your packages and certificates can no longer be rebuilt, because its build starts
from my platform images. There is no licence server, no phone-home and no seat count.
Claude Code runs on your users' own Anthropic accounts, the RStudio assistant on their own login or a model provider's API key. If you prefer, I set up a different agent, including one that uses a model you host, or AI stays off altogether. The documentation has the details.
Your question wasn't here?
Then ask me directly. Or bring it to a free first call, where we also look at whether and how your process can be automated.