For the past year and a half, I've been working with a team of guys from Falafel Software to create a back office system for Earthbound Farm. Earthbound Farm is an organic food company based in California.
Much of my silence lately on this blog is due to the work required to go live on March 1st. We turned off their old system, converted their database, and flipped on Velocity. A complete switch from one system to another, and we pulled it off pretty darn well. John Waters and I had a 32 hour stint getting ready for the switchover, carrying it out, and then supporting customers on that first day of business with Velocity. That was quite a day.
We had started the prep work and data conversion the afternoon of February 28th. I had run through the data conversion over the life of the project, so we were able to handle the problems that came up and get the system ready for operation by 4:30 am the next morning. That's when I started to get queasy. All night long, we had the option of rolling back to the old system. Now we were actually going to turn on Velocity.
The sales department rolled in around 5:30 am and started entering orders. Other departments came online during the rest of the morning. All that week was spent in fire suppression mode. Lots of little problems that needed immediate solutions. But it worked. After two weeks and tens of thousands of transactions, it's still working and they're pleased with it.
--
Sean Winstead