Odoo Implementation Methodology

to get started with our product

This document summarizes Odoo's Enterprise services, our service pack implementation methodology, and best practices to get started with our Odoo Enterprise.

We recommend that new Odoo customers read this document before the kick-off with the project manager. This way, we save time and don't have to use your hours from the service pack discussing the basics.

If you have not read this document, our project manager will review this with you at the time of the kick-off.

Getting Started

Do not wait for the kick-off meeting to begin playing with the software. The more exposure you have with Odoo, the more time you will save later during the implementation.

Once you purchase an Odoo Enterprise Licence, you can activate your existing Odoo database or create a new one from scratch.

If you did not receive this email, e.g. because the payment was made by someone else in your company contact your Odoo partner.

What do we expect from you?

We are used to deploying fully featured projects within 25 to 350 hours of services, which is much faster than any other ERP vendor on the market. Most projects are completed between 1 to 9 calendar months.

But what really differentiates between a successful implementation and a slow one, is you, the customer! From our experience, when our customer is engaged and proactive the implementation is smooth.

Your internal implementation manager

We ask that you maintain a single point of contact within your company to work with our project manager on your Odoo Implementation. This is to ensure efficiency and a single knowledge base in your company. Additionally, this person must:

  • be available at least 2 full days a week for the project, otherwise you risk slowing down your implementation. More is better with the fastest implementations having a full time project manager.

  • have authority to take decisions on their own. Odoo usually transforms all departments within a company for the better. There can be many small details that need quick turn around for answers and if there is too much back and forth between several internal decision makers within your company it could potentially seriously slow everything down.

  • have the leadership to train and enforce policies internally with full support from all departments and top management, or be part of top management.

Integrate 90% of your business, not 100%

You probably chose Odoo because no other software allows for such a high level of automation, feature coverage, and integration. But don't be an extremist.

Customization cost you time, money, are more complex to maintain, add risks to the implementation, and can cause issues with upgrades.

Standard Odoo can probably cover 90% of your business processes and requirements. Be flexible on the remaining 10%, otherwise that 10% will cost you twice the original project price. One always underestimates the hidden costs of customization.

  • Do it the Odoo way, not yours. Be flexible, use Odoo the way it was designed. Learn how it works and don't try to replicate the way your old system(s) works.

  • The project first, customization second. If you really want to customize Odoo, phase it towards the end of the project, ideally after having been in production for several months. Once a customer starts using Odoo, they usually drop about 60% of their customization requests as they learn to perform their work flows out of the box, or the Odoo way. It is more important to have all your business processes working than customizing a screen to add a few fields here and there or automating a few e-mails.

Our project managers are trained to help you make the right decisions and measure the tradeoffs involved but it is much easier if you are aligned with them on the objectives. Some processes may take more time than your previous system(s), however you need to weigh that increase in time with other decreases in time for other processes. If the net time spent is decreased with your move to Odoo than you are already ahead.

Invest time in learning Odoo

Start your free trial and play with the system. The more comfortable you are with navigating Odoo, the better your decisions will be and the quicker and easier your training phases will be.

Nothing replaces playing with the software, but here are some extra resources:

Documentation: https://www.odoo.com/documentation/userIntroduction

Videos: https://www.odoo.com/r/videosCustomer

Reviews: https://www.odoo.com/blog/customer-reviews-6

What should you expect from us?

Service Pack Packages:

The Service Pack is a package of premium hour-based services performed by a dedicated project manager and business analyst.

The goal of the project manager is to help you get to production within the defined time frame and budget, i.e. the initial number of hours defined in your service pack package.

This role includes:

  • Project Management: review of your objectives & expectations, phasing of the implementation (road map), mapping of your business needs and the Odoo features.

  • Customized Support: by phone, e-mail or on premise.

  • Training, Coaching, and Onsite Consulting: remote training via screen sharing or training on premises.

  • Configuration: decisions about how to implement specific needs in Odoo and advanced configuration. (e.g. logistic routes, advanced pricing structures, etc.)

  • Data Import: we can do it or assist you on how to do it with a template prepared by the project manager.

If you have installed Studio, you benefit from following extra services:

  • Customization of screens: Studio takes the Drag and Drop approach to customize most screens in any way you see fit.

  • Customization of reports (PDF): Studio itself will not allow you to customize the reports yourself, however our project managers have access to developers for advanced customizations.

  • Website Design: standard themes are provided to get started at no extra cost. However, our project manager can coach you on how to utilize the building blocks of the website designer. The time spent will consume hours of your service pack.

  • Workflow automation: e.g. setting values in fields based on triggers, sending reminders by emails, automating actions, etc. For very advanced automations, our project managers have access to Odoo developers. 

If any customization is needed, Odoo Studio App will be required. Customizations made through Odoo Studio App will be maintained and upgraded at each Odoo upgrade, at no extra cost.

All time spent to perform these customizations by our Business Analysts will be deducted from your Technical Service Pack.


Implementation Methodology


We follow a lean and hands-on methodology, that is used to put customers in production in a short period of time and at a low cost.

After the kick-off meeting, we define a phasing plan to deploy Odoo progressively, by groups of apps.

 

The goal of the Kick-off meeting is for our project manager to come to an understanding of your business in order to propose an implementation plan (phasing). Each phase is the deployment of a set applications that you will fully use in production at the end of the phase.

For every phase, the steps are the following:

On Boarding: Odoo's project manager will review Odoo's business flows with you, according to your business. The goal is to train you, validate the business process and configure according to your specific needs.

Data: created manually or imported from your existing system. You are responsible to export the data from your existing system and Odoo's project manager will import them in Odoo.

Training: once your applications are set up, your data imported, and the system is working smoothly, you will train your users. There will be some back and forth with your Odoo project manager to answer questions and process your feedback.

Production: Once everyone is trained, your users start using Odoo.