Making headway

A day in the life of...Vodafone Portugal Siebel Digital Path Project.

Ricardo Borges Pereira (Quality Assurance team) went behind the scenes of the Vodafone Portugal Siebel Digital Path Project.

What is Vodafone Portugal Siebel Digital Path Project? Where is it located? When did it start? And how long?

Back in 2015, Vodafone Portugal identified the need to upgrade the CRM solution infrastructure, based on Oracle Siebel 8.0.0.13. The reasons that make this upgrade mandatory are mainly related to products’ end-of-life and the corresponding support from vendors but also, to empower Siebel with capabilities that allow Vodafone to extend its success and vision into the CRM system.

The Vodafone Siebel Digital Path is the project where this upgrade to Siebel is being done, the project started in October 2018 and it is currently planned to enter in production in October 2019.

Besides the upgrade to the last Siebel version, IP2019, we are also bringing new functionalities and improving some current functional areas.

What is the project structure? How is it organized? Who is part of the team? How many are you?

Currently, we are about 25 people, divided in 4 teams: Analysis, Development, Migration and QA, the teams’ names speak for themselves.

What is your project’s Vision?

Besides the obligatory reasons to upgrade the Oracle Siebel version (due to end-of-lifecycle support for Siebel, Oracle Database, Internet Explorer 8 or Windows Server 2003 and 2008) we want Vodafone to adopt new features and advantages that this Siebel brings. This upgrade will bring business agility to a new level, allowing parallel development of multiple projects, reduce the downtime deployments due to the new architecture and allow Automated Tests facilities.

These new features will make delivering new projects faster possible, as well as bring tools for agile development and continuous delivery. Also, this version of Siebel will allow improvements in Siebel GUI that were not possible in the past; and simplify the upgrade process in order to maintain Siebel continuously updated.

What is the project mission?

The project mission is to put this new version of Siebel live in October, with all customer data migrated, maintain current features working and also add new capabilities on top of it. In sum, all users should be thrilled to use it (none, or few, nostalgic for the old version)

In the end, we will also have an easier release process, which will include automated tests (more than 300 tests are planned to be automated and used during acceptance phase!).

What about the values shared by the team?

As you may know, different people can, for sure, make a great team. So, in order to verify that I’ve asked the team which values and what they like about this project. Most of them agree that the respect, teamwork, clear and open communication, availability and cooperation between each team is something that is always present and contribute to a good working atmosphere.

Also, the fact that working in a Big project, directly with the Vendor (Oracle) and with a Senior CRM team, is something mentioned by the people on the team. They feel that their work is recognized and bring value to both Celfocus and Vodafone, making them happy to invest their energy each day.
Of course, during the day they need some minutes of relaxation to eliminate stress and restore their energy! For that, they do like the free coffee and the fresh fruit.

What do I need to have/to be in order to join the Vodafone Portugal Siebel Digital Path team/project?

Besides the enthusiasm that should be continuous in our daily tasks, in order to work for this project, you must be ready for challenges and think outside of the box, be resilient, have courage and spirit of sacrifice. We are upgrading one of the most complex systems at Vodafone Portugal, all customer data will face a migration, so the bar is high. Of course, Siebel experience is desirable and if you are waiting to see the new features of the biggest CRM tool that exists, you can join us!

Give your mind an Upgrade and always believe that something wonderful is about to happen. That will put you on the right Digital Path! “Now think”