Software Engineer
I build web applications and share what I learn along the way.
OnTrack gives your business its own order tracking page. Every job gets a private link you send to your customer. They open it and see exactly where their order is up to, complete with dates, notes and progress photos, under your logo and your business name. No more "just checking in" phone calls. No more writing the same update email five times a day.
Not technical? I'll set it up and run it for you.
If words like "hosting" and "upload" aren't your thing, no problem. With OnTrack Fully Managed I handle the whole lot on a simple monthly subscription: register a domain for you (like jamescustomshop.com), set up hosting, install and configure OnTrack, connect it to your domain, and keep it running. You just use it - from $29 a month, cancel anytime.
If you build, fix, print, bake or restore things for customers, you already know how this goes. The deposit lands, the work starts, and then the messages begin. "Hey, just wondering how the table is coming along?" "Any news on my order?" Each one is a nice customer asking a fair question, and each one pulls you off the tools to type the same answer you typed yesterday.
Big companies solved this years ago. Order a parcel and you get a tracking link. OnTrack gives your business the same thing, for work that actually takes weeks: custom furniture, vehicle repairs, signage, cakes, alterations, print runs, renovations. You update the stage as you go, and everyone who wants to know where things stand can see it without calling you.
That photo part matters more than you'd think. A two-line note with a picture of their half-built cabinet does more for customer confidence than any polished email. It says: your job is on the bench right now.
Every business moves work through different steps, so OnTrack lets you define your own. Create a stage group for each kind of work you do - say, one for new builds and one for repairs - each with its own ordered stages. When you create an order you pick which workflow it follows. Rename stages, reorder them, add new groups any time. Nothing is hard-coded.
The first time you open OnTrack it walks you through a friendly setup wizard - it checks your PHP version, folder permissions and a few security basics in plain English, and tells you exactly how to fix anything that isn't quite right. Green ticks all the way down, and you're ready.
After that, staying up to date is the safest part of owning it. OnTrack quietly checks for new versions in the background, but it never installs anything behind your back. When an update is ready you see the full changelog first and decide when to click Update. Behind that one click sits a proper, professional process: a complete backup is taken automatically, the download is checksum- and signature-verified before a single file is touched, and if anything ever looks wrong it restores the version you were just on. You are never left with a half-updated site - and if you ever want to step back, one-click rollback takes you there.
A commercial-grade update experience, built in
This is the part that surprises people. OnTrack is a single PHP file. Not a folder of frameworks, not an installer wizard, not a database server. One file.
Because there's so little machinery, it's fast, it's easy on cheap hosting, and there's very little that can break at 9pm on a Sunday.
Most order tracking tools are subscriptions. Thirty, fifty, sometimes ninety dollars a month, every month, forever. Miss a payment and your tracking pages go dark. Their server has a bad day and so does your business. And your customer data lives on someone else's computer, under someone else's terms.
OnTrack is $49. Once.
| OnTrack | Typical SaaS tracker | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $49 once | $30 to $90 every month |
| After 2 years | Still $49 | $720 to $2,160 and counting |
| Your data lives | On your own hosting | On their servers |
| If the company disappears | Nothing changes | You lose everything |
| Customer limits | None | Priced by "seats" and volume |
| Monthly invoice | Never | Forever |
When you buy OnTrack you own your copy of the software. Host it yourself, keep your data on your own account, and never think about a renewal date. If I ever stopped selling it tomorrow, your copy would keep working exactly as it does today.
Your customers will open their tracking link on a phone, and odds are you'll be updating orders from the workshop floor on yours. OnTrack was designed phone-first: big touch targets, a bottom tab bar in the admin so everything is reachable with a thumb, and a tracking page that reads beautifully on a small screen. There's a light theme, a dark theme, and an automatic mode that follows the customer's phone.
The built-in reports show how many orders came in, how many you finished, the total value of that work and how long jobs actually take, for any period you pick. When your accountant or your own curiosity wants the detail, export the lot to a real Excel spreadsheet or a tidy PDF with one click.
The admin area sits behind your password. Each customer link uses a private code, and a customer can only ever see their own order - there are no lists, no browsing, no way to stumble into someone else's job. Uploads are checked before they're accepted, and every save is written safely so a mid-save hiccup can't corrupt your data.
Any web hosting account that runs PHP (version 7.4 or newer, which covers practically every host today). That's the entire requirements list. No database, no special modules, no command line. If your hosting can run WordPress, it can run OnTrack with room to spare.
The done-for-you option, spelled out
Plenty of OnTrack owners never touch a single technical thing, because I do it for them. With the OnTrack Fully Managed plan, I:
No coding knowledge required at any point. You get a working tracking system at your own web address, and I stay on hand as your technical guy. It's a simple subscription: OnTrack Fully Managed, from $29 a month with the domain, hosting, setup and software all included. Prefer to ask something first? Get in touch.
Questions before you buy? The FAQ below covers most things, and the contact page reaches me directly for anything else. I read and answer everything myself.
The real application, running on real files. Nothing to sign up for, and nothing you can break that a Reset will not fix.
Loads the full app right here on the page.
or open it in a new tab →The demo is fully unlocked. Outgoing email, restore points and software updates are switched off in it - everything else is the product exactly as you would run it.
Major release: a first-run setup wizard, a licensing screen, automatic (never forced) update checking, a guided update wizard with changelog preview, automatic backups before every update, and one-click rollback to any previous version. Updates are digitally signed and checksum-verified.
Quality-of-life release. Progress rings on every order card, tidier action menus, and Back buttons that return you to the exact page and scroll position you came from. Assorted small fixes.
SMTP email delivery with a send-test button (much better deliverability than plain host mail). New optional About and Contact pages for your customers. Priority stars to pin important orders to the top. Settings reorganised into a cleaner sectioned layout.
One-click backups: create snapshots, download them, and restore with an automatic safety backup taken first. Clearer error messages when a hosting folder isn't writable.
Reports. See orders created and completed, total order value and average days to finish for any period, with an activity chart and a breakdown per workflow. Export any report to Excel or PDF with one click. Orders can now carry a price.
Security hardening pass: stricter upload validation, tightened session handling and safer file serving. A handful of small bug fixes.
Stage updates now accept videos and files as well as photos. Videos play right on the customer's page; files become tidy download cards. Per-type size limits keep things sensible on shared hosting.
Dark mode - light, dark, or automatically follow the customer's device. Success and error messages became unobtrusive toast notifications. Faster page swaps throughout the admin (no full page reloads).
The big one: multiple workflows. Define separate stage groups for each kind of work you do, each with its own stages - existing single-workflow data migrates automatically. Redesigned order cards, and a native-app-style bottom tab bar on phones.
Optional email notifications: OnTrack can email your customer when you advance their order to the next stage. Off by default, per-order opt-in.
Mobile polish release: bigger touch targets everywhere, a sticky header, fixed date fields on iPhones, and a mobile-first rebuild of the trickier admin screens.
Per-stage notes and photo galleries. Post an update with pictures on any stage and it appears on the customer's page under that step, with a proper zoomable viewer.
Search and filters for the order list (by text, workflow and date range), pagination for busy shops, and an Active / Archived split.
Business branding: upload your logo and it appears on customer pages, the login screen and the admin bar. Time zone setting so dates always read right. Shorter, easier-to-type customer link codes.
First public release. Orders, custom stages, private customer tracking links, notes and history - all in one PHP file with JSON storage.
Your own order tracking website without touching anything technical. I register your domain, set up hosting, install OnTrack with your branding and keep it all running, updates included. From $29 a month, cancel anytime, and everything stays yours.
A complete file manager for your own web hosting. One PHP file, no database, no monthly fee.
