The state of play
Why now is the right callThe portal has done its job loyally for over a decade. But the platform underneath it has moved on twice over — and the gap is now wide enough that we’re a small server change away from a hard outage. Here’s the timeline:
The near-miss: earlier this year the standard server slot wouldn’t run the portal at all — the host had moved on from PHP 7.4. We recovered by falling back to a legacy server instance that still happens to offer it. That instance is the back-up plan, not the long-term plan, and we don’t control when it goes away.
The honest risk of waiting: we don’t control when the legacy server slot is retired. When that happens, the portal goes offline without warning — and the migration then happens under pressure, on a broken site, instead of on a planned schedule. That costs more, takes longer, and creates a real outage risk for Bunnings stores. The work in this proposal is going to happen one way or the other; the only question is whether it happens calmly or in a crisis.
What’s at risk
Four real concerns, named honestlySecurity
PHP 7.4 has been unpatched for three and a half years. Any vulnerability discovered in that window is still open on your portal — and vulnerabilities in end-of-life software are publicly documented. Cloudflare handles the edge (bots, DDoS, basic injection) but it can’t patch what’s inside the application. That’s the PHP layer, and that’s where the exposure sits.
Hosting
Your hosting provider could end PHP 7.4 support without warning — some have already done it in 2025/26. We had one near-miss this year and recovered by switching to a legacy server slot. We don’t control when that slot goes away — if it goes mid-week during business hours, the portal is offline until the full migration is done.
Brand fit
When a Bunnings team member opens this portal in front of a customer today, the experience doesn’t reflect the quality of the product behind it. The portal still works — but it looks notably dated next to Gliderol’s current marketing materials, and Bunnings staff have noticed. This is the side of the project that most directly affects how Gliderol is perceived at the point of sale.
Performance
Modern PHP runs roughly 30–40% faster than 7.4. Bunnings staff feel that on every page load, every quote calculation, every PDF generation. It’s the kind of friction you stop noticing — until a faster version arrives and the difference is obvious.
Where it is today — and where it could be
Three of the screens Bunnings staff use during a live customer conversation. The product behind them is excellent — the question is whether the tool matches it.
1. The home page
The first screen Bunnings staff see when they open the portal.
What changes: a confident hero with a clear call-to-action (“Create Quote”), a stat strip orienting new staff, and modern category tiles replacing the dense link list.
2. The quote builder
The functional core of the portal — how every customer estimate gets put together.
What changes: a stepped form with visual progress, a live estimate summary panel updating as choices are made, and modern colour swatches replacing the dropdown list. The pricing logic underneath is unchanged.
3. A product information page
Where staff look up specs, brochures and measuring guides during a customer conversation.
What changes: a confident product hero, a scannable feature grid and spec table, and a sticky sidebar with all relevant documents in one place — one click away during a customer chat.
The plan, in two phases
Best done together, but Phase 1 stands aloneModernise the foundation
~1.5 – 2 weeks
- ✓ Move runtime to PHP 8.3 — security-supported through 2027, written to run cleanly across 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4
- ✓ All third-party libraries brought to current supported versions
- ✓ Dead code paths removed (legacy mail/database libraries no longer in use)
- ✓ ~45 automated regression tests covering every critical user path — run on every future change so nothing silently breaks
- ✓ CI/CD pipeline so deploys are one-click and reversible
- ✓ Performance improvement of 30–40% on every page load, at no added cost
- ✓ 30 days post-launch support included — anything that behaves unexpectedly we fix at no extra cost
Refresh the front end
~2 – 3 weeks after Phase 1
- ✓ New visual design across all 75 page templates — the matched samples above are the direction
- ✓ Designed specifically for Bunnings trade staff during customer conversations
- ✓ Fully mobile-friendly — works on tablets and phones, not just store desktops
- ✓ Accessible to WCAG 2.1 AA standard (contrast, keyboard nav, screen readers)
- ✓ Refreshed PDF quote template that matches the new brand
- ✓ All existing functionality preserved — same workflows, better wrapper
- ✓ 30 days post-launch support included — design tweaks and bug fixes covered
What your team actually has to do
We drive the build; your team weighs in on the moments that matter and signs off when it’s ready. Honest time commitment from your side is about a day and a half — broken into small bites across the project rather than a single block.
Pricing
Fixed price, no hourly billingTwo ways to do this, depending on whether you want the front-end refresh in the same pass. A UI refresh on its own isn’t on the menu — if we’re going to touch the design layer, it’s done while we’re already in the codebase.
Migrate as-is
Foundation only — the portal keeps its current look
Security, support, and performance brought current on the platform side. The portal looks as it does today — everything underneath is modern, safe and supported through 2027.
Migrate + refresh
Foundation work AND the front-end refresh in one pass
Same 21-day window, both phases delivered together. The mockups on this page are examples of the direction — we’d align on the final design with you in week one.
Hosting & ongoing care
Optional — we genuinely don’t think you need itIf you’d like us to host and maintain it ongoing
An honest note: your current hosting works fine and will continue to once the migration lands. We’re including this for completeness in case Gliderol would prefer a single managed package — not because we think you need it.
Honest take: skip this if you’re happy with your current hosting setup — the migration itself stands up fine on what you have today.
Optional, on top
Pick any, skip any, add laterAnalytics rebuild
Allie at Nama Marketing to confirm scopeThe existing tracking is mostly dormant — Universal Analytics was deprecated by Google in mid-2023 and the portal’s legacy snippet has been silent since. There’s a Google Tag Manager container in place but we can’t verify whether it’s firing anything meaningful. Allie’s team should own the strategy direction here — they know the full Gliderol marketing picture. We’re happy to be the technical implementation arm if that suits the programme, or to step back if Nama Marketing prefer to bring this in-house.
A sensible starting scope for Allie to react to:
- • GA4 property setup — new property, verify or rebuild the GTM container, replace the dead legacy snippet site-wide
- • Cloudflare Web Analytics — switched on at the edge; zero JavaScript, no cookie banner required, instant visibility (no licence fee)
- • Event tracking on the key workflows — quote built, quote PDF generated, quote emailed, contact form submitted, document downloaded
- • Monthly reporting dashboard — Looker Studio (free) summarising staff usage patterns for Bunnings team review
- • Consent banner if required by Gliderol’s current privacy posture
All we need from Gliderol is an introduction to confirm Allie’s looped in — she sets the scope and pricing from there.
Performance optimisation, security hardening and dependency management are included in the Hosting & ongoing care package above — we’ve bundled them because they’re typically picked up together, not as three separate line items.
A typical 21-day build
Three weeks, start to liveBoth options ship in the same 21-day window. AI-assisted development, a full test suite running on every commit, and nightly CI on the staging branch let us deliver the migration and the refresh together without compromising on quality.
Discovery & design alignment
- • Kick-off & codebase audit
- • Concept directions & design round 1
- • Test scaffolding stood up
- • Staging environment provisioned
Migration & rebuild
- • PHP 8.3 migration on the foundation
- • Front-end rebuild template-by-template
- • Integration & unit tests filled in as we go
- • Nightly CI on every branch
- • Design round 2 mid-week
UAT, hardening & launch
- • Full UAT walkthrough with your team
- • Issue triage & final polish
- • Cutover dress-rehearsal on staging
- • Production cutover (out-of-hours)
- • Post-launch monitoring window
A note on the designs: the mockups shown on this page are examples of the direction we’d go — not the final design. Week one includes a proper design round to align on what specifically works for the Bunnings portal context.
Ready to go?
One button, two minutes — pick the scope and the dates that work for you. We’ll get a confirmation back to you the same day.
This proposal is valid until 30 June 2026.
Not sure yet? Reply to my email and we’ll walk through it — no pressure.