Coveo™ Professional Services (PS) teams employ a project management methodology called IDEAS when carrying out the implementation of a solution based on the Coveo Cloud platform. The IDEAS methodology covers the key activities to complete for each project and can be easily integrated with other methodologies.
The following tables provide a typical breakdown of responsibilities between the client and the PS project team. For each phase, an estimated percentage of efforts is indicated. This information is meant to help plan the collaboration between PS and clients, but can also be useful to anyone looking to implement a Coveo solution based on the Coveo Cloud platform, such as partners or clients.
Initiate
Description
Determine business objectives and project guidelines.
Establish communication processes.
The PS team gets acquainted with the client personnel.
Select and configure collaboration tools.
PS activities
Expected from client
Review statement of work, licensing, and scope.
Review business objectives.
Determine success criteria and measurement metrics.
Kick-off the project:
Introduce PS and client teams.
Discuss project dependencies, targets, and timeframe.
Align IDEAS with client project methodology.
Discuss collaboration and interaction expectations.
Determine project meeting and reporting schedule for each phase, along with meeting attendees and report audience.
Discuss other client initiatives with potential impact on Coveo deployment.
Provide timeline constraints.
Provide information on other projects that may impact the Coveo deployment.
Provide information on required collaboration with internal teams, such as IT, Business, or other projects.
Provide business objectives and success criteria.
Deliverables
Kick-off presentation
Estimated Effort: 5% of total hours
Define
Description
Design the solution so that PS and client teams share a common vision of the work to execute.
Coveo installation in testing environment.
The search solution begins to emerge.
PS Activities
Expected from client
Requirements review and gathering, solution design
Define personas.
Determine business, functional, user interface, and security requirements.
Obtain appropriate security credentials for all sources and environments.
Perform initial configuration in testing environments:
Install Coveo solution integration, if applicable (e.g., salesforce).
Activate Coveo Cloud organization.
Configure connectors.
Document the initial configuration.
Project Management
Finalize project plan and timeline.
Track and report on project activities.
Meetings, collaboration, and communications
Begin communication and reporting schedule.
Prepare a relevance workshop with a Customer Success Manager.
Approve the project plan and align with it.
Participate in scheduled meetings.
Participate in requirement workshops to share knowledge of source data and to make design decisions including choosing between many out-of-the-box options.
Provide indexing accounts, developer accounts, and other IT required accesses.
Deliverables
Coveo requirements document
Solution design document
Project plan
Estimated Effort: 15% of total hours
Execute
Description
Implement all parts of the solution.
Validate and fine-tune data sources.
Search interfaces take shape in an iterative fashion, consistently syncing with the client to make sure the end-user experience is headed where it should.
PS activities
Expected from client
Content indexing configuration
Select and configure connectors.
Normalize data:
Normalize data across sources.
Configure indexing pipeline extensions to improve content retrieval, metadata, and presentation.