We aim to keep things simple in areas of our onboarding services options and the pricing for those. We also want to maximise the outcomes for your project but there are obviously some limitations and realities of projects which create unexpected scenarios.
We want to be very transparent about these which is the purpose of this article.
This article aims to bring clarity to specific items but we need to be clear that everything is subject to our terms.
When will we start?
New sheepCRM customers are allocated to available starting slots, which are first come first served once you have entered an agreement with us, or at a later slot by choice if that is preferable to you.
If we are available to start sooner we will let you know but of course it is your choice to accept that or stick with the original slot.
Starting is when our internal project team start your project, we have internal work to do before we kick off the project, but your sheepCRM Project Manager (PM) will contact your nominated PM no later than when we start to set up the first sessions and the project.
Please read below about scenarios which many lead to a delayed start of your allocated slot.
If you have not yet entered an agreement, we can advise what slots are currently available to those signing next, but they are not confirmed until agreements are fully in place.
How long with it take?
This is a hard question to answer as it is depends on the services and items you have chosen, but here is a high level guide, please note your PM will agree a project window with you at the start of the project.
Simple plans - average 3-4 weeks
Advance plans - average 4-6 weeks
Pro plans - average 6-8 weeks
How much time / hours will we (you) need to complete our work?
This is also a hard question to answer, our PM will support your PM with more accurate estimates as part of project planning if required, but the estimates below provide a rough guide per week of the project windows above;
Simple plans - 5 to 15hrs per week
Advance - 10 to 20hrs per week
Pro - 15 to 25hrs per week
What if things do not go to plan?
Projects are exposed to reality, our way of doing things and onboarding process has evolved to a level which mitigates things going wrong, but there are things outside of our control and yours. We need to be clear about how they can impact and what contingency planning you should make.
What if you are not able to start our onboarding project at the expected time?
For reasons you will see below we do not guarantee start times of the projects but will communicate with you at the earliest time should a delayed start become likely.
We have other customer projects to finish before yours starts, if they are delayed for matters outside of our control (and only when we are responsible for the delay), such as unmanageable levels of staff illness, we prioritise finishing existing projects and postpone the start of new ones. You of course also benefit from this approach should such an impact occur during your project, but please be assured this is very rare for us to delay a start.
What if a task takes us (you) longer to complete then planned, does it push the project launch date back?
We pre-plan an element of flexibility and contingency to allow for this, sometimes things may take you longer than we expect, for example you found problems in your data that were not known when the due date was set.
You need to understand that delayed completion of tasks may lead to a delayed launch, but we will always aim to recover lost time project wise to avoid this.
You can mitigate this by ensuring adequate resource and priority is allocated to your project.
Sometimes postponing your launch is better than "rushing" to make up lost ground and creating post launch issues to manage.
What if delays mean we cannot launch until outside of our allocated project slot?
When this happens the majority of sheepCRM team time / tasks are usually already completed so your actual launch is more in your control.
The possible impact is that you have less choice and influence over our availability as we will have other customers starting onboarding, so we will ask you to be flexible with your reset dates so it fits with our limited availability.
Are there any costs or penalties if we do not complete things on time or need to make changes?
The costs of our onboarding services are essentially paying for our time and expertise and as we have walked this path many times we know what you need will be covered with that budget. However, to protect ourselves charges would apply for unexpected scenarios or out of scope items, here are the things that would lead to additional costs and we strongly recommend you allocate a contingency budget to your project team.
In simple terms, we do not expect to repeat our effort, and charges apply if we do need to;
Change of your team members involved in the project (due to absence, reallocation of responsibilities, attrition etc).
This could mean that we would need to repeat important briefing meetings or training for the new person.
We recommend good documentation is made during your project to mitigate this risk, but if we are asked to repeat an item we will request budget to cover these additional costs to us.
We load your data once.
If after this you identify new data, or have provided bad data we will need to repeat our effort and will request budget to cover the cost of our time needed.
Training
We expect your team to treat all sessions during the onboarding process as 'learning sessions' so that the information can be retained.
We provide important recommendations to your nominated trainer of how to organise, document and manage "how to" guides so that others can be trained and utilise this effort.
Sometimes your team members may need a bit more than is the norm.
Should training need to be revisited because these recommendations have not been adopted, or you would like us to repeat training for previous or new team members then it requires budget to cover this time.
Changing how you operate mid project
The first step of our project is to pick our available workflows and processes, this then informs the set up and training.
We recommend things like commercial or process change are blocked until post launch.
If you need to change something mid-project that means a change to what was selected, what has been done or trained then additional time needs to be booked and is chargeable for our time. Please note, our team does provide change guidance and support so this can also be booked to help ensure any change is implemented efficiently.
What if sheepCRM fail to complete the work required on time for our project timings?
We are exposed to the same project realities but we have a certain amount of resource flexibility so that you are not impacted.
We expect the same flexibility we offer you for these scenarios.
If we had an unexpected level of staff absence which led to work or sessions being postponed we will leverage our resources to get the project back on time wherever possible.
We will postpone other customer work that committed after yours so that you are a priority if the delay is from our side.
If we need to ask your team to repeat any meetings or effort we will credit your future licence fees with amounts based on our costs for services (its equivalent to what we would charge you if you need to us to repeat effort).
What if we (you) identify things do not work and need fixing?
Our set up phase of the project can only be completed with confirmation you are "ready for launch", which means you have tested the experience to confirm that. Hence, it is very important your team takes ownership of that. (We do of course test as well and have tools to help capture and resolve issues identified in testing).
Worth remembering these are established tools already in use by other customers so the testing is primarily focussed on your set up of the tools.
Technical errors are possible but are treated as support issues as they are for all customers.
Important to understand that this is only covering things "not working" as planned in the set up phase, if it's not "how" you would like it to work that is covered under change above.
What if we realise you do not have a solution for a requirement, or your solution is not good enough for us?
There is always compromise in places, but always consider the overall impact of this change, which is always significant for organisations joining sheepCRM. It's not uncommon for teams to have "high expectations of perfection" and for small items to become issues if expectation is not managed to what you are actually purchasing. We are a SaaS system, which means you have chosen to adopt what we do and how we support you do things into the way you do things internally, this is not a development project (unless we have agreed to build something new as part of your project of course!).
We would expect you to be confident about this before you go ahead, but if you are concerned about this you can book pre-commitment services so that we can do a detailed requirements match and if you go ahead we will deduct part of that cost from your set up fee.
You may be able to fund feature development but this is strictly by agreement and timings will be based on our lead times at the time of that request.
We are an evolving platform influenced heavily by common customer need, so if you have a good idea we are likely to adopt it as a future item so the other option is to focus on the benefits available now and wait for this to be a future improvement.
This article is subject to ongoing change, we will update it as and when questions are raised that are suitable for this page.