Evaluation Guide
What to expect from your ~14-day TRADE evaluation
Welcome to your TRADE evaluation. This guide walks you through the ~14-day evaluation, helping you get the most out of the process and reach a confident decision. Your Customer Enablement Manager (CEM) is with you every step of the way: reach out anytime on your dedicated Slack channel.
Your first hour
Before anything else, see the data live:
Log in with the credentials from your activation email.
Open the Coverage Hub and find the sports and leagues you care about.
Watch live data move in the monitoring section.
This should get you started. The rest of this guide helps you verify it fits your business.
Scope of the evaluation
The evaluation assesses the data and the platform; it is not an integration project. Evaluating first lets you confirm latency, uptime, and coverage fit before your engineering team commits weeks to a full production integration. A minimal test connection is enough: connect, consume, measure. Anything production-related comes after a Go decision, with your CEM guiding it.
Before you start
Share this with your CEM ahead of kickoff so Day 1 starts moving immediately:
Business context: company background and current betting operations, sports and markets of interest, expected volume and usage patterns, compliance and regulatory requirements.
Team and timeline: technical team contacts and availability, your expected evaluation timeline and decision process, and who needs platform access.
Meeting attendance: a Business Champion (owns the Go/No-Go decision) and a Technical Champion (owns the integration and data validation) are mandatory for the kickoff, mid-point, and summary meetings.
Success KPIs: the latency, uptime, or other metrics that would make this evaluation a Go for your business.
Key principles for a successful evaluation
You'll be working with production-grade data: no mock or delayed data.
Complete the phases in order: they build on each other.
If you hit a blocker at any point, share it with your CEM immediately. Don't wait for the next check-in.
The mid-point sync (Day 7) is the moment to raise concerns and recalibrate if needed.
Coverage on your test account is flexible: contact your account owner to adjust it to your needs.
Evaluation timeline
Kickoff meeting
Day 1
Align on goals, setup, and the evaluation plan
Phase 1: Initial service assessment
Days 1–2
Explore the platform, confirm coverage against your KPIs
Phase 2: Configuration and setup
Days 1–2
Tailor TRADE to your business requirements
Phase 3: Core testing
Days 2–13
Connect to the feed, test with live data, measure against your KPIs
Mid-point sync
Day 7
Within Phase 3: review progress with your CEM; confirm you're on track to wrap up
Phase 4: Evaluation summary
Day 14
Go / no-go decision
Phase 1: Initial service assessment (Days 1–2)
Get familiar with TRADE and validate that the data meets your needs.
Log in with the credentials from your activation email, and invite your business and technical team members to the platform.
Review sports and market coverage in the Coverage Hub (Markets, Livescore, Settlements), alongside the Settlements Rulebook.
Assess live data accuracy in the monitoring section.
Read the documentation, starting with Capabilities and Concepts.
Phase 1 is complete when coverage is mapped to your business requirements.
Phase 2: Configuration and setup (Days 1–2)
Tailor TRADE to match your business requirements.
Configure the provider list for your package; set minimum thresholds, mandatory providers, and weights, or use LSports' recommended provider configuration.
Configure odds formats, margin settings, min-max ranges, and out-of-range actions in Package Configuration.
Set up default or custom templates and test them across hierarchy levels; evaluate template override functionality, or start from LSports' recommended templates.
Configure Notifications to monitor system activity.
InPlay is quota-limited during evaluation: order fixtures individually to make the most of it.
Phase 2 is complete when your configuration is live and templates are validated across your required hierarchy levels.
Phase 3: Core testing (Days 2–13)
Connect to the data feed and test the system with actual data. This is the main phase: keep measuring throughout, not just at the start.
Connect to RabbitMQ and consume live data using one of the SDKs (.NET, Java, Node.js). If your stack isn't covered by an SDK, see Connection Setup for a direct RabbitMQ consumer. Keep your consumer connected throughout the phase to validate ordering, odds behavior, and latency.
For PreMatch, test fixture ordering at different hierarchy levels (sport, location, competition, fixture).
For InPlay, test fixture ordering at the fixture level only (quota-limited).
Monitor the Trading Floor; compare Fixture Logs with the data you've consumed.
Compare
timestamp_in_ms(when the message was placed on your queue, in the RabbitMQ header) against received time in your system.Compare the
ServerTimestampheader field against the last update time on your end to check data freshness.Test odds updates, market suspension, and odds settings mid-event.
Phase 3 is complete when data is flowing correctly, fixture ordering is validated, and latency is measured.
What to measure
Bring numbers, not impressions, to the summary meeting. Track these throughout Phase 3. Use this worksheet as your Day-14 material:
Consumption latency
Compare timestamp_in_ms against received time, across quiet and busy periods
Data freshness
Compare the ServerTimestamp header field against the last update time on your end, across quiet and busy periods
Uptime
Feed availability over the full window; note any gaps and their duration
Consumption latency, data freshness, and uptime are what matter for almost every evaluation. If other metrics matter to your business, ask your CEM what's worth tracking for your use case.
Evaluation conclusions
Phase 4 is your evaluation summary meeting on Day 14. Come prepared with your findings per KPI, any blockers ranked by severity, and open questions for the team. This is the time to share your formal decision.
If your verdict is Go, bring your proposed start date. We're rooting for it.
After a Go
A Go decision starts your onboarding. Full integration follows the Integration guide: from credentials to go-live, typically a few weeks, with data mapping as the longest phase. All the production-grade work (connection resilience, monitoring, market mapping) is covered there, with your CEM alongside; your CSM schedules the actual go-live date.
Support throughout your evaluation
AI knowledgebase: tag kapa.ai on your Slack channel for the fastest answers.
Dedicated Slack channel with your account owner and CEM: tag them directly for anything blocking.
24/7 live chat with Support, available around the clock if your CEM is unavailable.
FYI: if you don't use Slack, or don't have a paid workspace, LSports will invite you to ours.
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