SOS Documentation
Its core purpose is to provide visitors with a calm, branded and useful experience when WordPress encounters a supported fatal error.
The information required for that core experience is prepared locally on your WordPress installation.
Independent at the core. Enriched by integrations.
Core SOS functionality stays local
The core SOS Critical Error Page is prepared and stored locally as part of your WordPress installation.
This allows the emergency visitor experience to operate without requiring a connection to an apluskdesign service.
You do not need to:
- create an apluskdesign account;
- enter a licence key;
- connect to Geneva;
- enable visitor analytics; or
- send the contents of a fatal error to apluskdesign
before SOS can provide its core Critical Error Page.
What SOS stores locally
SOS stores the information required to configure and prepare your Critical Error Page within your WordPress installation.
Depending on your configuration, this can include information such as:
- your SOS settings;
- visitor-facing Critical Error Page content;
- presentation and appearance settings;
- configured visitor actions;
- local installation information used by SOS;
- the prepared resilience profile; and
- information required to manage SOS-owned files safely.
This information supports the operation and management of SOS on your website.
The resilience profile
SOS prepares a local resilience profile containing the information required for the visitor-facing emergency experience.
The purpose of the profile is to reduce SOS’s dependency on normal WordPress components during the supported fatal-error path.
For example, the prepared Critical Error Page is designed not to require your normal theme or WordPress database in order to render its visitor-facing content during fallback.
Visitor analytics are not required
SOS does not need to build a visitor analytics profile in order to provide the Critical Error Page.
The core SOS functionality is concerned with presenting the prepared emergency experience when the supported WordPress fatal-error path invokes it.
SOS is not designed to use the Critical Error Page as a way of collecting unnecessary information about the people visiting your website.
Fatal-error details are not routine telemetry
SOS does not need to send the technical contents of a fatal error to apluskdesign in order to display the Critical Error Page.
Routine SOS operation should not be confused with remote error-reporting or diagnostic telemetry.
The underlying technical investigation remains a separate responsibility for the website administrator, developer, WordPress and the relevant hosting environment.
Geneva is optional
SOS can optionally connect to Geneva, an apluskdesign service used to provide additional installation and product context.
This connection is not required for the Critical Error Page to work.
A normal SOS installation remains independent until an authorised administrator deliberately chooses to connect it.
Activating SOS does not itself mean that you have chosen to connect the plugin to Geneva.
What is shared when you connect to Geneva?
When an authorised administrator chooses to connect SOS to Geneva, SOS can exchange limited installation and product information required to establish and maintain that connection.
This may include information such as:
- the website URL and basic site identity;
- the SOS installation identity;
- the installed SOS version;
- WordPress and PHP environment information relevant to the installation;
- product and release information;
- connection, entitlement and website-relationship information; and
- the applicable SOS Terms acceptance information associated with the connection.
The connection should remain limited to information that has a legitimate purpose for the service being provided.
Connecting requires administrator action
SOS does not silently convert an independent installation into a Geneva-connected installation.
An authorised administrator must deliberately choose to connect.
Before the connection is established, SOS provides information about the connection and access to the applicable privacy information and terms.
This keeps the optional service separate from the core functionality that was already available before connection.
SOS Terms and Geneva
Where acceptance of the applicable SOS Terms is required for a Geneva connection, SOS can record information associated with that acceptance as part of the connection process.
This may include:
- the relevant Terms version or identifier; and
- the time at which the connection acceptance occurred.
The purpose is to maintain an auditable record of the terms associated with the optional service relationship.
Using SOS independently does not require a Geneva connection.
What happens if you do not connect?
Nothing is missing from the core Critical Error Page functionality.
SOS can continue to:
- prepare your Critical Error Page;
- maintain its local resilience profile;
- manage an SOS-owned Critical Error Page drop-in where available;
- provide its supported visitor-facing fatal-error experience; and
- provide local Developer Tools information.
You can therefore choose not to use Geneva and continue using SOS independently.
What happens if you disconnect?
Disconnecting the optional Geneva relationship should not disable the core SOS Critical Error Page.
The locally prepared emergency experience remains part of the WordPress installation.
After disconnection, SOS should no longer treat the installation as actively connected for routine Geneva communication.
Installation identity
SOS may maintain a local installation identity so that the installation can be distinguished consistently where supported product functionality requires it.
An installation identity is not the same thing as visitor tracking.
It identifies the SOS installation rather than creating a behavioural profile of individual website visitors.
Developer Tools can display relevant installation and Geneva connection information to authorised WordPress administrators.
Your website’s privacy information
Website owners remain responsible for making sure their own privacy information accurately describes the technologies and services used on their website.
If you enable an optional SOS integration such as Geneva, review your website’s privacy information and determine whether the connection should be reflected there.
Data minimisation
The guiding principle for SOS is simple:
Only use information that has a legitimate purpose for the feature being provided.
The emergency visitor experience should not become an excuse to collect unrelated information.
Optional integrations should remain clearly distinguishable from the core functionality and should not make SOS dependent on services that are unnecessary for the Critical Error Page itself.
Removing SOS
When SOS is uninstalled, it is designed to remove the plugin data and files that belong to SOS.
SOS should not remove an unrelated php-error.php drop-in simply because it occupies the same WordPress location that SOS can use.
Ownership is checked before SOS treats that file as its own.
Privacy questions
If you have a question about the information used by SOS or its optional services, email support@apluskdesign.com.
For current information about how apluskdesign handles personal information, refer to the apluskdesign Privacy & Cookie Policy.