Vamsiponnapalli main patch 980f

description: "Guidelines for CSMs on how best to engage with professional services."

---

### CSM Guidelines - Engaging with PS on a customer project

## CSM Guidelines - Engaging with PS on a customer project

The following outlines the steps/means for a CSM to engage with Professional Services throughout a PS engagement with an existing customer.  Once a project is closed-won in Salesforce, PS Ops engages with the customer to [establish the key project criteria](/handbook/customer-experience/professional-services-engineering/project-mgmt/#project-initiate--plan).  Once this criteria is received, the project manager is assigned.  The following steps are completed by the project manager:

The following outlines the steps/means for a CSM to engage with Professional Services throughout a PS engagement with an existing customer.  Once a project is closed-won in Salesforce, PS Ops engages with the customer to establish the key project criteria.  Once this criteria is received, the project manager is assigned.  The following steps are completed by the project manager:

1. Invites CSM to internal PS kick-off meeting (PSE, PM, CSM)

1. Invites CSM to Account Team (Sales) to PS transition meeting

1. Invites CSM to PS slack channel

1. Invites CSM (as optional) to weekly status meeting with the customer and the entire project team.

1. Keeps CSM in the loop (and visa versa) regarding potential deal growth in either the licensing or services categories

1. Invites CSM to [project closure meeting](/handbook/customer-experience/professional-services-engineering/project-mgmt/#deploy--close)

1. Invites CSM to project closure meeting

#### CSM Responsibility

### CSM Responsibility

1. CSM feeds key information back to the project team such as future licensing deals, upgrades, etc.

1. CSM keeps up to date with progress via (slack channel, daily standups, weekly status meetings, status reports sent via email, etc.)

## Professional Services Standard Cost

We use a standard cost estimate to project margin on PS Statements of Work. The standard rate is calculated by dividing the average annual OTE plus benefits by the estimated annual billable hours. For this calculation, we assume 1,880 billable hours annually. We update the standard cost estimate on a quarterly basis.

We determine cost estimates based on differentiated resource rates, discounts, and protective uplifts to project margin on PS Statements of Work. To standardize this process, we have an internal service estimation tool called PS Compass that generates cost estimate for projects, and breaks down all of the financials.

To standardize the cost estimate for projects, make a copy of the [SOW Cost Estimate Calculator](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16KFNRFe4E_oaqU7_ZGivoO7eU3-65dkMgVvK5Jvb7ZQ/edit#gid=158441360) and attach it to the issue for the SOW in question. This calculator will be updated to reflect any changes to the standard cost estimate.

If you need help with determining the standard cost rate or if it is applicable to your project, please contact your [Finance Business Partner](/handbook/finance/financial-planning-and-analysis/#finance-business-partners--talent-acquisition-managers-forecast-interlock).

If you need help with determining cost rates, margin, or any other information, please contact your [Professional Services Engagement Manager](/job-description-library/sales/job-professional-services-engagement-manager/).

## Scope

| [Delivery & Project Management](/handbook/customer-experience/professional-services-engineering/project-mgmt/#deliver-train-and-monitor) | Service delivery planning and execution through specialized Engineers and Project/Program Managers |

| [Engagement Management](engagement-mgmt/) | Opportunity and SOW scoping and closing in collaboration with GitLab Sales team members |

| [Instructional Design and Development](instruct-dev/) | Educational content creation, deployment, and maintenance |

| [Practice Management](practice-mgmt/) | Definition, planning, go-to-market, and delivery tooling/maintenance for professional services offerings |

| [CX Engineering](cx-engineering/) | Definition, planning, go-to-market, and delivery tooling/maintenance for professional services offerings |

| [Professional Services Operations](professional-services-operations/) | Project Coordination, scheduling, and backend processes |

| [Professional Services Technical Architect](technical-architect/) | Team technical leadership, project quality and technical escalations |

---

title: "CX Engineering"

description: "Discover how the GitLab CX Services team works together."

---

## CX Engineering Overview

The CX Engineering team is broken up into multiple distinct functions:

- CX Services

- CX Platform Engineering

- Digital Success

- GitLab University

The CX services team is responsible for maturing [current service offerings](https://about.gitlab.com/professional-services/catalog/) and creating and bringing new offerings to market in addition to building the frameworks and processes to standardize the post-sales motion across all of CX to drive Customer GitLab adoption. This page will help describe the areas of responsibility of the CX services team, how they operate and stay organized.

## Functional Areas

1. **Channel Solutions Management** - scaling service selling and delivery through channel partner leveraged approach.

1. **Engagement Management** - positioning, selling, scoping and coordinating signature of customer engagements. Check out the [Engagement Management page](/handbook/customer-experience/professional-services-engineering/engagement-mgmt/) for more information

1. **CX Platform Engineering** - building and maintaining the internal tooling that support post-sales processes and delivery

1. **CX Services** - building, maintaining, and bringing to market service offerings to be sold and delivered by GitLab PS, Success Services, and our partners. Also, improving back-office processes to decrease overall cost of revenue as well as building out frameworks and processes for all post-sales team motions to drive successful Customer adoption of GitLab.

## Go to market workflow for new offerings

### Education Services

#### Sales-team-assisted go to market motion

1. Check out the [Professional Services internal handbook page](https://internal.gitlab.com/handbook/customer-experience/professional-services/) for details.

#### Web-direct go to market motion

1. When new Education Services are launched they include external communications to GitLab ecosystem as per the Marketing Strategy, including:

    - Nurture campaign emails

    - In-product banner

    - Recommended by SA or CSM

    - Included on Training Tracks page

    - Included on Education Services pages

    - Mentioned in product release updates

    - Highlighted in blog post

1. Individual users click Order button and pay using credit card from customers.gitlab.com and from within LXP

1. Users attend Public Remote ILTs via Zoom Webinar

1. Users access certification learning paths from LXP

### Marketing Strategy

- **Add to customers.gitlab.com ordering page**: Gives visibility and leads user down path of discovering more offerings

- **Event Presence**: Education Services presence at Commit

- **Community and Evangelism**:

  - **GitLab Heros**: Pilot with GitLab Heros to test out certifications. Have Heros participate in training in advance of commit and then iterate based on that. Offer trainings for free and offer free exam to get GitLab certified ahead of time (John Coghlan is contact)

  - **GitLab Evangelism team**: Collaboration initiatives TBD

- **Add to Customer Success Plan**: Make certifications part of success plan from CSM. Set metrics against percentage of users who complete certifications

- Offerings integrated into customer adoption nurture campaign

- In-product awareness

- Direct marketing on 3rd party platforms/communities where target audience lives

  - edEx, EdCast Leapest Marketplace, LinkedIn, Dice.com

  - Blog posts -- GitLab and 3rd party sites (eg StackOverflow, FB)

Adopting GitLab gives you the only single DevOps platform on the market. GitLab Professional Services will help you align your people and processes to match.

Our Professional Services team is made up of not only GitLab subject matter experts but seasoned DevOps professionals who have experience in deploying and maintaining both large-scale applications as well as creating and teaching best practices throughout the SDLC.  Our experts help lead DevOps Transformations, providing direct support to our customer's strategic business initiatives.  Their experience with other Fortune 500 enterprises allows you to crowd-source your enterprise's digital transformation.

Our Professional Services team is made up of not only GitLab subject matter experts but seasoned DevSecOps professionals who have experience in deploying and maintaining both large-scale applications as well as creating and teaching best practices throughout the SDLC.  Our experts help lead DevSecOps Transformations, providing direct support to our customer's strategic business initiatives.  Their experience with other Fortune 500 enterprises allows you to crowd-source your enterprise's digital transformation.

GitLab's Professional Services team exists to enable you to realize the full value of your GitLab installation.  We can provide direct implementation support to ensure your GitLab installation is resilient and secure.  We also offer migration services to facilitate your transition to GitLab by delivering a clean dataset to resume operations at once.   Our education and specialized training provide training in best practices, such as CI/CD, version control, metrics, and more.

GitLab's Professional Services team exists to enable you to realize the full value of your GitLab installation.  We can provide direct implementation support to ensure your GitLab installation is resilient and secure.  We also offer migration services to facilitate your transition to GitLab by delivering a clean dataset to resume operations at once. We can assist you in transforming your core CI/CD and security workflows as well as unlock Duo Agent Platform (DAP) and maximize your ROI from the GitLab platform. Our education and specialized training provide training in best practices, such as CI/CD, security and compliance, git fundamentals, system administration, and more.

For all Customers, a thorough assessment of current DevSecOps workflows based on their current usage in GitLab relative to industry-defined best DevSecOps practices can be provided by GitLab Professional Services through our [Platform Adoption Maturity Assessment](https://drive.google.com/file/d/15XfEYM32lkAOsTU1Ay8HGNsnFllUkXlj/view?usp=sharing).

## Customer Archetypes

To get your customer the most [value](/handbook/customer-experience/customer-success-vision/#time-to-value-kpis) as soon as possible, you should consider:

- [Migration](https://about.gitlab.com/services/migration/) (SCM and/or CI/CD based on entry point)

- [Integration](https://about.gitlab.com/services/implementation/integration/) (LDAP/SSO, Jira, Jenkins)

- [Education](https://about.gitlab.com/services/education/) (Basics and/or CI/CD)

- [Migration](https://about.gitlab.com/professional-services/migration/) (SCM and/or CI/CD based on entry point)

- [Integration](https://about.gitlab.com/professional-services/implementation/integration/) (LDAP/SSO, Jira, Jenkins)

- [Education](https://about.gitlab.com/professional-services/education/) (Basics and/or CI/CD)

### SMB or Mid-Market without migration needs

Some customers have a team of git ninjas who can manage migration and setup quickly, but the rest of the engineers might not be as skilled. Its always a good idea to suggest education services because the customer end users will be more likely to push for later stage adoption. This type of grassroots motivation will go a long way when investigating conversion opportunities.

For these customers consider our [Education Services](https://about.gitlab.com/services/education/)

For these customers consider our [Education Services](https://about.gitlab.com/professional-services/education/)

## Sales Collateral

### Larger Customers

### Internal Testimonials

GitLab Professional Services has heavy expertise in large transformative engagements. This can include large-scale migrations for SCM takeouts, complex self-managed deployments, upgrades, health checks, or architecture optimizations. This can also include large-scale legacy CI transitions to GitLab CI and the transformation of security workflows into GitLab Security with Ultimate. Finally, GitLab Duo Agent Platform can amplify best practices in core DevSecOps workflows and Professional Services can drive Customers to unlock the value of DAP.

The PS team has been building maturity and repeatability to its services over the later part of 2019 and early part of 2020. We have captured some recent wins with internal testimonials in [this highspot page](https://gitlab.highspot.com/items/65047cc5d2ccf775a19de0f6)

Check out our [PS Catalog](https://about.gitlab.com/professional-services/catalog/) page for more information and [contact your Engagement Manager](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bdVOf3jL6aJF79qRMFLQsmMxIgQh5ZQ-WiLuNgsWB08/edit?tab=t.b4x70ea3f0er#heading=h.qzgxpwqxme5).

### Pitch Deck

## Sales Collateral

To discuss our services offerings with prospects, it is often helpful to have a few slides to describe the role of the professional services team.  If you need slides for our SKU services feel free to pull from the below deck. If you are thinking this is a larger engagement, please contact [your Engagement Manager](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bdVOf3jL6aJF79qRMFLQsmMxIgQh5ZQ-WiLuNgsWB08/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.qzgxpwqxme5)

### Pitch Deck

[Professional Services Proposal Deck](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1M-7aA7f9S6dULvzuKuTJs4j3A4V1z2DtMsoN0T0SMZg/edit#slide=id.g277ce56021a_0_2036)

To discuss our services offerings with prospects, it is often helpful to have a few slides to describe the role of the professional services team.  If you need slides for our SKU services feel free to pull from the below deck. If you are thinking this is a larger engagement, please contact [your Engagement Manager](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bdVOf3jL6aJF79qRMFLQsmMxIgQh5ZQ-WiLuNgsWB08/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.qzgxpwqxme5).

### Data Sheets