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Cutover Planning
Before you commit to a go-live window, decide and document handling for each of these cutover elements. They apply no matter which rollout approach you use.
| Cutover Element | Planning Considerations |
|---|---|
| Go-Live Window | Determine the duration of the maintenance window, who is on-call, the sign-off authority for go-live, the escalation path for issues, and the communication to impacted users before, during, and immediately after the go-live window. |
| Rollback Criteria | Define the conditions that initiate a rollback, who has the authority to call it, the expected rollback duration, and whether it's feasible within the maintenance. |
| In-Flight Quotes | Decide what happens to quotes that the sales team is still working when you cut over. Active quotes carry validity periods, pricing snapshots, and configured lines. Migrating them mid-cycle often creates discrepancies that are difficult to reconcile. A practical approach is to migrate only long-running strategic deals, which are typically those deals with custom commercial terms or extended validity periods. For everything else, ask sales reps to recreate the quotes in Revenue Management after go-live. This approach is simpler to implement, easier to validate, and avoids the risk of a configuration mismatch. |
| Data Validation Gate | Before go-live, create a small set of quotes to cover a range of representative scenarios and then validate against these quotes post-migration to confirm that the new changes have been applied correctly.
List the reconciliation checks that must pass before you declare a go-live successful. Typical checks include record counts, pricing validation against the curated quote pack, integration smoke tests, and any other gates that your program requires. |
| Order Processing Freeze | Decide whether to pause or restrict new or in-flight orders for a period before go-live to make sure that work isn't stranded. If you implement a freeze, communicate its timing to the sales team and notify customers of any delays without necessarily disclosing the migration itself. For in-flight orders, define the criteria for data freeze such as a certain date, align with stakeholders on those criteria, and determine the plan for handling in-flight orders after go-live. |
| Hypercare Period | Define the duration of heightened support immediately after go-live, which roles stay available, and the escalation path for issues that can't wait for normal support. |
| Communication Plan | Assign who sends each message and to which audience. Sales reps, finance, operations, and IT usually need different levels of detail at different points before, during, and after cutover. |
