An EngageOne Compose rollout in any enterprise takes several months to complete. I am fortunate enough to have worked with multiple clients directly and experience the obstacles they have to overcome to complete the implementation. I believe, if we compare successful and failed projects, there are always patterns. The question is: how do we find the patterns? The answers lie in the support issues database. I got to work and reviewed support issues from past EngageOne Compose implementations and discovered a few mistakes that are common among all support issues.Here’s the kicker: There are only three mistakes that contributed to 70% of implementation issues. In this article, I will share the three mistakes you need to avoid to significantly improve your chances of success in an EngageOne Compose rollout. Avoiding these mistakes will allow you to be able to complete the project on time and within budget. The best part is, you can take a much-needed vacation without carrying the laptop with you. One last thing before we get started: you may want to share this article with your complete project team and not to do it all by yourself. Here we go...
Mistake 1: Planning
I know, project planning sounds basic. All our clients have impressive teams with committed team members. They also have a very detailed project plan. The only challenge is, our clients tend to forget the most significant contributor to the project: the "EngageOne Compose engineering team" at Pitney Bowes.
Yes, it's true. Clients have detailed plans of the rollout but forget to share it with the engineering team. If you don't share your projects with my team or me, we have no way to know and be prepared to assist you on time.
Engineering teams work with multiple clients at any given time and also develop new features for the product. We do it through a process called Agile Development. All activities are planned and have assigned timelines. Any new tasks will impact our schedule and will result in a dissatisfied client.
How do you solve this?
We can include your rollout in our plan. You just need to let us know your plan and any specific requests you may have for the engineering team. If we know your plan, we will do our best to prioritize resources, focus on your project, and join you to make it successful.
Mistake 2: Customization
I believe there will always be a gap with any product, and I am sure you will agree with me. EngageOne Compose is no exception; the job of the engineering team is to close the gap between where the product is, and where you want it to be. We raise the bar with every release.
I noticed some clients need specific capabilities that are not yet available. I understand the business reason behind it. So, our friendly services team help our clients to customize the product to achieve a specific outcome.
The challenge is, the customizations do not always work when you upgrade to a new release. The issues reported from customizations are hard to troubleshoot as engineering is not aware of the changes. So, this delays the project rollout.
How do you solve this?
Three simple steps:
- Document all customizations.
- Re-engage the services team or inform our engineering team about the customizations.
- Plan for a possible issue that requires a fix from engineering.
Mistake 3: Third Party Software Configuration
EngageOne Compose is Enterprise Software. I am sure you expect it to fit within your enterprise and work seamlessly with other enterprise products. We do support integrations with a lot of third-party enterprise software. Here are some of the common ones:
- Active Directory or any other LDAP V3 compliant directory
- Databases (SQL and Oracle)
- Load balancer (F5 is a popular one)
Unfortunately, third-party software does not play well with EngageOne Compose all the time. The issues are hard to troubleshoot and require collaboration from your network or database team members.
How do you solve this?
Plan ahead for potential issues with third-party software and document your software configuration. It is not common to deviate from the recommended configuration provided in the documentation.
For example, you may be sharing the same VIP (Virtual IP address) in F5 with other products instead of using a dedicated VIP for EngageOne Compose.
Let’s do a quick recap of the three mistakes
- Planning: Include EngageOne Engineering team in your planning process
- Customization: Document all customizations and re-engage services if needed
- Third-party software configuration: Document your third-party software configurations and share it with Pitney Bowes support or engineering teams to expedite the resolution of any issues
Now that you know the three common mistakes to avoid with EngageOne Compose rollout, I am sure you will look forward to our new release of EngageOne Compose and use it.
Every upgrade will have few challenges and in case you run into an issue, please reach out to your friendly Pitney Bowes support team through our support portal.
We are happy to assist you.