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Pre-maintenance reports: what they are and how to create them

Getting a client to understand why their WordPress website needs maintenance isn't always easy. Even when the need seems obvious to you, conveying the value of your service and turning it into a convincing proposal takes time.

Pre-maintenance reports in Modular DS are designed for exactly that: you generate a report for any of your connected websites and show at a glance everything that needs attention, in a visual format that helps your client understand the work it needs.

What are pre-maintenance reports for?

A pre-maintenance report is a snapshot of a website's current state that you can use as the basis for your maintenance proposal.

Instead of explaining it to your client in words, you show them with concrete data. In the report you can display, among other things:

Pending updates
Detected vulnerabilities
Security and health recommendations, with critical and minor errors
Pending database optimizations
Web performance with a Google PageSpeed score
Additional tasks you want to add as pending

How to create a pre-maintenance report

The process is the same as for any other report. You can start in two ways:

From the global view, in the "Reports" side menu, with the "Create global report" button to include several websites at once.

From a specific site, going into its "Reports" section and clicking "Create report".

Then select the "Pre-maintenance report" type and choose how you want to start: from scratch, from a template or from a previous report.

From there, the wizard guides you through four steps.

1. Complete the general settings

In the first step you define the report's basic details:

"Report name"
"Language"
"Time format" and "Date format"

You can also personalize the report with your logo to replace the "Created with Modular DS" branding on the report pages.

The recommended size is 800x800 px and it accepts GIF, JPG, PNG and TIFF files up to 6 MB.

2. Select the content

Here you decide what information the report includes and how it's presented.

At the top you have the "Welcome message", with a title and an introduction text that your client will read on the first page of the report.

In "Select the sections you want in your report" you turn each block on or off depending on what you want to show:

Overview
Pending updates
Pending database optimizations
Broken links
Vulnerabilities
Malware
Health recommendations
Performance (Google PageSpeed)
Pending tasks

Each section lets you add a short introduction to give your client context about what they're going to see.

In addition, the "Health recommendations" section includes two extra options to adjust what's shown:

"Hide critical errors"
"Hide minor errors"

Further down you have "Annotations", to include work or notes you haven't added as tasks but want to appear in the report. Fill in the title and content and click "Add annotation".

Finally, the "Final message" lets you write the conclusions or farewell that will close the report.

3. Choose the websites

In this step you select the websites you want to include in the report. You can filter, sort and search them, and select them one by one or with "Select all". Remember to add each website's logo if you're creating a global report and want it to appear on the cover of each report.

4. Configure delivery and generate the report

The last step is the "Delivery details". Here you choose whether you want the report to be sent automatically each time it's generated:

"Don't send": you generate the report without automatic delivery.
"Send by email": the report is sent by email to the recipients you specify.

Once you have it configured, generate the report and it will be ready to share with your client.

Do you need help with anything else? Email us at help@modulards.com or contact us via the support chat, and we'll be happy to help you.

Updated on: 02/09/2026

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