Use this article to plan your Ingrid implementation: what happens in each of the five phases from scoping to go-live, who leads each phase, what sets your timeline, and what to settle before you start.
This article is for retailers starting an Ingrid implementation, and for the project leads, developers and agencies working on it. The five Ingrid implementation phases apply whichever Ingrid products you bought. What changes per product is the detail, and that lives in the product implementation articles linked at the end of this article.
The five phases of an Ingrid implementation
Each phase of an Ingrid implementation has a clear lead. That matters more than it sounds: most implementation delays come from both sides assuming the other one owns a decision.
The table below shows the five Ingrid implementation phases, who leads each phase, and what happens in it:
Phase | Who leads | What happens |
1. Scoping | Ingrid | Ingrid runs the kick-off, then a planning workshop with your leads. Your delivery requirements, markets and carriers are written down, and the implementation becomes a dated plan owned by both teams. |
2. Configuration | Joint | You bring your delivery logic; Ingrid configures it with you, trains your team, and coaches them to own the configuration afterward. Most of go-live is configuration, not code. |
3. Integration | You | You integrate Ingrid through Ingrid plugins or APIs (application programming interfaces). Ingrid guides you with documentation and the Ingrid integrations team. |
4. Testing | You | You test across three layers: system integration, carrier logic, and end to end. Ingrid helps resolve what you find. Nothing goes live until it passes testing. |
5. Go-live | You | You lead go-live, either big bang or phased. Ingrid runs hypercare alongside you, then hands over to the Ingrid Customer Success and Support teams. |
In practice, Ingrid implementation phases overlap. Configuration usually continues while integration work starts, and testing often begins on the first configured market before the other markets are done.
Who you work with during an Ingrid implementation
Ingrid staffs every implementation with an implementation consultant, adding project management and integration support where the scope calls for it. Your Ingrid implementation consultant runs the project with you from scoping through go-live.
After launch, Ingrid runs hypercare alongside you. Once hypercare ends, the Ingrid Customer Success and Support teams become your ongoing contacts.
What sets your Ingrid implementation timeline
There is no standard duration for an Ingrid implementation, and a number quoted without your specifics would be misleading. Three kinds of work set your go-live date:
What you configure: delivery rules, carriers and product settings. This is joint work, and the bulk of most implementations.
What you build, if anything: often minimal or none on a standard platform such as Shopify or Centra. Real engineering appears with a custom or headless storefront, a carrier new to the Ingrid carrier library, or changes to your wider tech stack.
What you test: you lead testing, because you know your delivery logic, downstream systems and edge cases.
Beyond that, a handful of project characteristics move the go-live date more than anything else: your platform, your carriers, who holds your carrier credentials, whether your wider tech stack is changing, how your team is resourced, and how many markets you are launching.
What shapes your timeline covers each of these characteristics, with the straightforward case and the case that needs more planning.
What to settle before you start an Ingrid implementation
Two things are worth settling early, because both are common causes of a slipped go-live date.
Name your project team. The team you name is the single biggest predictor of your Ingrid go-live date. One person can cover several roles, or an agency can fill them, as long as each role has a clear owner from day one. The team you'll need lists the six roles and what each one has to be able to do.
Release your carrier credentials. Wherever Ingrid calls a carrier on your behalf, Ingrid needs your carrier credentials. Carrier credentials are often held by your 3PL (third-party logistics provider) or logistics team rather than your e-commerce team, so finding out who owns them is an early task, not a late one. For Ingrid Transport and Ingrid Care returns there is no workaround: nothing can be booked without carrier credentials. Carrier credentials explains what is needed per Ingrid product and why.
Choosing your Ingrid rollout: big bang or phased
You can go live with every market at once (big bang), or pilot one market and roll the other markets out in waves (phased). Both rollouts are valid. The right rollout follows your resourcing, your risk appetite and your testing capacity, and you form a view together with your Ingrid implementation consultant during the planning workshop.
Big bang or phased compares the two rollouts on time to value, resourcing and risk.
Implementation per Ingrid product
The five implementation phases are the same for every Ingrid product. What differs per product is what gets configured, what gets integrated and what gets tested. See the implementation article for your Ingrid product:
New to Ingrid? Getting started covers signing in and what each Ingrid product does.