Mobile Network Operator, 2017
Deliverables
- Project Management
- UX Research
- UX Design
- UI Design
- Front End Development
Project Overview
Overview: Our client, a large mobile network operator, is in the process of modernizing their cross company workflows. This project was commissioned to replicate their cross-company attendance tracking system currently processed in Excel, to a web format.
Problem: Attendance of thousands of call center representative across a number of locations within the US is not tracked in a unified way. Each team lead develops their own Excel tactic to keep track of their team’s attendance. The master Excel spreadsheet is slow and hard to operate. Updates to the employee management process take days to implement.
Ask: Move the spreadsheets to their legacy Customer Management system, to streamline attendance tracking and simplify changes to the employee management process.
01
UX Strategy
Discovery: Through a series of interviews with the stakeholders and a review of their existing processes, I discovered that the current Employee Management (not only attendance tracking, but on-boarding, time and performance tracking, and reporting) works as a combination of manual Excel spreadsheets and three third party software solutions that host duplicate information. Various departments (HR, Rep Supervisors, and Data Analysts) have their own way of handling the same information which led to redundancies and human error. The company was in a dire need of a single web solution to streamline the Employee Management process across various departments and avoid duplicative work efforts.
Planning: I created a UX project doc that allowed us to display our findings, goals, and deadlines in a unified manner, set up recurring meetings with the client to present designs, report progress, and clarify functionality.
02
Design
Based on discovery, I sketched out a one stop shop for Employee Management with a dashboard that showcases the selected summaries of chosen widgets (attendance, performance, notifications, etc), and easy to use navigation for high level Employee Management areas. Working off of an existing hierarchy, the views would showcase permission based information. Based on internal feedback from my PO (Product Owner) and Technical Lead, I implemented the sketches in an HTML/CSS/JavaScript UI with DataTables that portrayed most of the desired functionality.
The clickable UI was presented to the stakeholders. This was beyond the original ask, but the stakeholders were excited to see a standalone solution that could solve a number of problems instead of bloating their legacy system with even more code and adding Employee Management functionality to a system designed to manage customers instead.
During the follow-up meetings, the UI was iterated upon to accommodate new requirements, and then passed on to development.
03
Development
As a result of pre-building the UI in front-end, it was easier and faster for our developers to integrate it with our internal databases. Developers were a part of the conversation from the start, validating all of the design ideas to make sure they could be implemented on time and on budget. Building a completely new system allowed the Development Team to use modern jQuery libraries instead of maintaining legacy code. As a result the system was faster and less prone to crashes and freezes.
We operate on an Agile development cycle. The designed system was constructed to allow for expansion and growth. The final deliverable that was shipped was the MVP (minimum viable product) and addressed the attendance tracking component. The product was designed and coded in such a way that space was left for comprehensive growth into the employee reporting, employee bulletin board and performance tracking arenas.
What We Delivered
We’ve designed and delivered a standalone Employee Management solution that replaced cumbersome Excel spreadsheets and integrated with third party software. The project was only supposed to tackle a small ask of attendance tracking, but discovery showed that the problem stemmed from a complex and unusable system that outgrew itself. A fast growing company with thousands of employees needed a complete overhaul to accommodate for future growth. The solution we’ve built would grow and expand with the business for many years to come.