Included with every Managed WP plan at Valice is the WP Toolkit. The Toolkit is a set of enhancements that make setting up, developing, maintaining, updating, cloning, testing, speedifying (hey, I needed a gerund) and securing WordPress a lot simpler.
It’s free! It’s already there. Just head to your Control Panel, and click on “WordPress” in the left sidebar, and you’ll see all the gizmos available to you.
There are a lot of ways to configure it to enhance your site. If you’re on one of Valice’s Complete WP plans, we’ll do that configuration for you according to our best practices.
One-click installation
Sure, installation is a one-time thing, and it was never all that complicated to begin with. But it’s mighty nice to go “click” and it’s done. You enter a few details like the site title and you’re all installed. The “famous WordPress 5-minute install” is now about 40 seconds.
Staging/cloning/deploying
This one is a big plus. If you’ve ever run an update or added a plugin or theme that knocked your site out of commission, you know this headache. With the WP Toolkit, you can clone your site to a staging address, run your updates or install your new plugin, configure a new theme, insert a script…whatever, and it won’t affect your live production site at all. After you’ve made your changes, you just copy the clone back to production, and you’re updated in one fell swoop. You can even exclude database tables or directories from transferring so you don’t get out of sync with product order or new posts that happen in production while you’re working in staging.
Also, you can set restore points, in case you’re pretty sure you’re going to muck things up, and you want a fallback position to erase your misguided tinkering. It’s ok; we all do it. (If you forget to set a restore point, Valice keeps at least 30 days of backups and we’ll restore your site for free. Just a reminder that we don’t suck.)
Automatic maintenance
Configure which plugins and themes you want to update automatically. You can automatically update the core, too. You can even choose to update small patches, but not major releases.
Central management
Depending on which plan you have (Micro, Standard, Plus, or Pro), you may have a bunch of WordPress installs on one plan. You can manage them all from one dashboard in WP Toolkit. Do a mass update, install plugins, even log into each site right from the dashboard (bye-bye passwords).
Added security
Harden WordPress in just one click. Tighten file permissions, make wp-config and other sensitive files inaccessible, disable PHP execution in cache, block directory browsing, shut off pingbacks, turn off xmlrpc, and more all in one click. After that WP Toolkit will continually scan your site for nasties.
Other fancies
There are too many details to cover in one place, but the WP Toolkit basically lets you manage a bunch of your WordPress websites from one dashboard. Log into your Control Panel to get started. (Where’s my Control Panel?) And then just click on “WordPress in the left sidebar.