Snapshot:

In early July, 2023, Returnly announced to all of their customers that they would be shutting down the platform as of October 1. This left these customers looking for alternative solutions for their return management solution and integrations with other systems, and with limited time to complete their migration to another system at a time when they were preparing for the holiday season. Nova Module offered a unique solution in the Loop Integration App for Celigo Integrator.io that allowed for a simple and fully featured integration between Loop and NetSuite. This migration from Returnly to Loop Returns was named the “Switch2Loop” program.

Historically, configuring and implementing this integration often took 4-6 weeks to complete. However, due to the high number of Returnly customers looking to move to Loop immediately and stand up a NetSuite integration before the October deadline, the Nova Module team had to establish a new implementation methodology that would allow these projects to be completed as quickly as possible. The team set a goal of attempting to complete these projects within 3 days from start to finish, a significant undertaking from the previous methodology. From August 1 through October 13, 2023 a total of 21 projects were completed and launched.

The Problem

Returnly was a returns management software that automated shopper returns and exchanges for businesses that directly competed with Loop in the same space. Returnly was acquired in April 2021 by a company called Affirm and shortly thereafter, decided to shutter Returnly. Businesses were recommended to migrate to Loop as soon as Returnly announced their sunset over a period of 2 months.

The Solution

The Nova Module implementation team went back to the drawing board to determine how to successfully implement dozens of customers before the October Returnly shutdown date. The implementation of the Nova Module Loop Integration App previously took 4-6 weeks on average to complete project prerequisites, requirements gathering and documentation, configuration, UAT testing, and going live. While this worked for projects without a hard deadline, the team needed a way to complete as many of these projects as quickly as possible.

A few key changes helped deliver successful projects for the customers in the Switch 2 Loop program.

Project Resources

  • Nova Module dedicated a Tiger Team of Project Management and Development resources to the completion of these projects. The team was divided into 2 core implementation teams consisting of a Project Manager and Engineer. This way 2-3 implementation projects were able to run concurrently each week. The team members’ schedules were cleared to allow them to focus only on these projects for the duration of the program.

Project Prerequisites and Requirements Gathering

  • Clear the Calendar:
    The Project Management team made sure that project prerequisite information was required to be provided by the customer before beginning the project. This was an area in previous projects that led to delays while logins and information was being collected. A detailed project welcome email template was drafted that included all required information for the customer to provide before the project started, including answering a Questionnaire via a unique form URL to provide the requirements for configuring the integration, and validating all system login access.
  • Licenses and Access:
    Before starting configuration the Nova Module Operations team assisted in testing and confirming all customer systems access was current and working, and ensuring that Celigo Endpoints were available for use and that the Integration App was provisioned to the customers account. This pre-validation made sure that when projects were ready to start, all necessary information was collected and validated, so there would be no delays in starting configuration.
  • Customer Test Cases:
    Customers were also required to create and provide a list of standard UAT test case examples in Loop and NetSuite before starting configuration. This ensured that as soon as the integration setup was complete, the team was ready to immediately move into UAT testing without delay.

Project Configuration and Implementation

  • Project configuration sessions were scheduled with a target of running 3 consecutive days from 8am – 2pm PT. The entire Nova Module project team would be on the call with the Engineer ready to work through configuration and Setup and the Project Manager ready to assist with coordination with the Loop Team, and ensuring that any issues or escalations were addressed immediately as to not delay the project.
  • A temporary shared project Slack channel was created between the Nova Module and customer team so that communication was quick and easy, and teams could jump on and off the configuration meeting as needed.
  • Day 1 consisted of Requirements gathering and review of the Questionnaire responses, installing all necessary integration apps and bundles, and then configuring the Loop Integration App in Celigo. Followed by moving immediately into beginning UAT testing.
  • Day 2 allowed for additional UAT testing to ensure the review and validation of all test use cases and any custom scenarios as well.
  • Day 3 consisted of completing testing, moving to production environments (if applicable), and going live with scheduling all data flows. The project team would then provide one week of Post Go-Live project support to address any issues, and then the project would be closed.

The Results

21 projects were successfully completed over a period of 11 weeks with successful migrations from Returnly to Loop

The new accelerated implementation methodology was a huge success for the Nova Module team. Not only was the team able to help as many customers as possible move off of Returnly before the shutdown, they were able to do it in a record amount of time. Many customers remarked that they appreciated the new accelerated plan as while it required a significant time investment from all parties, it did not allow for any delays to draw out the project timeline. Any issues were dealt with or escalated immediately so that projects were consistently completed on time.

While this new methodology may not be a fit for custom projects with more advanced requirements, there is an opportunity to apply it to other Nova Module Integration Applications to provide an accelerated timeline to quickly implement integrations for customers with circumstances that require it.

The Team

  • Ian Grist – Technical Project Manager
  • Dixon Palatty – Integration Consultant and Project Manager
  • Srikanth Pathepu – Senior Implementation Engineer
  • Poojitha Gosu – Implementation Engineer
  • Kalyan Sangarthula – Senior Software Engineer

References