6 Ways to Accelerate New Solution Implementations

If your company is getting ready to implement a new integration solution, or anything else, meeting a timeline is likely one of your priorities. Software deployments usually involve team members doubling up on duties, cleaning up data, setting up test environments and complex data migration processes. Therefore, it’s best to get it done as quickly as possible! We’d like to share some steps you can take to accelerate your software deployment and avoid risking functionality issues or bugs after going live.

Proceed With Caution

Before we get into how your company can accelerate deployment, we urge caution. If done correctly, rapid software deployment is a laudable goal. However, it’s almost never a good idea to sacrifice quality for speed. While there are places in the deployment process where your company can easily save time, it’s best not to skimp on requirements gathering, testing, or change management. After all, the biggest waste of time occurs when someone must redo something they’ve done incorrectly the first time.

6 Steps Towards Acceleration

Here are six steps your company can take to accelerate a project’s deployment—without affecting the quality of the outcome.

1. Know your processes: The phrase “measure twice, cut once” applies to technology, too! To deploy most efficiently, the deployment team must understand what data your company needs within the solution as well as what integrations are required. In the world of ecommerce and integrations, here are some relevant processes to assess: product catalog requirements, order and invoice history needed, payment methods including credit card tokenization, special pricing levels, and shipment needs.
2. Strategize: Just like with any change to your business, planning and strategy are essential. Schedule a meeting with your accounting software consultant in order to have another set of ideas to make sure the planned solution will fulfill all the relevant operational requirements, and make sure the user experience is pleasant and optimized.
3. Use proven solutions: Especially when your company is deploying integration software, be sure to work with solutions that are proven in the marketplace. Find a technology partner that has been “around the block,” do not be the guinea pig!
4. Test and stage thoroughly: As we mentioned above, thorough testing will save time, not waste it. Removing bugs or errors in a testing or staging environment will prevent them from causing delays or problems in your live environment. Again, the best way to waste time is to redo something that didn’t work the first time.
5. Communicate and create documentation: One of the best ways to save time and deploy software quickly is by communicating with stakeholders and documenting the new processes your company puts into place. When employees (and customers, if necessary) know what is going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and how to get help if something goes wrong, your deployment team will be spared a bombardment of calls and emails from confused software users. And when each process is carefully documented, your company will save many hours by avoiding repetitive training sessions.
6. Measure and adjust as needed: Once your company’s software is in production, make sure the deployment team measures usage and collects feedback from users. Proactively addressing issues that one user comes across will save time by preventing other users from taking that issue up with the support team.

Looking for a Strong Deployment Tech Partner?

If your company is looking for a partner to help with software integration and deployment, ROI is here to assist. We specialize in connecting your company’s Sage 100 ERP to … pretty much anything. Our integration software, IN-SYNCH, even has its own Connector API that allows your company’s developers to build integrations themselves. Contact us today to learn more.