Early Adopter Program

Overview

The Early Adopter Program (EAP) is an initiative supported by Product Management and Development to offer ClearBlue Solutions customers that purchase new products or agree to upgrade to a new release direct access to development and product teams to provide feedback on functionality, use-ability, technology, and implementation of our solutions. It allows all ClearBlue Solutions organizations to quickly identify defects, performance, delivery or positioning issues in conjunction with the new product release. This program is designed to enhance communication and deliver support for issues that may impede a customer’s implementation and success.

The value the customer receives is that they have direct access to Product Strategy and Product Development to provide feedback and recommendations regarding the product functionality.

ClearBlue Solutions Early Adopter Team includes cross-functional support from Sales, Product Management, Development, Professional Services, Marketing, and Customer Service to ensure all objectives of this program are achieved.

ClearBlue Solutions EAP should not be considered a substitute for training and consulting services. It is expected that the EAP site will have adequately trained resources to facilitate and execute implementation.

Customers that participate in EAP are automatically enrolled as a member of ClearBlue Solutions Strategic Client Program to help guide future development initiatives within the Product Management and Marketing Teams.

Program Organization

Product Strategy will be the administrator and executive sponsorship for the overall program. At each phase, different parts of the organization will “own” the relationship with the customer.

In the table below each phase of the implementation is assigned an Owner (O) and/or Participant (P).

	Code Drop	Install App	Go Live	Maintenance	Post Implementation Activities
Development/Delivery	O	P	P
Professional Services	P	O	O		P
Customer Service	P	P	O	O
Product Management		P	P	P
Sales/Account Mgmt					O
Marketing					P

Program Requirements

Following outlines the requirements for participation in the program.

Customer Profile

Approved / Authorized ClearBlue Solutions Platforms
Use American English
Complete Early Adopter Program Agreement, submit and obtain approval
Have a current Maintenance Agreement and be in good standing
Geographically supported by an ClearBlue Solutions office
Committed to baseline implementation with minimal customizations

Customer Reference

The customer will participate in the Customer Reference Program that includes press releases, testimonials, analyst calls, success stories, site visits, and other elements as defined and agreed.

Implementation

The customer will agree to include Professional Services implementation support and the scope to be mutually defined. Professional Services will work with the customer to develop a Project Implementation Schedule that will be provided to Development/Product Management
The Customer must provide sufficient supporting resources to execute the implementation
Define target date for Go-Live
If using third party consulting, consultants must be trained and ClearBlue Solutions certified on application
Customer will remain part of the EAP Program until first site is live and successfully closed out a period.
Product Management will be the primary contact for EAP
The customer, Development, Product Management and Professional Services consultants will agree to weekly calls to update issues.

Defects and Issues

Issue Lists are to be sent to Product Management at least 24 hours before meetings
All defects must first be logged with Customer Service. Adequate time should be given for WCS to respond in accordance with Customer Service policy.
All defect corrections will managed by support and patch applied by customer/consultants.
Professional Services Consultants on site will triage the process to apply and validate defect corrections
Professional Services Consultants on site will prioritize for defects with Customer

Communication

Weekly Meeting will be based on issues and defects that have been documented and reported to ClearBlue Solutions. Each defect and/or issue should be rated as follow:

Severity 1 = Showstoppers, missing functionality that will prevent user go live.

Severity 2 = Work Arounds, not ideal but required business process is not prevented.

Severity 3 = PER’s (Product enhancement Requests), not primary for EAP.

This spreadsheet will be maintained by the Professional Services on site consultant and submitted to Product Management and Development at least 24 hours before any meetings. Each meeting will be scheduled for one hour, once a week.

Product Management and Development will review issues prior to the call and be prepared to:

Discuss Action Items from the previous call
Discuss status of open issues
Prioritize and/or escalate status of defects based on the severity of the issue.
Communicate the prioritized issues to development
Determine if extended customer care is needed.
Each issue should include a last action date and next action target.

Nomination of ClearBlue Solutions EAP Customers:

Factors that influence EAP Approval:

Account Executives/Sales Executives, Professional Services, Customer Service, Development or Product Management in conjunction with Industry Solution Executives can identify and nominate accounts that are best suited and committed to new product deployment.
Industry Solution Executives can nominate ClearBlue Solutions customers with strategic alignment to vertical success.
All nominations must be approved by a Director or VP of Product Strategy.
Executive Sponsor within ClearBlue Solutions or ClearBlue Solutions Board Members
To nominate a customer, the EAP team will gather and submit the following to Product Strategy:

Account Dossier – Account size, region , manager, contacts, etc
Scope of implementation and additional products to be implemented
Commitment to the Program Requirements outlined above
Review and submit the request form for approval

Define the complexity of implementation (e.g. integration to 3^rd party apps, data conversion, number of users, IT infrastructure, etc.