Implementation Strategies section consists of 15% of total score in the Salesforce Service Cloud Consultant certification exam, covering topics such as facilitating a successful consulting engagement as well as contact center licensing and deployment strategies. Without further ado, let's get into it!
NOTE: This post is written in April 2020 and content might be changed/updated overtime. The content is inspired by focusonforce.com.
Guideline for Implementation Strategies
- Given a scenario, determine how to facilitate a successful consulting engagement (plan, gather requirements, design, build, test, and document).
- Given a scenario, determine appropriate contact center licensing and deployment strategies.
Implementation Process
Rollout Plan
- Plan Phase
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identify reasons for change and high-level requirements, and start mapping out possible solutions
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consulting team kickoff
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project plan sign-off (ensure alignment)
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Components of Project Plan:
- Purpose:
- identify the purpose of project and how it will deliver business value
- Scope:
- clearly describe what is in the scope as part of the project and what is not
- ensure expectation are in alignment
- Communications Plan:
- communicate with stakeholders on details, changes, milestones, involvement and etc. as needed
- address how the communication will be conducted at all stages of the project to help increase adoption
- Roles and Resources:
- identify who will be involved in the project and what resources are required as part of the project
- Change Plan:
- assess level of change readiness and plan how to ease transition to and adoption of new system
- Training Plan:
- analyze how job roles will change as a result of implementing new system
- train the trainer to train end users
- Project Risks:
- understand what might be the risk to the project and come out with mitigating actions
- Milestone Plan:
- set out plans for when the milestones of the project will be completed
- ensure the timing corresponds with customer expectation
- Project Milestones example:
- project plan sign-off
- requirements document sign-off
- solution design sign-off
- build and review
- user acceptance testing (UAT) complete
- end-user training
- data migration
- go live
- project sign-off
- Deliverables:
- identify list of items that will be delivered as part of the project
- Purpose:
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Discovery:
- Discovery step helps to prepare for the Analyze Phase, including conversations with key stakeholders to understand their current system and processes
- Key activities are:
- questionnaire to gather information from the customer
- discovery interviews with key stakeholders to understand pain points
- understand as-is processes
- observe interactions with current systems
- Key information to gather:
- organizational charts
- process maps
- report samples
- requirement docs from previous system implementations
- required objects and fields
- stakeholders and roles
- key fields, validation rules, and business rules
- Key activities are:
- Discovery step helps to prepare for the Analyze Phase, including conversations with key stakeholders to understand their current system and processes
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Scope Creep
- happens when new requirements are added to project after the original requirements have been documented
- cause project to be delayed
- ways to prevent Scope Creep:
- implement a change control process to review and approve all additional requirements before they are added to project
- prioritize the requirements and avoid low priority requirements
- verify the scope with each stakeholder of the project
- define written contract clearly to set expectations at the beginning of project
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ex: a company would like implement Service Cloud for the first time
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- Analyze Phase
- gather and prioritize requirements, identify gaps and create requirement documents
- requirements document sign-off
- ex: certain stakeholders of a company require a new application with custom functionality and objects
- Design Phase
- transform requirements into solutions, and prepare solution design documents
- implement solution design
- use cases and a prototype application to give the client a clear vision of how the system will look like and how it will be used based on use cases
- implement technical design
- includes any customizations that require code development (if not, just use out-of-the-box features)
- solution design sign-off
- ex: a detailed prototype of the Sales application need to be presented to the stakeholders
- Build Phase
- develop and configure application in sandbox
- conduct alpha and beta reviews to confirm on configuration and demonstrate how it works
- build and review data migration
- develop training material
- ex: client has provided sign-off on the solution design document, and the application is ready to be developed/configured in Salesforce.
- Validate Phase
- validate application functionality through types of testing:
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT) - allow system users to validate the process and usability of the system through test scripts consisting of use cases
- System Integration Testing (SIT) - validate data flowing into or out of Salesforce from or to external systems
- Performance Testing - test and validate speed and response time
- End-to-End Testing - validate the functionality of a system from start to end
- validate configuration and code, fix bugs and more testing
- develop training material
- project ready to sign-off and go live
- ex: client needs to very that the application functions according to the requirements, make sure the application is error-free
- validate application functionality through types of testing:
- Deploy Phase
- conduct training sessions
- migrate data, configuration and code into production
- transfer knowledge to support
- project sign-off
- gather project feedback via customer satisfaction survey
- ex: application can be rolled out with training for certain group of users on a specific date
Implementation Methodologies
- Waterfall:
- Waterfall methodology requires upfront planning and collection of requirements in detail before implementation.
- Distinct stages are defined and each stage must be finished before moving on to next stage:
- Requirement
- Planning
- Development
- Testing
- Deployment
- Typically, requirements are reviewed and approved by customer once again before development begins.
- Nowadays, people generally don't use Waterfall approach anymore (it really depends though).
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Planning and design are straightforward | Requirements cannot be changed |
| Suitable for small projects with predictable work | High risk of delivering end product as changes can be difficult to implement |
| Suitable for projects where there are multiple interfaces and dependencies |
- Agile:
- Agile methodology allows development in small incremental builds, emphasizing rapid delivery of complete functional components of an application.
- An implementation can be divided into multiple sprints, each of which delivers a value and has a defined duration with a running list of deliverables:
- Requirement
- Planning
- Development
- Testing
- Deployment
- Repeat the process
- Requirement
- In each sprint, cross-functional teams can work simultaneously on multiple areas, ex: development and testing.
- Agile relies heavily on customer's involvement throughout the project.
- Scrum is an agile process with defined roles, meetings and deliverables that provides the framework to deliver high-quality value to customer faster.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Deliverables can be reviewed early and constantly improved throughout project | High project cost as the process keeps repeating until project is done |
| Greater flexibility as changes can be introduced at any stage | Lose direction and go off track due to frequently changing requirements |
| Frequent communications resulting in regular feedback from customers | High level of collaboration required by Agile might not be feasible |
| Testing is performed more regularly, bugs and issues are caught and fixed right on track | Lack of commitment will result in project failure |
Project Rollout Challenges
- undefined or unclear process map
- unclear or incomplete requirements
- lack of communication
- canceled or delayed meetings
- lack of availability
- complicated requirements
- and etc.
Contact Center Licensing
-
Compare editions and top features:
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Salesforce Essentials - appropriate for small support team and use basic features related to Service Cloud
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Lightning Professional - have slightly more features and suitable for teams of any size
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Lightning Enterprise - suitable for companies that have more complex business requirements
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Lightning Unlimited - offers all capabilities, including 24/7 support
- NOTE: not all features are included, ex: service analytics app or customer community require additional fees
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Find out more about Salesforce Contact Center Licensing.
Implementation Strategies
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Big Bang Implementation Approach
- Set a cutover date, move all the users from old system to new one.
- Data migration is done during cutover period.
- Once the user migration is completed, the old system can be used in read-only mode for reference.
- Advantages:
- use one system
- everyone migrates on the same phase
- shorter implementation time
- lower cost
- Disadvantages:
- high risk
- fall back plans can be difficult (or just use the old system then)
- not getting used to new system
- cutover causes productivity issues
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Pilot/Phased Rollout Implementation Approach
- System is implemented or rolled out in several phases.
- Phase implementation can be done by Pilot, allowing small group of people to test new system and give feedback before fully cutover to new system.
- Phase implementation can be done by functionality or by location.
- Advantages:
- lower risk
- more time for system adoption
- Disadvantages:
- longer implementation time
- fall back to old system becomes very difficult in later phases
- more complex and confusing which makes training harder
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Parallel Implementation Approach
- Existing and new system are both in use until a decision is made to fully migrate to new system.
- Advantages:
- lower risk
- more time to resolve issues before fully abandon old system
- Disadvantages:
- higher cost
- longer implementation time
- duplicate work in both systems
- not getting used to new system, hence new system is ignored
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Crawl, Walk, Fall, Run Strategy
- Crawl
- focus on implementation of minimum viable product (MVP) with "must-have" features only
- ex: customization of accounts, contacts and opportunities
- Walk
- focus on adding "nice-to-have" and any additional "must-have" features
- ex: sales process can be defined, products can be customized
- Fall
- certain common failure points resulting in failure
- ex: no proactive plan, process map unclear, no clear vision or end goals, no success metrics defined, no clear expectations or communication plan, no proper roles and responsibilities
- Run (last phase)
- can implement "great-to-have" features if still have time
- ex: integration with other system and automation of business process
- Crawl
That's all about it! Thanks for reading!
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