Leading Zoho Partner in the Middle East

Zoho is one of the leading business solution having 80+ million users worldwide. It has 40+ applications to meet various business needs. As an Advanced Partner of Zoho, Alchemist Advanced Technologies assisted more than 500. This article discusses, the steps / stages which we follow for Zoho implementation. Taking the right approach for the implementation is vey much necessary for a successful implementation.

Zoho Partner

1. Understanding the requirements

This is the first and foremost step of every system implementation. Every business is different and the requirement of everybody is different. It is very important to sit with every stakeholder at this stage and speak to them regarding their expectations from the system, their pain points in the current environment etc.

2. Documenting the requirements

At this stage, all the requirements collected at the first to be documented and analyzed. It is inevitable that the users / team members will share all the points in mind irrespective of relevance. It is important to categorize in to more meaningful way. For example, categorizing the requirements as below will be useful:

– Must have features
– Nice to have to have
– Can live with it

This categorization will give a framework for implementation plan.

3. Preparation of the work flow

This is the stage where the customer journey / transaction journey is presented in a detailed flow chart. This document will help the management to get a clear idea on the order, team involvement, automation areas, control points etc in every customer / transaction journey. Below is a sample workflow on managing the marketing and sales function of an educational institution.

4. Preparation of the Prototype

Now it’s the time to start working on your Zoho Account. Zoho Account for your organization will be created and start working on the finalized requirements. Some of the tasks involved in configuration of Zoho are:

– Creation / Modifications of the modules in Zoho
– Creation and modifications of the fields in modules
– Preparation of layout rules and automation
– Templates for Quotes, Sales orders, Invoices and emails
– Workflow rules configuration
– Blueprint configuration
– Approval flow
– Escalation rules and notifications
– Report customization and scheduling
– User access control and hierarchy management
– Dashboard configuration
– Integrations and connections

5. Presenting to the key executives and initiate the testing

At this stage, prototype is presented to the key executives and take their feedback. This gives them a visualization of the solution what they seek for. All the ‘Must have features’ are covered in this stage and make necessary changes based on the feedback.

Once the feedback on the prototype is received and the changes are incorporates, system access is given to couple of champion users and the training is given to them for testing purpose. They conduct a rigorous testing with various scenarios and share their feedback. Final configurations before the user training is made by considering the champion users feedbacks.

6. User training

This is the time for introducing the system to the team and start the real job. Users training is given based on their roles. Training schedules are made based on the numbers of users, location, roles, working hours etc.

7. Going live

This is the moment of happiness. Rolling out the solution for the users to use in their day today activities and start following whatever is decided and trained earlier. It is very important to support the users with any doubt / trouble they face during their usage. Good support and well arranged training will make their journey smooth.

8. Continuous support

There are some team members who adopt to any change easily and learn new thinks quickly. And there are others, who needs care like a baby. Don’t worry. We have worked with all types of people (Hope so) by this time. Our team will make their journey smooth and calm.