As noted in our July 2023 newsletter, members of the IUG steering committee have been meeting with support and development VPs at Innovative to address concerns the IUG community had about problems encountered by some libraries during their LX Starter implementation process.
Below is a summary of the adjustments that have been made to the implementation process and those that are being planned. If you have additional questions or concerns, please reply to this post or reach out to the @steering-committee
Recent and upcoming changes
- LX Starter now has a new Product Manager Jason Blasczynski, whose focus is only LX Starter. Jason transitioned from a support role.
- Jason’s initial task involved consolidating feedback from previous implementations into one set of actionable tasks.
- Weekly meetings now unite implementation, support, and development teams to address key pain points.
- Efforts are ongoing to create a comprehensive list of known issues and feature parity matrixes for LX Starter, it is expected to be released publicly by the end of September.
- Libraries who need something ahead of time can request it from support or implementations.
- LX Starter does have its own Product Board (planned new features) and Idea Exchange site (suggest and vote on potential new features).
Implementation Considerations
- The typical LX Starter implementation timeline spans one month from start to finish.
- Libraries are grouped together into a cohort that progresses through the implementation and training steps.
- As of today, eligible customers can join an upcoming cohort without facing a backlog.
- If something comes up and your organization is falling behind during your implementation cohort, clear communication is crucial.
- A ‘reboot’ of the implementation process with a new cohort might be considered so that critical patches or workflows aren’t missed.
IUG Recommendations
- When discussing LX Starter with Innovative, clarity about your organization’s interest level and timeline are advised.
- Be upfront if you aren’t ready to begin implementation immediately and are just seeking general information.
- Ensure you can modify your library’s DNS records BEFORE joining a cohort to prevent delays.
- Lack of DNS access could result in falling behind, potentially necessitating that you join a different cohort.
- Don’t overlook this step! This simple task could take weeks. Either in getting clearance from IT departments or in finding the passwords to update the records with your registrar.
For future consideration
- Innovative is looking at better ways to offer testing of the set up without needing to create a branch.
- For libraries who are already comfortable with using a test branch and setting up test notices, let implementations know so they can take that into consideration.
- Innovative is still working to build up better system monitoring tools and a system status dashboard.
One hundred libraries now using Vega LX Starter
LX Starter recently reached a milestone of one hundred customers actively using it to send email notices. 
Thanks to all those one hundred libraries who have worked make the product and the process better for all Innovative customers!