Fluid Topics Project Methodology - Fluid Topics - Latest

The kick-off meeting, led by the Fluid Topics project manager, marks the official start of the project. It provides a comprehensive overview of the objectives, milestones, activities, and deliverables involved.

This meeting is crucial for sharing a common understanding of the customer's expectations, ensuring that all parties are aligned from the outset. It seeks to clarify roles and responsibilities among the customer and the Fluid Topics team members, and set a tentative project timeline and go-live date.

1. The customer has signed the contractual agreement and provided a purchase order, if necessary.
2. Project team members on both Fluid Topics and customer sides have been identified.

During the kick-off meeting, participants address several key objectives:

• Introducing the project teams and key stakeholders.
• Validating the project scope as outlined in the contractual agreement.
• Ensuring that every team member has a clear understanding of the project's purpose and expected outcomes.
• Reviewing roles and responsibilities for each step of the project to ensure clarity and alignment.
• Discussing potential challenges or risks that may appear during the project and establishing proactive approaches for mitigation.
• Scheduling regular weekly status meetings to maintain communication and provide updates on project progress.
• Introducing the content of training sessions to enhance team capabilities throughout the project duration.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Review the contractual agreement to identify any questions about the scope and customer expectations.	Identify or confirm the key players critical for the project's success.
Offer guidance on potential challenges and opportunities, drawing on Fluid Topics implementation expertise.	Review and validate the scope of work with the Fluid Topics team.
	Communicate any anticipated challenges and deadlines.
	Participate in establishing a project calendar.

The Fluid Topics project lead shares the updated kick-off slides after the meeting.

The training curriculum provides a broad foundation to discover, learn, and immediately apply Fluid Topics capabilities in a project. Each training session is designed to facilitate immediate productivity.

1. The Fluid Topics team has provisioned the purchased tenants.
2. The Fluid Topics team has provided the customer with all necessary administrative rights.
3. The customer has identified the target audience for each training module.

This module introduces Fluid Topics capabilities available to end-users. The intended audience includes all project participants and anyone within the customer's company who may be interested in Fluid Topics.

This training is available at the following link: Fluid Topics 101 - Getting Started with Fluid Topics.

This module explains how to manage data with Fluid Topics. It outlines the features related to content publishing and processing, metadata, Knowledge Hub, and vocabularies (such as taxonomies and synonyms). The intended audience includes project managers, technical writers, and any customer team members involved in content writing, administration, or publishing.

This training is available at the following link: Fluid Topics 102 - Managing Your Data With Fluid Topics.

This module covers the administration and configuration of Fluid Topics including look and feel, access rules, user management, and security setup. The intended audience includes Fluid Topics administrators, integrators, project managers, and technical writers.

This training is available at the following link: Fluid Topics 103 - Configuring Fluid Topics.

This module provides guidance on integrating Fluid Topics REST API into existing applications. The intended audience includes integrators and developers.

This training is available at the following link: FT 302 - Integrating Fluid Topics.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Conduct live sessions for trainings that are not available online.	Ensure that all required participants watch the online trainings and prepare questions for the Q&A sessions.
Plan Q&A sessions to answer specific questions for online trainings.	Ensure that all required participants attend the live sessions, if applicable.

1. The Fluid Topics project lead arranges a Q&A session for each online training to address any questions from the participants.
2. If online training is not available, the Fluid Topics project lead conducts a live session, and records it.
3. The Fluid Topics project lead shares training materials with the participants, including slide decks, hands-on training exercises, content samples, and recordings.

The high-level project planning serves as a basis for the implementation plan. It aims at defining and agreeing on the milestones and team responsibilities for each phase while facilitating the identification of the project's critical path.

1. The customer and the Fluid Topics project lead have defined the scope of work and identified the high-priority business use cases.
2. The customer has provided all relevant deadlines, including mandatory go-live dates or a timeline for decommissioning a previous content publishing software.
3. The customer is aware of the teams necessary for each phase, such as designers or an IT team.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Alert if the availability on customer side does not seem compatible with the provided deadlines.	Estimate the time required for customer-side tasks affecting project planning, such as content migration to a new content management system (CMS).
Assist in identifying key project phases and the necessary profiles to successfully carry out the project on schedule.	Confirm the availability of the necessary team members for each phase.
Offer expertise in project implementation to guide the customer towards the optimal outcome.

The Fluid Topics project lead provides project stakeholders with a high-level plan for future reference.

Customer requirements undergo a detailed review to clarify expectations and identify risks associated with each step of implementation. This thorough examination enables the refinement of project planning and the identification of mitigation actions to prevent delays in project implementation.

These discussions provide an excellent opportunity for customers to begin formulating a test plan.

Customer team members with a detailed understanding of the requirements are available to answer the Fluid Topics team's questions and can attend related workshops.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Identify the risks associated to each step and providing guidance on mitigation actions.	Clarify requirements internally if needed to be able to answer the Fluid Topics team's questions.
Provide test samples when needed to help understand complex features.	Assess the time needed for customer-side tasks.

The Fluid Topics project lead shares the implementation plan.

This phase examines the project ecosystem and content lifecycle, including content creation, maintenance, and end-user consumption. It aims to review the various content types the customer plans to publish in Fluid Topics. This phase focuses particularly on metadata and ensuring consistency across all content types.

It enables the customer to identify any potential content tasks required on their end, particularly tasks involving the creation, enrichment, and alignment of metadata.

Content writers and content management teams must be available to attend required workshops and engage in diagnostics or updates to the content or publishing process.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Provide guidance on authoring tool configuration, content granularity, and metadata to ensure optimal results when published in Fluid Topics.	Provide details about the content lifecycle, preferably in a visual format.

The Fluid Topics team shares recommendations and actions required on both ends to meet the customer's content-related requirements.

The goal of this phase is to foresee potential challenges and assist the client with various authoring formats and environments.

A representative content set is analyzed to identify and resolve any issues that could prevent the use of advanced Fluid Topics features. This phase may also entail creating new connectors based on provided specifications.

Last but certainly not least, content publishing requires implementing solutions to ensure a seamless and automated process.

1. The customer has identified a representative subset of content to publish to Fluid Topics or at least to provide to the Fluid Topics team.
2. Following teams are available: IT, tech writers, and every person responsible for content publication.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Provide relevant documentation depending on the content sources.	Provide and share a consistent methodology to internal stakeholders (tech writers, support agents, information architect).
Analyze content samples provided by the customer.	Maintain, enrich and adapt metadata across the different systems and sources.
If applicable, provide guidance on which APIs to use or scripts to develop for publishing automatization.	Implement the publishing automatization, if applicable.
Help to distinguish whether an issue relates to content authoring or to the delivery portal configuration.	Assess and validate the Fluid Topics output for the selected samples.

1. If applicable, the Fluid Topics team delivers:
   • Updates to the Fluid Topics configuration.
   • Product or customizations bug fixes.
   • Additional connectors.
2. The customer provides content sign-off to confirm the content output meets the project requirements for all specified sources and formats.

Single Sign-On (SSO) is a centralized authentication mechanism. In an ecosystem of applications that share the same SSO mechanism, users authenticate only once. For future logins, they can authenticate almost instantaneously without the need to re-enter a password.

SSO configuration involves updates to both the customer's system and Fluid Topics. The SSO configuration in Fluid Topics is straightforward, however the project manager is here to help if necessary.

1. The customer has communicated the definitive portal URL to the Fluid Topics team.
2. The customer's IT or security team is available to update the customer-side part of the SSO configuration.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Provide relevant documentation about the SSO configuration.	Define a user's management strategy (user groups and roles).
Help in the realm configuration and troubleshooting if necessary.	Configure and administrate the SSO in regard of the company requirements and policies.
Present the Profile mapper and its capabilities.

Access rights enable administrators to control content access based on user status: non-authenticated, authenticated, or members of a specific group. Rule definitions relies on two key factors: user groups and content metadata.

1. The customer has internally validated the business requirements for content access.
2. All teams involved in establishing content access rights, including business and IT teams, must be available. Workshops with the Fluid Topics team may be required.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Provide relevant documentation and guidance.	Design a consistent metadata strategy applicable to all necessary contents.
	Determine which metadata to use for access rights management.
	Add relevant metadata to the content, if applicable.
	Leverage SSO to retrieve users groups, implement a post-authentication script for the configuration of the restrictions, or manually add users to specific groups.
	Create access rights rules to match user groups with document metadata.
	Test and validate the configured access rights.

To access a Fluid Topics portal through a custom domain name, several configuration steps need to be performed.

1. The customer has communicated the portal URL to the Fluid Topics team.
2. The team responsible for the domain configuration on the customer's side, usually the IT team, is available.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Supply a Certificate Signing Request (CSR).	Communicate the URL to the Fluid Topics team.
Guide the customer at every configuration step.	Purchase an SSL Certificate signed by the CSR provided by the Fluid Topics team.
	Configure the DNS entry for the domain.

The Fluid Topics team updates the technical configuration of the portal to ensure it responds correctly on the specified URL.

Integration is a generic term used to define different forms of connection and integration of Fluid Topics content and search capabilities within different ecosystems. Without being exhaustive, one could consider the following use cases:

• Integration within an external tool, for example Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
• In-product help.
• Integration of Fluid Topics in an external website, using the API or inline help.
• Integration with federated search tools such as Coveo for crawling, indexing, and searching Fluid Topics content, or to embed a federated search widget within Fluid Topics.
• Analytics with third-party tools such as Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, or Adobe Analytics.

This phase can be lengthy because it often involves multiple departments and skills. As such, it is best to start this stage as soon as possible to avoid delaying the end of the project.

1. The customer has identified the requirements related to the integration of Fluid Topics content or search capabilities into external applications.
2. The customer has identified the stakeholders who need to be involved about integration. This step is crucial to ensure that all the necessary parties are involved and have the necessary expertise to contribute effectively to the project.
3. The teams in charge of integration on customer's side are available.
4. The customer has purchased and completed the Fluid Topics integration training (FT 302 - Integrating Fluid Topics).

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Ensure the integration requirements remain consistent in regard of the product capacities and business needs.	Ensure internal teams have the necessary skills and availability to integrate Fluid Topics into the applications.
Alert on potential pain points and limitations.	Develop the code required for integration within third-party applications.
Provide integration-related documentation such as Fluid Topics API documentation.	Configure third-party applications to allow integration with Fluid Topics, if necessary.

1. The Fluid Topics team provides any documentation useful for the integration tasks required on the customer side.
2. The Fluid Topics team updates Fluid Topics configuration with the scripts required for integration.
3. If purchased, the Fluid Topics team provides a training dedicated to integration (FT 302 - Integrating Fluid Topics).

The look and feel is crucial to facilitate the adoption of the portal by the end-users, with its ergonomic choices and accessibility requirements. It is important to assess as early as possible the effort required for the branding of the portal.

The customer creates a simple design implementation through Fluid Topics basic branding capabilities autonomously.

The customer's web integrators or the Fluid Topics technical team can create a more complex design implementation, using the Fluid Topics Page designers.

1. An in-house web designer is available to work on the required mockups and review them with the Fluid Topics team.
2. The customer has communicated their expectations about accessibility to the Fluid Topics team.
3. If the customer is in charge of web integration, a proficient web integrator is available to implement the design.
4. If the Fluid Topics team is in charge of web integration, the customer has provided all required inputs for the Fluid Topics team to start the integration: mockups as Figma or SVG files, fonts, images, and icons.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Share examples of possible web integrations.	Provide all design-related inputs (mockups, fonts, images, icons) as early as possible.
If applicable, implement the design and mockups provided by the customer's web designer.	If applicable, implement the design and mockups provided by the in-house web designer.

1. The Fluid Topics team conducts workshops with the customer's web designer to assess the feasibility of expected design.
2. If Antidot is responsible for mockup integration, the deliverables provided include integrated landing pages, search pages, reader pages, or homepages.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a crucial phase for the success of the project.

To ensure thorough testing of every aspect of the portal before going live, the customer must develop a detailed test plan as early as possible in the project.

This approach facilitates the timely reporting of any remaining discrepancies between expected and actual behavior to the Fluid Topics team, preventing any delays in the go-live process.

1. Every implementation phase necessary for the go-live is complete.
2. The customer has prepared a test plan based on end-users' expectations.
3. The team responsible for conducting tests is available.
4. Content required for the tests is available on the test environment chosen by the customer.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
If applicable, copy the configuration from Dev or Staging environments to Production.	Check every requirement listed in the test plan.
	Collect, analyze and document feedback from testers and key users.
	Resolve issues in the perimeter of the customer, such as authoring issues.
	Report relevant issues to the Fluid Topics team.
	Ensure there are no remaining outstanding items that may become showstoppers for the go-live.

The Fluid Topics team analyzes the issues reported by the customer during User Acceptance Testing (UAT) as soon as the client reports them.

Allocating enough time for their resolution before go-live is recommended to ensure a seamless launch.

1. The client has reported issues in a detailed manner, making them easily understandable and reproducible.
2. Issues reported by the customer are the Fluid Topics team's responsibility (issues related to Fluid Topics features or customizations delivered by the Fluid Topics project team).

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Analyze and fix issues reported by the customer.	Test and validate the fixes delivered by the Fluid Topics team.

If applicable, the Fluid Topics team delivers:

1. Updates to the Fluid Topics configuration.
2. Product, customizations, or bug fixes.

This phase encompasses all activities necessary for the project's launch. This can be either to a selected group of end-users via a soft launch, or to all intended users through an official go-live. It may involve cutover tasks like the final URL switch or activation of redirections if Fluid Topics replaces a solution previously used by the customer.

1. The customer has published all required content to the production environment.
2. The Fluid Topics configuration and visual design in the production environment meet customer requirements.
3. The Fluid Topics team has completed the setup of the custom domain name and Domain Name System (DNS) on the Fluid Topics side.
4. If necessary, the customer's IT team is ready to update the DNS records to point to the new Fluid Topics production portal.
5. If necessary, the customer has provided a list of all required redirections for use upon go-live.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Provide guidance on cutover activities, if applicable.	Update the DNS settings on the customer's side, if applicable.
Assist in troubleshooting and solving issues that may impact domain configuration or redirections.	Validate that the Fluid Topics configuration and visual design align with expectations in the production environment.

1. The Fluid Topics project lead sends a Project Acceptance Form to the customer after a successful go-live.
2. The customer provides the final project sign-off.

After go-live, the Customer Success Manager and Customer Support team serve as the main contacts for the customer. The project team hands over ownership to the Fluid Topics Support team, providing detailed information about the project implementation.

Following the transition to the Fluid Topics Support team, the customer should use the Fluid Topics Help Desk to report issues, to ask questions, and to suggest new features or improvements.

1. Transition to support occurs once the project goes live.
2. The customer has identified all required contacts for Fluid Topics Support team after go-live.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the Customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Update the Fluid Topics Customer Support team with all the details about the project implementation and specific features.	Provide all necessary contacts to the Fluid Topics Support team post-launch.
Create an account for all required contacts in Fluid Topics Help Desk.	Finish the account creation in Fluid Topics Help Desk.
Schedule a first Customer Success call with the customer.

The Fluid Topics team provides all required customer accounts on Fluid Topics Help Desk.

The goal of this concluding wrap-up meeting is to assess the project's performance and identify any challenges encountered during implementation. During this meeting, both the Fluid Topics team and the customer offer constructive, specific, and actionable feedback. This lays the foundation for an even smoother collaboration in the future.

This meeting also offers a great opportunity to discuss the project's future evolution and anticipate emerging needs and expectations.

The Fluid Topics project lead and the customer have gathered feedback from each team.

Here is an overview of the specific tasks and contributions expected from both the Fluid Topics team and the Customer.

Fluid Topics Team	Customer Team
Review the project timeline.	Document all positive aspects, pain points, and challenges faced during the project.
Document all positive aspects, pain points, and challenges faced during the project.	Provide suggestions for enhancements in organization, processes, or communication.
Take necessary actions to improve project implementation and future collaboration with the customer.