move planner
USER EXPERIENCE, IA, VISUAL DESIGN
Schedule users needed a role-specific view for dispatchers to process and act on all the information needed when managing deliveries of materials and equipment.
B2W Schedule streamlines construction companies’ scheduling of resources (employees, equipment, trucks, materials, etc.) and allows visibility into the availability of resources being used by multiple departments.
My Role
I worked as the Lead User Experience Designer on this project alongside a UX Intern, Product Manager, Business Analyst, and a Development Lead. I was responsible for customer research, wireframes, prototypes, defining the styling for implementation, as well as guiding and directing the intern.
The Problem
Users had very little visibility into creating or editing movement of equipment and materials, and while they could assign trucks, there was no way to create and save crews that were specifically for transporting resources, or see everything in one place.
Summary
Users needed to view move orders for both equipment and materials within a specific date range, resolve past due moves, and build out a schedule for transport crews to maximize moves throughout their day through assigning times and duration of assignments.
The Challenge
Because Development was busy with multiple features, it wasn’t feasible to create a map view for move orders, and we couldn’t determine the best routes possible due to road and highway-based weight allowances, height restrictions, etc. So how do you give users a good method of structuring out a transport crew’s day, without a map?
How do you give users a good method of structuring out a transport crew’s day, without a map?
Requirements
- Allow users to plan out move and/or delivery assignment stops/per day/per crew for internal and subcontracted transport crews and trucks
- The ability to display total hours for a given crew based on times.
- An alert icon should display should the hours not be calculated
- Allow a user to mark multiple equipment move assignments or material delivery assignments with planned stops “Complete” for a transport crew or truck at the same time.
- Send email/SMS text alerts to transport crews for internal crews, and to the Crew Contact for a subcontracted crew. This email/SMS alert should include planned stops and/or Trucks to the employee for both internal and subcontracted trucks
- Allow users to bulk-edit times for a transport crew or truck with multiple stops.
- Ability to create/edit/assign/delete moves for custom pieces of equipment
Solution
Once requirements were decided, we began initial concepts. We determined that the amount of information an Equipment Dispatcher would need to see in order to easily assign the orders required a creative solution.
I created the concept of listing “cards” — basically a compact way to represent all the information needed.
Move Cards present in the Move Listing panel on the left. A user can expand or collapse the cards to view more information as needed, and can pick up and drag/drop the cards on to a Transport Crew (which was previously set up in the Transport Crews template).
We built out the Move Planner grid as a series of “Stops”, a way to communicate where a Transport Crew will be going. It’s an easy and effective way to build out a Transport Crew’s day. Stops can be subsequent or built on top of each other, and can easily edited and changed.
Scenarios
While the customers we showed this to loved it, we realized we would have to carefully consider the interactions and functionality of the Move Cards. We created a series of scenarios that ensured we were handling every aspect of our users’ needs.
How would the system handle it when the location for equipment drop off isn’t a Job Site that was created previously in the system? Can we handle GPS coordinates? How do we communicate when a user needs to drop off a piece of equipment and then pick up another one? Plus, we allow users to classify some job sites as “inactive”. What happens if they want to try to create an assignment to an inactive job site?
Workflows
We created multiple workflows considering “happy path”, as well as the edge-case scenarios we identified. We had to consider both moving equipment, and delivery of materials, as well as resolving conflicts.
Wireframes
Customers love the new Move Planner feature. Adding the Move Planner increased purchase sales of Schedule.
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Retention
Customers who already owned Schedule were enthusiastic about the Move Planner, and Trucking and Materials as a feature overall. 97% of our Schedule users renewed their licenses upon completion.
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Avg Weekly Installs
Return on investment has been significant, as some customers have purchased the Schedule product because Trucking and Materials are part of the product.
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Sales Growth
Customers had been waiting for a solution for a while, so when the feature was released, we saw a surge in sales growth of Schedule overall.