Customer Onboarding Guide
What to expect throughout your Fredhopper onboarding project
This onboarding guide is designed to take you through all the steps you will take during your Fredhopper onboarding and point you towards the resources you will need The aim is to get you up and running with Fredhopper as quickly as we can. Please
Welcome! Let's get started! Project Stages Dependencies Actions Resources This guide will contain: Who is it for? Your Project Manager Your Technical Lead Your Merchandising Lead Any interested satkeholder(s) Communication Via email, Slack, Zoom or Microsoft Teams Weekly meetings Weekly project reports from the Attraqt Project Manager
don’t hesitate to reach out to your Technical Consultant and Project Manager at any time during your onboarding.
Key meetings required
Kick off (1 hour)
Required: Key stakeholders involved in the project Requirements session (2 hours)
Required: Key stakeholders involved in the project
Technical Training part 1: Data Integration (2 hours)
Required: Teams responsible for building out the data feed and a general architect/ BA to understand the integration as a whole
Technical Training part 2: Front End Integration (2 hours)
Required: Teams responsible for the front end integration and a general architect/ BA to understand the integration as a whole.
Merchandising Studio Training (2 x 2 hours)
Required: Teams responsible for using the Fredhopper tool to merchandise and create campaigns.
Weekly project call (30 mins)
Key project team members (project managers – a must)
Attraqt will send out invitations once availability is confirmed and at the right phase of the project.
Your Attraqt Team
Project Manager
Technical Consultant(s)
Customer Success Manager
Your journey to go live
Kickoff
Infrastructuresetup
TechnicalTraining
Importantsessiontogointo yourmerchandising strategy,aspirationsandKPIs.
Deeperdiveintothe architecture,dataintegration, frontendintegration. Integrationbestpractices.
Keystakeholders(businessand technical)
Attraqtteam
Technicalteam
DataIntegration
FrontEndIntegration
Fredhoppersetup
MerchandisingStudioTraining
Gettingyourproductcatalogue anddataintothe Fredhopperplatformand enablingyoutoupdateatneed/ onschedule.
Customerintegratingontotheir frontendviaSOAP (XML)orREST(XMLandJSON).
DeepdiveintotheFredhopper platformandoutlineof howtomaximisevalue-addand bestpractices.
Technicalteam
Technicalteam
Attraqtteam
Merchandisingteamandany developers/QAwhowouldbe involvedintest
FredhopperTechnicalSpecification.
Yourteamisfullypreparedtogetstartedon development.
DataingestedintoFredhopperandmechanismsinplace toregularlyupdate.
Stagingsiteconnectedtoatestenvironmentand productionsiteconnectedtoliveenablingFHRquerytraffic.
YourteamisfullypreparedtogetstartedonFHR configuration
Rulecreation
QA
Golive
Implementingmerchandising strategiesandrules withintheplatform.
Testingthesolutionfor completeness,resilienceand usecases.
Merchandisers
Businessandtechnical stakeholders
Live-readymerchandisingconfiginFredhopper.
TestedandratifiedinstanceofFredhopperreadyfor deploy.
LiveinstanceofFredhopperdeployed.
Stage Comments Whoisrequired Deliverable
Resources
The documentation required will be added to a shared folder on Attraqt’s Egnyte storage system (Link to this will be shared from your project team during Kickoff)
The gitbook developer guide: https://attraqt.gitbook.io/developer-documentation/ Attraqt Academy: https://academy.attraqt.com/courses/fredhopper-best-practicefoundation-training
Your Attraqt Team
The first key dependency is a full product export supplied to Fredhopper in a data feed. This unlocks further dependencies around incremental updates, Front-End connectivity and analytics data integrations.
By meeting the Front-End dependency, we can then begin the Merchandising Studio activities and through meeting the Analytics dependency Suggest and AI Search functionalities become available for development.
Project Planning
It is important that your team take the time to plan your development tasks.
Key tasks to for your team to estimate:
Data integration (full feed & incrementals)
Analytics integration
Suggest integration
Front end integration
Insight tracker integration
How long your merchandisers would require to configure Fredhopper after Merchandising Studio training. How long your test period would be. (We recommend a minimum of 2 weeks) Go live (we require two weeks notice)
Format to use for your estimates:
Stage Start Date End Date
Comments
One you have your completed estimations this information then needs to be passed onto the Attraqt Project Manager and will form part of your baseline plan.
The Attraqt Project Manager will then share with you the baseline project plan within your first status report. This plan will be used to track progress on a weekly basis.
Merchandisers
Topics that will require input from your merchandising team:
Blacklist and whitelist requirements and terms. Suggest requirements wireframes of the UI and what implementation you are looking for eg. Brand, keyword, product or category suggest?
How should we rank the results in suggest?
What attributes should be returned in the suggest response?
Categories
Catalogue attributes
FHR business rules/merchandising strategy
Facets and filters required
Attributes that require enrichments with data e g Popular sizes, aggregated stock availability
The diagram below shows the typical flow of a Fredhopper onboarding:
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have any training videos?
Yes! We have our Attraqt Academy where we can register your users and development teams.
https://academy.attraqt.com/courses/fredhopper best practice foundation-training
Where can I see the project plan?
The Attraqt Project Manager will hold the high level plan with the milestone dates targeted However, the customer must maintain their own project plan detailing out the development work on their side.
How long do you advise for test?
We advise a two week test period at a minimum.
Do you need advanced notice for load testing?
Yes, we require two weeks warning in advance of load testing with Fredhopper.
Do you need advanced notice for go live?
Yes, we require two weeks warning in advance of going live with Fredhopper
·What do the colours mean on my status report?
Red: there is an issue with budget/scope/timescales
Amber: risk threatening budget/scope/timescales
Green: project phase proceeding as expected
Blue: Item completed
Frequently Asked Questions
Please can you explain the Attraqt terminology:
Fredhopper:
The Fredhopper Discovery Platform (FHR), drives relevant and inspiring e commerce experiences through search and merchandising SaaS solutions. Simple to use interfaces and efficient workflows enable merchandisers to take full control and enhance the value of smart automation with their own strategic expertise and creativity.
Merchandising Studio:
The front end application used for managing your FHR integration.
Insights tracker:
A tracking widget installed on the website Front End that tracks customer behaviour and uses this data to inform AI offerings like AI Search, AI Scores etc.
CIDP:
Stands for Common Information Data Pipeline and is the Attraqt streaming API for data receipt and ingestion
Incremental update:
An incremental contains a small update to the client s catalog. The method can vary: streaming, mini batches, a zip. The INC is always done on top of an existing FULL state or baseline, which means any structural attributes and data stay more stable, compared to how a Full update may impact the system services
