[FHR + XO] Peak Preparations 2023: Everything you need to know

With the peak shopping season fast approaching, we're pleased to share the work we have been doing on our operational processes to ensure your peak trade period runs as smoothly as possible.

• FHR Infrastructure improvements
• FHR Data Processing improvements
• XO Infrastructure improvement
• Monitoring improvements
• Change freeze dates
• Scaling predictions and optimisation
• Attraqt team support and availability

FHR Infrastructure improvements

• Key infrastructure components were further optimised and automated to continue lowering the risk of manual errors.

• Automation of capacity adjustments in order to further increase the stability of performance during high traffic season and sale events.

FHR Data Processing improvements

• Data Processing job management (CIDP):

  • We have improved the job triggering system to avoid situations where simultaneous triggers are received some can become lost or overridden.

  • We have made improvements to the status tracking for catalog activations to further minimise issues with catalog activations or desync.

• Data Processing on catalog activations (CIDP):

  • We have improved the design in order to make full catalog recognition more resilient in order to avoid activation of partially processed full catalog updates.

• Data processing scalability (CIDP):

  • We have reduced the risk of bottlenecks during periods of heavy load to reduce the possibility of feed processing being delayed.

  • Increased resources dedicated to data processing to improve handling of higher data load.

• Monitoring & Alerting:

  • Improved alerting and feedback system to ensure issues are picked up and addressed proactively more consistently.

XO Infrastructure improvements

• Key infrastructure components were further optimised to strengthen platform scalability.

Monitoring improvements

• We continue to optimise our monitoring tooling and processes around the year, which ensures effective handling of customer issues.

• Please ensure you are familiar with the changes to how platform maintenance and incidents are communicated via Status pages and subscribe to them to receive alerts and notifications. Details can be found here: Introducing Product Status Pages for Crownpeak Attraqt products
  • Fredhopper Status Page 
  • Experience Orchestrator (XO) Status Page

Change freeze dates

The change freeze period is when changes to the production environments are prohibited unless in exceptional circumstances (which are reviewed on a case-by-case basis by our internal Change Approval Board).

These periods are needed during peak trading events like Black Friday and Christmas to allow our teams to ensure optimal services at times when retailers need these the most.

For peak 2023, change freezes will occur on the following dates:

• Black Friday freeze: 13^th November 2023 - 4^th December 2023

• Christmas freeze: 18^th December 2024 - 2^nd January 2024

Change freeze refers to changes over:

• Upgrades or downgrades to any version of running services.

• Load test customisations and support.

• New feature deployments.

Merchandising Studio changes - types of changes we are not able to action:

• Non-critical upgrades/downgrades of any versions of running services.

• Load test customisations and support.

• Transformations customisations.

• New feature deployments on LIVE.

It is good practice to avoid making major changes to the Merchandising Studio during high-traffic season. We recommend testing any major configuration changes in Merchandising Studio before the Peak 2023 season starts, preferably on your test environments.

Scaling predictions and optimisation

Please continue scheduling your sale events with us as usual. However, if you believe you will have specific scaling requirements, please submit an additional capacity request or get in touch with us via your Customer Success Manager to discuss your particular requirements. Send in your requests by October 31^st.

Crownpeak team support and availability

We want to ensure we are prepared for any unexpected incidents over peak and have worked hard to further enhance and boost our team resources and systems over the peak trade period.

Our Customer Support team will continue providing 24/7 support, with additional technical resources allocated to ensure uninterrupted coverage.

If you have any questions, contact Support through a support ticket. We look forward to a successful peak season with you!