UpdateLens: The Key to Worry-free Updates

Transcript

Hello, hi, good evening everybody, and thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Christo Wilfred, and I am a Growth Specialist here at BlogVault. I’m joined by some of my lovely colleagues today, and I’m really excited to take you through today’s session.

Today, we are introducing you to a game-changing way to manage WordPress plugin updates with confidence. If you’ve ever faced challenges with keeping your WordPress sites updated safely, you’re in the right place. This session is designed to provide clarity on why plugin updates are so important, the risks involved, and how our latest innovation, UpdateLens, can help agencies like yours eliminate the guesswork.

By the end of the session, you will understand the common risks and challenges in plugin updates, see how UpdateLens simplifies and secures the update process, get a live demo to show you exactly how it works, and have an opportunity to ask any questions at the end.

Let’s start by discussing the real challenges that agencies and businesses like yours face when updating plugins. Managing multiple WordPress sites means constantly handling plugin updates, but updates aren’t always straightforward. There are three main challenges:

1. The risk of breaking sites: Not all updates are created equal. Some fix bugs, others introduce new features, and unfortunately, some can break your site entirely.
2. It’s a time-consuming process: Testing updates manually on multiple client sites takes a lot of time—time that could be spent on more valuable tasks.
3. A lack of clarity: How do you know if an update is safe to apply? Should you install it immediately, wait, or test it on a staging site first? Most agencies don’t have a clear answer.

We’ve spoken to several agencies, and their concerns were clear. One agency owner told us, “Every time I see an update, I’m frightened. I fully expect to lose a week to the update.” Another mentioned, “I would rather do updates manually than break a site and have a customer call me to say it’s broken.” These are real fears. A single bad update can result in hours, if not days, of fixing sites, restoring backups, and dealing with unhappy clients.

So, what is the solution?

We built UpdateLens to solve this problem. It’s a smart, data-driven system that helps you make informed update decisions, eliminating guesswork and reducing risk. Instead of relying on intuition or manually testing every update, UpdateLens analyzes key data points and provides a confidence score for each update. This score helps you decide whether to update immediately or test it first.

How does UpdateLens work?

UpdateLens determines whether an update is safe by analyzing five key factors:

1. Code Changes: Compares the old and the new plugin code.
2. Version Gap: Checks how many versions are being jumped for an update.
3. Adoption Rate: Assesses how many sites have already installed the plugin.
4. Maturity: Considers how long an update has been live without major issues.
5. Popularity: Evaluates if a plugin is widely used.

Each factor contributes to the UpdateLens confidence score, helping users make informed decisions about plugin updates. Let’s dive a little deeper into each parameter.

Every update modifies a plugin’s code—sometimes just small fixes, other times major overhauls. Minor tweaks typically pose little risk, but big changes like UI redesigns or new features can break compatibility. Deprecated functions might stop integrations altogether.

How UpdateLens helps: By analyzing the depth and type of code changes, UpdateLens offers insight into whether an update is safe to apply directly or if it should be tested on a staging site first.

Version Gap: If you’re skipping multiple updates, you might miss crucial fixes or security patches. Big version jumps often mean more changes, increasing the risk of conflict. UpdateLens flags significant version gaps, indicating whether an update requires extra caution. If you’re several versions behind, it may suggest testing updates in stages rather than all at once.

Adoption Rate: The more people who have updated successfully, the safer an update likely is. A high adoption rate signals a stable release. If few users have updated, there may be hidden issues. UpdateLens monitors adoption trends so you can gauge the update’s reliability, helping you avoid being early adopters of risky updates.

Maturity: An update live for a while without major complaints is likely stable. Some updates introduce bugs that are only caught later. Early adopters help uncover such problems. UpdateLens tracks how long an update has been live, reducing the risk of installing an unstable release. If an update is very recent, it may suggest waiting before applying it.

Popularity: Well-maintained plugins with large user bases tend to be more reliable. Big teams mean faster bug fixes, and if a popular plugin has issues, the community flags them quickly. UpdateLens factors in active installations and update success rates to provide additional confidence when deciding whether to update.

Let’s break down the safety score:

• A high score (75-100) means it’s safe to update immediately. The update has minimal code changes, a high adoption rate, and has been live for a while without issues. The recommended action is to update your plugin directly from the dashboard without extra steps.
• A medium score (50-74) means you should proceed with caution. The update includes moderate code changes or version gaps. Fewer users have adopted it, or it’s relatively new. The update is likely stable, but there’s a small risk of conflicts. The recommended action is to take a backup first before applying the update, just in case a rollback is needed.
• A low score (below 50) indicates higher risk. These updates include major code changes or skip multiple versions. Adoption is low, meaning not enough users have tested it in real-world scenarios. The recommended action is not to update directly on a live site. Instead, create a staging environment to test for conflicts before applying the update.

All of this information is available right now in your dashboard, making it easy to see which updates are safe and which require extra caution. By using UpdateLens, our customers have reduced downtime, made updates faster, and established a smoother workflow.

Alright, I’m now going to show you exactly how it works. Just give me a second, and I will pull up my dashboard.

As you can see, this is the WP Remote dashboard. This is an overview of all the various tasks you can manage within the dashboard. I am currently managing seven sites. I want to bring your attention to this widget in the middle. I have 15 plugins across my seven sites. You can see which plugins I have and on which sites. The little number here is the UpdateLens score: 80, 65, 57. We’ve allocated an appropriate color, signaling the level of risk.

Let’s click on the score of 80. When you click it, you’ll see all five parameters we just spoke about. You can see that the code changes represent medium risk—368 PHP lines added, 191 removed, 185 CSS lines added, 236 removed, and no changes to JS files. The version gap reveals four version hops, posing a low risk. Adoption is steady with 50% of sites updated, posing a medium risk. Maturity is well-established, with 26 days since release, posing a low risk. It is a highly popular plugin with more than 50,000 active installs.

Now, let’s look at the score of 57. There isn’t enough information for a definite conclusion on the code changes, but the version gap is high risk with 110 version hops. Less than 30% of sites have updated, signifying high risk. Maturity is low (less than 3 days), also high risk. Popularity is still quite high, making it a low risk, but overall it’s a medium risk update.

Here, you can see a high-risk update. Again, we’re looking at the same five parameters, and four out of five are not green. It’s only a popular plugin, but it’s not mature, hasn’t been adopted well, and there are several code changes.

We have a button that allows you to update all of the low-risk updates immediately, or you can select them and click update to see an overview of all the different scores. You can delay high-risk updates and will receive an email reminder in 7 days to re-evaluate. Then, you can click next and update all of your plugins at once.

It’s important to note that UpdateLens is still in its early stages, despite its current capabilities. In the near future, it will be fully integrated into all our workflows, offering more automation to make updates even more seamless.

For those unfamiliar with us, BlogVault is a trusted name in WordPress backups, security, and site management. We provide reliable automated solutions that help agencies, businesses, and developers protect, monitor, and manage their websites with ease. From daily backups and malware protection to seamless migrations and bulk site updates, our platform ensures that your WordPress sites remain secure, optimized, and running smoothly without the manual hassle.

Now, let’s open the floor for questions. Drop them in the chat, and we’ll be happy to answer them. My team is ready. If we don’t get to your question, you can always reach out to us afterward, and we’ll assist with any queries.

Q&A

If I understand correctly, behind every plugin that needs updating, there’s a score. So, if you have a score of, say, 91, then it’s safe to update, correct?

That’s correct.

I have two scores here of 49 for WP Forms. What does that mean? Should I not update?

That’s a great question. A score of 49 can be due to several factors. The score is calculated based on five factors: the amount of code changes, version gaps, adoption rate, maturity, and popularity. For WP Forms, if the score is low, it may be due to significant code changes or a large version gap.

Since you already have a backup system, you can create a staging site, do the update there, make sure everything works fine, and then apply it to the live site.

I’ve noticed that sometimes the staging site works perfectly, but the real site breaks. Why might that happen?

While it’s challenging to debug everything, we’re happy to help with specific cases. If this happens again, please reach out to our support team. We’re here to assist.

For bulk updates, is it okay to update high-score plugins at once and be more cautious with low-score ones?

Yes, absolutely. That’s how we manage our updates. High-score updates are generally safe, while low-score ones should be approached with more caution.

When does a score indicate low risk?

A low-risk score is typically above 75. Anything below 50 is considered high risk.

Further resources

Presenter