Implementation Process

The Fredhopper implementation process is supported by a global team of consultants who are based in the UK, US, Australia, The Netherlands, France and Germany. It covers all phases of a project from the initial scoping and estimation through to successful go-live and beyond.

 

Phase 1 - Project Initiation and Requirements Gathering

Phase 1 is focused on providing a very detailed confirmation of your requirements, covering both commercial and technical needs.

KICK-OFF SESSION

Hosted by: Our Technical Consultant
Participants: Business-side (Merchandisers, Business Analysts and UX Managers) and Technical-side (Solution Architects, Front and Back-end Developers)
Objective: To confirm where our solution will be present on the site, what kind of page elements it will drive, what your current merchandising strategies are, what challenges you need to address and what you see your strategies becoming in the future.
Outcome: Clear definition of required data customisation and front-end integration.

BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION

• Walk through wireframes; Fredhopper Discovery Platform interface
• Dive into your Merchandising Strategy & use cases in detail; search, navigation, recommendations, personalisation, merchandising and internationalisation
• Discuss future aspirations
• Agree KPI framework and measurements for success
• Customise: Maximise team efficiency. We will also gather information about how your team is structured, and what kind of repetitive tasks they are currently dealing with so we can customise our application

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION

Full technical requirements are identified, including:

• Architecture and Data Model
• Catalogue and Analytics data integration and enrichments
• Front-End Integration
• Merchandising Studio configuration

Deliverable: A Business and Technical Specification document will confirm the detailed requirement and how it will be delivered with the Fredhopper Discovery Platform. This is where we will capture all of the details and share with you so that we are on the same page regarding what will be delivered and, if necessary, what can be looked into after go-live.

TECHNICAL TRAINING

On agreement by both parties, we will create your Cloud Environments with demo data and will schedule a Technical training session with your developers.

• 2 day session, for up to 8 Technical Users
• Split over multiple sessions
• It provides comprehensive details on the various technical elements involved in the Fredhopper Discovery Platform implementation

It will cover:

• Architecture - architecture of our cloud services
• Deployment - what data points can be directly delivered from you, and what will be added through additional processes on our end
• Data Integration - the specific format and operational details of the data integration that will carry your catalogue, analytics and, optionally, customer data
• Front-End Integration - we detail how the response we are sending back to you looks like and how your website can consume it to drive the necessary parts of the website
• Event Tracker Implementation - we provide the resources and instructions for you to track and send certain events on your website to drive reporting on KPIs & insights on your strategies
• Operations - we will share best-practice use cases with you to make sure you can maximise the performance you will get from our services
• Merchandising Studio - we cover the basics of the Merchandising Studio from a technical perspective.
  

Phase 2. Implementation

Setting up the Fredhopper Discovery Platform instance. The Data Integration and Front-End Integration are tasks which can be run in parallel to each other.

 

 

DATA INTEGRATION

Your back-end developers will start sending the catalogue, analytics and inventory data, with stock and prices, to our servers via our Data APIs. Our Technical Consultant will review the data batch samples and oversee the implementation of custom data enrichment components at our side.

CUSTOMER RESPONSIBILITIES 
Provide 3 data feeds in Fredhopper standard CSV or JSON format via the Services API:

• FAS - Catalogue and Product data
• Suggest - Blacklist and whitelist
• Analytics Data - Product performance figures and Search Reports (optional)

FREDHOPPER PLATFORM RESPONSIBILITIES

• Support you in delivering 3 separate data feeds
• Integrate with a 3rd party analytics provider (e.g. GA)
• Undertake data feed enrichments

FRONT-END INTEGRATION

Your front-end developers can integrate your web application layers with our services via our APIs. We will make sure you are integrating in the leanest and most performant manner and will guide you through the response types and connection protocol.

CUSTOMER RESPONSIBILITIES 
Integrate your front-end site as per our APIs and adhering to best practices
with:

• FAS via SOAP or REST (XML or JSON response)
• Suggest via REST (JSON response)
• Analytics Data – Product performance figures and search reports (optional)

FREDHOPPER PLATFORM RESPONSIBILITIES

• Support you integrating with our API services
• Provide guidance on implementing custom functionality
• Help ensure your integration maximises performance

FREDHOPPER DISCOVERY PLATFORM SETUP

Our Technical Consultant will start configuring the environments and the Merchandising Studio:

• Setup of scopes and user access rights to the environments, so that areas of responsibilities and user roles fit your team structure and merchandising workflows
• Finalise search configurations that are specifically designed to operate for the languages that will be in the data
• Setup of basic configuration and rules, including five out-of-the-box automated merchandising strategies that you will be able to tap into right from the start*:
  • Converting Strategy
  • Trending Strategy
  • Search Strategy
  • Sale Strategy
  • New In Strategy

Deliverable: We enable a functional data flow and provide a fully integrated ecommerce ecosystem, which enables us to move onto the Roll-out phase.

*depends on the availability of suitable analytics data.

Phase 3. Roll-Out

Phase 3 ensures that the customer has a fully tested and optimised solution and their Business teams are enabled to use it to its full potential.

MERCHANDISING STUDIO TRAINING

Our Technical Consultants will train your Business Users to enable them to have advanced control and
refinements over the automated merchandising strategies in the system, and upscale them to be able to create new strategies by using our Merchandising Studio. Business Users train with your own data to give them visibility over the result of their changes through your newly built staging website. This way, the Business Users will be trained in context and not through hypothetical examples.

STRATEGY CREATION

Business Users and Merchandising Team will attend an in-depth training session on the extensive capabilities of the Merchandising Studio, covering:

User Acceptance Testing is then commenced.

FRONT-END INTEGRATION TESTING

Front-end integration testing will be undertaken to ensure that the right responses are delivered from our Saas solution. This will cover:

• Number of results returned
• Quality of results returned
• Review of all elements returned
• Review whether standard and custom content meet identified business requirements
• Review of performance and response times
• Review of the manner and efficiency of your usage of our infrastructure

MERCHANDISING STUDIO UAT

Merchandising Studio testing will be undertaken to ensure that the triggers and rules are set up successfully and will cover:

• Campaigns - Review creation and modification of campaigns for all configured styles
• Rankings - Review creation and modification of rankings for multiple locations
• Result Modifications - Review creation and modification of result modifications for multiple locations
• Facets - Review creation and modification of facets for all configured styles
• Synonyms and Redirects - Review creation and modification of synonyms and redirects for multiple search terms
• Items - Review items and content of items returned for each page template (lister, detail etc.)
• Navigation - Review overall navigation settings align with defined business rules
• Search - Review search configuration settings align with defined business rules
• Review Merchandising Studio setup including scope structure, business user roles structure, publication functionality

SYSTEMS & INFRASTRUCTURE UAT

Systems and Infrastructure testing is undertaken:

• Data loading - ensuring that full catalogue upload, indexing and updates all work as expected and scheduled
• Load testing - testing for expected peak levels and for type and format of queries being sent
• Employment of fail-safe features fully tested

Deliverable: With the creation of the merchandising strategies completed and testing completed, we move on to the Go-Live Phase.

Phase 4. Go-Live

Phase 4 of the project is the final set of steps before going live with Fredhopper on your live website(s).

Customers run a Performance Test to mimic their peak traffic levels to ensure the speed responsiveness and stability of the solution. Once this is completed, we move to actual Go-Live:

• We follow a detailed Go-Live Checklist to ensure every aspect is considered
• Scale up the environments to your live traffic levels to deliver the required performance
• Set-up and provide ongoing monitoring on the Saas servers to ensure consistent and reliable service delivery
• Provide continuous improvements
• Orchestrate a seamless handover to our Customer Support Team (who are fully briefed on your details and will provide full support after go-live)
• We provide comprehensive support for the switch on/switch over of the site to ensure a smooth transition. We will remain in direct contact to assist with any outstanding questions or issues, until our customer is completely satisfied with the solution