IOps Newsletter

Newsletter September 2016 North America Ad “Part of company culture is Operations Newsletter path-dependent—it’s the lessons you learn along the way.” - Jeff Bezos Welcome back to our NA Ad Ops Newsletter. Inside you will find a list of the most recent updates on projects, new launches, training and more. This time around we are doing a profile on Ryan Guess, our Ad Ops Team Lead, who has gracefully shared some cool facts Inside The Issue about his life and about being an Amazonian. Please come in. If you have any questions our doubts about the newsletter, Highlights. don’t hesitate to reach out. Thanks. Cesar D. from rainy Costa Rica. What’s new / Updates Escalation Path – NA Ad Ops Rush Requests – Mechanism and expectations Coming Holidays AD OPERATIONS Rush Requests – Mechanism and expectations HIGHLIGHTS Q4: - BLR Schedules and T2s -Volume and Tasks -UAT Support - expectations -Time off black out dates CST Training Team Update: Meet Ryan Guess our Lead Ad Operations Specialist Thanks to all who attended the Operative.One training whether in person, on the phone or watched one of our many training videos! Over the course of the last two weeks of July, we trained to all Kindle products as all LCD and eInk execution requests 498 individuals across 11 countries. Please continue to utilize are now fielded and supported offshore! Through close the Operative.One Launch Toolkit and your local office hours partnership with the Kindle AOS specialist, Tiffany Barnett, we for any questions you may have regarding working with in were able to execute migration plans swiftly and seamlessly. Operative.One. Your continued participation and feedback After initial meetings in early July, we created a project, training surrounding training is extremely valuable for our team to and rapid graduation, with an aggressive goal to migrate in improve upon delivery and content. Thank you! early-August. Tiffany was able to create the standard SOP’s for by: Lacey Cullison. this process -- and, in some cases, updated the SOP’s in real- time due to various product and tool/Rodeo adjustments that Quality Audit Redesign: were occurring concurrently – and coordinate and implement The Project Management and Ad Ops Specialist teams have the training with the offshore Kindle Trafficking Team (KTT). finalized eInk trafficking migration to IOps. This brings parity Moreover, she created multiple test campaigns and creative to

2/8 Ad Ops Newsletter Sept 2016 allow for plenty of accurate, production-like scenarios for KTT to gains in the process. Some highlights include: eInk execution complete. Lastly, we worked with our AOS Devices SME, Connie support has increased from one person onshore to three people Shieh, to facilitate the acquisition of an additional eInk test offshore, first-pass QA rate has increased to about 67% (up from device in Bangalore (previously, only one device was available 30%) and TOW has decreased from 75 to 14 minutes! Looking for executions). This additional device will help to support ahead, we plan to experience these and additional efficiency the expected volume increase in IOps execution requests. In gains in the future. the short time since training, we’ve already seen efficiency by: Ariel Sensil. WHAT’S NEW UPDATES Projects in the news! Forecasting and Booking: Salesforce workflow manager: Forecasting and Booking execution going back to the AM and The Salesforce Project Team (Eddy Richmond, Sarah Kwon CM teams. IOps support will still be available. Stacey Ellis (T3) and Nick Ransom) will be working with key users globally to will continue to manage the IOps team. Final transition and gather proper requirements. These requirements will help the training plans to be announced soon. team build the design of the workflow manager which will be released 2017. Requirements gathered will be provided to Campaign growth reporting: Operative to create the API for Salesforce V1 integrations plan Erick Martin (AOS T3) working with Sarah Kwon (PM) in transi- for 2017. tioning ISO Growth Campaign reporting to IOps. Erick Martin did an awesome job training Sachin Ponnappa T G (IOps T2) and Campaign ready for work: has ramped him up to fully own the process. Final transition Erick Martin (T3) and Sarah Kwon (PM) will begin IOps transition date was 8/9/16. plan for campaign ready for work execution for ISO growth was on 8/22/16. Salesforce to-do enhancement: The Salesforce Project Team (Eddy Richmond, Sarah Kwon Fire TV: and Nick Ransom) reviewed and accepted the proposal for To Fire TV forecasting, booking and trafficking transitioning to Dos. New enhancement features for To Dos were released on IOps. Tiffany Barnett (T3) finished UAT and training for IOps 9/16/16. Top 5 feature upgrades for 2016: Push Buttons for trafficking team. Stacey Ellis (T3) finished UAT and trained IOps Stage and Statuses, Auto set due dates, Auto notifications, Esca- Forecasting and Booking team back on 8/12/16. Fire TV To Do lation process in Salesforce and Dashboard/Reporting training. has been built and ready for release. IOps is still pending for Salesforce project team is also working with EU and JP on 2016 release. Salesforce To Dos/Task enhancements. by: Sarah Kwon.

Sept 2016 Ad Ops Newsletter 3/8 ESCALATION PATH As noted on the layout below, the first point of contact for email to all the subscribers of this group so that the available campaign issues should be the trafficker working on the To- T2 can immediately look into the respective To-do /Task and Do. In case that person is unavailable, the escalation path is will triage it on priority. the tool to get the next person in line to help. At the same time, for out of the office situations, Ad Ops As a general rule, and in order to avoid loss of time, the will trigger an automatic OOO message in SalesForce to escalation layer should be initiated by summarizing the whomever tags someone who is currently out of work. actions taken by the previous person on the escalation path Guide is shown on Appendix and the reason why that layer failed to provide an accurate In the event of a high severity issues (Sev. 2, site or tools and timely resolution to the problem. outages), once a ticket has been placed, an email should As an addition to the escalation path, there’s a IOps T2 SF be sent to [email protected], for the Chatter group, “iops-us-t2s” which automatically sends an leadership team to be aware. Escalation Path – NA Ad Ops Escalation Path – CMs To access an online PDF with the Escalation Path information, click here. Also download it by clicking the download option.

4/8 Ad Ops Newsletter Sept 2016 AD OPS COMING HOLIDAYS The following details pertain to holiday setup Oct 2016 Coverage calendar – SJO for all sites during Q4 and its forecasted capacity Office by site. Capacity for each specific holiday should be reviewed and confirmed at least 2 weeks in Oct 12th - Cultures Day advance prior to the Holiday. 50% Coverage on IMDb, F&B, Mobile and AAP SJO CST time zone: -2ET & +1PT hr time zone difference 12 Oct 16 - Culture’s Day, Coverage 50% -Costa Rican laws permits Amazon to request Oct 2016 Coverage calendar – BLR attendance during holidays if needed, although this cannot be forced or mandatory. Office BLR Oct 2nd - Mahathma Gandhi Jayanthi - 50% Coverage 10 Oct 16- Dussehra Coverage 25% 10 Oct - Mahanavami - 50% Coverage 11 Oct - Dussehra/Vijayadasami - 50% Coverage 11 Oct 16 - Dussehra, Coverage 50% 12 Oct - Muhuraam - 80% Coverage 12 Oc 16 - Muharaam, Coverage 80% 31 Oct - Diwali - 25% Coverage 31 Oct 16 - Diwali, Coverage 25% 1 Nov 16 - Karnataka Rajyostsava Day, 50% IST time zone: +10.5ET & +12.5PT hr time zone difference 14 Nov 16 - Gurunanak Jayanti, 70% 12 Dec 16 - Id Milad, Coverage 70% Individual resource and product support can be found here.

Sept 2016 Ad Ops Newsletter 5/8 RUSH REQUESTS Rush Requests – Mechanism and expectations With the focus on SLA, the transition of booking/order building and the training of CMs on trafficking, we can expect overall turnaround times and SLA numbers to improve across the board and will likely reduce the need for rush requests. Data will be monitored and tracked on a daily basis to mitigate unexpected resource constraints. This will be communicated any potential spikes on rush requests, but if they do happen, promptly by the NA Ad Ops team. this is the criteria and mechanism to manage such requests: b. No Rush Requests for Viewability campaigns due to TOW 1. Each request type can support up to 5 Rush Requests per Rating. business day. c. Suspended Support Days – Rush Requests suspended. Any a. The 6th request of the day will be reviewed to rushes require Ops/CM Manager approval before submitting as ensure 100% compliance and will be put as the 1st request of Ops teams will be focused on executing high volumes the next day *in the event that the request doesn’t get picked i. 8/31, 9/30, 10/31, 11/22 – 11/25, 12/21 – 12/23, 12/30 up during normal trafficking overnight. Rush Requests must be 100% actionable to ensure teams are 2. Requests will be reviewed between 8am and 2pm PT for able to utilize 100% of their time executing it rather than com- same-day turnaround. Requests submitted after 2pm PT will pleting missing portions of it. If the Request its send back and be prioritized the next business day (in order of arrival). SLA for raised again as a Rush, it can be reviewed again against the rush reviewing Rush Requests is 2 hours. If information is complete, it requests cap. Incomplete requests past the cap will revert to will be immediately prioritized and actioned on. standard trafficking SLAs. 3. Exceptions: a. NA Ops has the ability to suspend Rush Requests due to

6/8 Ad Ops Newsletter Sept 2016 WHAT’S UP WITH Q4 BLR Schedules and T2s In preparation for Q4 the IOps team has redistributed Associates to product queues based on forecasted volume requirements. This was done while integrating Associates of all levels throughout each queue to foster learning and development. IOps has additionally assigned a T2 across each shift and product area to ensure an escalation path is available at all times. The restructure of Associates has allowed IOps to provide 24 hours of coverage daily. For further information around IOps resourcing please consult the Ad Operations Wiki. Volume and Tasks To access an online PDF for the Volume and Task information, click here. Also download it by clicking the download option.

Sept 2016 Ad Ops Newsletter 7/8 UAT SUPPORT EXPECTATIONS During Q4 2016, there’s a list of product releases that need UAT support from the AOS team. The expectation for UAT support for Tier 3 is by availability and dependent on the SLAs as usual, more evident during this time of the year. Find below the calendar of launches and support for Q4 as well as the black out and grey out dates for Q4 for UAT support.

8/8 Ad Ops Newsletter Sept 2016 UAT SCHEDULE RELEASE - NORTH AMERICA c. IMDb i. CA Promoted Video desktop & mobile 1. August 15th, 2016 4. September 15th, 2016 a. AAP, AAP Self Service, ESS a. AAP i. Mobile Web Video supply i. Guaranteed vCPM product b. Fire Tablet ii. Publisher Direct PMP for AAP managed service i. Project Arcade - Dynamic Date Messaging - Tron – Bet iii. 414x125 creative for mobile O&O NA c. Fire TV b. Class 1 i. FireTV Landing Page Builder i. Class I vCPM (100% Viewability) ii. Cross Screen Mobile + Desktop – US 2. August 22th, 2016 c. Creative Formats a. AAP i. Prime Pantry for eCommerce Ads i. Deprecating AAP Forecasting – NA ii. Third Party Ad Serving for Mobile – US ii. Remove AAP Creative Types – NA iii. Video Display Ads for Desktop b. Fire Tablet d. Fire Tablet i. Interactive Video Overlay (aka Donkey Kong) i. Fire Tablet Takeovers in Rodeo ii. Rodeo migration LCD/e-ink (Campaign Management) ii. Project Arcade - Dynamic CTA - Breakout - Full Release e. IMDb 3. September 1st, 2016 i. IMDb TrailerXray a. AAP ii. US Fan IQ Interstitials i. Support 3PAS video viewability in Rodeo b. Creative Formats 5. November 2nd, 2016 i. Launch DEA in Rodeo for Managed Field, ISO Premium and a. IMDb Growth and ESS Accounts - US, UK, DE, FR, IT, ES, JP, CA i. Int’l Interstitials UK, DE/CA - iOS, mDot, Desktop TIME OFF BLACK OUT TIME OFF BLACK OUT DATES: September 26th – December 31st As there are no holidays overlapping for the rest of the year, any coverage gaps during those days should be covered by the other site plus the AOS/T3 team. Priority should be trafficking and SLAs. Rush request coverage and response will be revised for these days ahead of time. Any communication regarding lower capacity for Rush Re- quest/UAT will be informed on a timely manner (1 week in advance). Planning should be discussed in the Daily Capacity meetings.

Sept 2016 Ad Ops Newsletter 9/8 MEET OUR AD OPS SPECIALIST LEAD RYAN GUESS Starting as a Technical Account Manager at the Seattle campus in early 2014, Ryan Guess has worked tirelessly on various process im- provement projects and earned the trust of partners all over AMG. In mid-2015, Ryan took on the job of Lead Ad Operations Specialist under Steve Kelly’s North America Ops Team . In his own words “The AOS Team Lead has a variety of respon- sibilities, but their main focus is to ensure that all products and pro- cesses that the AOS team handles are set up for success and tracking against metrics properly. They help facilitate or hold trainings for on and offshore teams to stay up months of working with a great team in San Jose Costa Rica to date with the latest policy, tools, and workflow changes so who can support Central Time for the U.S. Right now we’re campaigns launch on time and SLA’s are met for the rest of the ramping them up on a number of operational skills and they’re org and our external clients.” doing great so far!” Get to know Ryan Guess: Favorite part about living in your locale (Seattle): Favorite Part about your job: “Everything to do in the great outdoors” “The People. And Building global partnerships in operations be- tween the U.S., Bangalore, India and San Jose, Costa Rica offices.” Any hobbies outside of work? “Getting outside with my little lab/boxer pup hiking in the sum- Favorite experience at Amazon to date: mer & skiing in the winter” “Watching Jeff Bezos do the ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ during an All Hands meeting in 2014.” Any other tidbits you want Ops and CST to know about you? Advice for new hires: “I’m here to help! Come by and say hi to me and Sophie if you’re “Don’t be afraid to ask questions! We all want you to succeed, so in Seattle or shoot me an email for any operational questions don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything.” you have!” by: Lacey Cullison. Anything exciting coming up for your team? “Well, Q4. & we’re extremely excited to be in the beginning

Lord Ganesha at Sri Naheshwara - Bangalore Thank you for reading through the Ad Ops Newsletter, September edition 2016. Let’s Keep In Touch