OVERVIEW : As a Product Designer at LodgeLink, I've had the opportunity to work on updating and simplifying the Crew List upload project. This project was expected to be completed in a short span of time in understanding the problem of the customer and find a rapid solution fix. Crews are what makes the workforce world go ‘round, and this video will show you how to ensure everyone is accounted for, including uploading your own crew lists via csv files.
This is how the crew list upload is done on the platform and the above video is used as a tutorial for customers on the LodgeLink CMS Page.
ROLE : PRODUCT DESIGNER
TIMELINE : 2 Week to complete design + Approval
TEAM : Rob Normandeau (Product Manager & Engineering Head) , Team of Three engineers & myself as a Product Designer.
PROCESS: UX Research, User journey Diagram, Rapid Prototyping, Visual Design
ABOUT THE PRODUCT: LodgeLink is a platform where customers come and make a booking reservation for the crew workforce travel ahead of time. In order to make booking reservations the customers need to know their crew members names and details ahead of time to prior to their check-in date for the booking. As each booking reservation might have more than 20 to 40 crews working in a mining location, all their details are updated in a csv.file ahead of time and uploaded into the LodgeLink Platform for reservation. “Manage crews” section on the dashboard of the platform stores all the names of the Crew Members.
WHO IS THE USER : The customer is the actual user here, if that need to be specified in terms of the platform the Org Admin who has all access to the LodgeLink Booking features will be user who will be able to upload the crew list members details in the LodgeLink Platform. Otherwise the LodgeLink Admin who can in-personate the customers account to update information can access the organizations crew details and upload data. LodgeLink Admins have access to edit, modify and delete data in the platform.
PROBLEM STATEMENT : A Customer had requested LodgeLink Admin through email to upload 700+ crew members details into their account and As the admin got the details of the crew members created the csv.file with all updated details of the crew gave it to the developer to upload into the system. This action created duplication of data and also crashed the file upload all of a sudden. This has happened because there was a preset upload limit at the point of time on the platform for about 500 crew members . Crew List upload was generally done by the developers as a backend feed and from the front end there was no provision for the customer to upload directly.
GOAL : Crew List data upload need to be done efficiently from the platform as self serve feature for the customers and eliminate duplication of data and increase the crew list limit to a higher value through development. So it becomes easy for customers to upload data in a simplified manner.
EXISTING USER JOURNEY :
Whenever the customer wanted to upload their crew list - they would send and email with crew list details to the LodgeLink Admin team to update the crew list. LodgeLink Admins would create the proper csv.file and pass it on to the developers to upload the CrewList every time. This was the usual scenario and there was never a self serve provision on the platform. Lots of back and forth emails, phone calls follow ups and there is lot of time waste in the whole process before the customer start to book their reservation.
IMPROVISED USER JOURNEY :
This improvised user journey for the customer (Org Admin) helps them to upload their crew list in the Manage crews section. We have made it self serve so its easy for the customer (Org Admin) to upload and download crew members data at any point of time.
OLD PRODUCT DESIGN :
#1 User pain points
1. No provision to Upload a new or download an existing CrewList from the platform.
2. There is no sample of the csv.file format for the users to download and update the document as same with crew details.
#2
1. No possibility to add a new crew member to the reservation on the go and save data.
2. First name, Last Name, Company and Email id is mandatory to send notification emails and without this it’s hard to confirm a successful upload of a crew member detail.
REDESIGN GOALS :
Make it simple , intuitive and easy to upload crew members list through a downloadable sample csv.file. So customers can add their crew
details directly to the csv.file and upload it successfully.
Reduce the time taken for this task to complete.
Reduce the no of back and forth emails, phone call follow ups in the overall process.
Introduce crew members active /inactive feature to better manage the crew list. (Which will eradicate the duplication of members)
FINAL SHIPPED DESIGN :
#1
1. Download Crew list is available to view the existing crew members and update the csv.file
2. Active / Inactive members are displayed by count and Active members are listed by status.
3. Crew list upload page is added
#2
1. When user clicks on Add a crew member, crew details can be added on the go and saved.
2. Their status of Active /Inactive are being set and saved.
#3
1.On Crew List upload page “Download csv template” is available for the customer to download.
2. By this direct upload method, you can either Add new members to the booking, or update the existing crew members details.
#4 - Need Help?
Instructions of how to download csv file and update data and upload csv file again.
After uploading Error in Upload
There is error in the email id of each crew which requires correction. This method helps to eradicate duplicates or errors right away.
No errors - Confirmation
Confirmation gives more control on what is Good to upload.
Successfully saved!
All crew list data is now updated and saved successfully into the portal.
LET’S TALK NUMBERS - IMPACT
This was the best solution after 4 years of bringing UX Designer into the picture. From 2017 till 2020 it was a long process of uploading crew list into the portal. But now this is made into a self serve platform for Uploading of Crew List. This saved lot of time and helped the customer to book immediately once their updated crew list is ready for use.
CHALLENGES & LEARNINGS :
Creating a self serve platform for crew list upload and making customers adapt to the new change is one of the important transitions here.
Understanding the business and customer needs at the same time and solving for both entities to find a better design solution was critical for this project.
As I was able to understand the root cause of the problem and how much time is been wasted all these years, I could find a digital solution which solved the problem by 93% reduction is phone calls and saved a lot of money and time for LodgeLink.