An exercise in Legacy System Modernization
How we helped an industry leader migrate from their existing 10+ year old legacy system and brought them to a digital enterprise future with a multi-platform system focused on bringing more automation and interactivity into their existing process.
about theCustomer
You are my DreamTeam
The client is a leading internationally accredited and multi-award-winning premium backyard solutions provider, operating for the last 40 years, with over 1000+ completed local and international projects. They also run a dedicated specialization department solely for swimming pools service, aftercare, and related equipment trade. They offer a full range of swimming pool maintenance, products, equipment, and services that extensively cover the hygiene, functionality, and aesthetics of a swimming pool.
They're also active members of The Pool and Hot Tub Alliance - PHTA (formally known as the Association of Pool & Spa Professionals - APSP) and The Swimming Pool and Allied Trades Association (SPATA).
Requirement fromClient
The client has three main types of service offerings - Schedule Service, Reactive Service, and Delivery Service.
Each service type has its own set of guidelines and rules to follow which includes in-office approval, scheduling, and management followed by on-site visits from their staff.
The client already had an existing system in-place but was unsatisfied with the user experience, complexity, and lack of meaningful insights. His vision for the application was a seamless, interactive web-portal from where they can operate and manage all these processes along with a simple mobile application for the on-site staff to use and operate.
The PainAreas
- 1
We need to be able to schedule and managethe different types of WOs
- 2
How do we track the efficiency of the on-site staff? We don't know our top performers
- 3
We need relevant data insights to take important business decisions
- 4
Our system should have an interactive andintuitive user experience
- 5
We need a system that smartly picks WOs for QA and assigns them to our Site Representatives
- 6
We should be able to track and sync material requests to ourZoho accounting system
- 7
The mobile app should be reallysimple to use for on-site staff
- 8
We need geolocation and geofencing services to improve site visits
- 9
There need to be automated notificationsand reminders for pending work
- Existing System
- 1000Clients and Pools
- 600Active Schedule Services
- 7500Monthly Work Orders
Hidden Brains Path toSuccess
The Visit- After establishing a strong relationship with the client we decided to take a unique approach and organized a field visit at the client’s office.
- Our team spent 3 days with the client, spending almost 12 hours a day at their offices understanding the entire back office and existing system.
- While there, they also visited 6 different pool sites to observe and understand how the pool-related services are conducted.
- By the end of the visit, the client was confident that we had understood their process and we were satisfied to move on to the next phase.
Analysis- The Breakdown: The visit helped create a basis to understand the existing system and processes in place. Once the base was secure, the next step was to breakdown the processes into smaller units to craft a flow for the user journey. Our strategy was to address the pain areas and define the flow in a way that each sub-process could be further simplified.
- The medium - basic flowcharts to define the entities, actions, consequences, and brainstorming to detail functional requirements to try and cover as many cases as possible. Throughout this process, we also employed an iterative communication strategy to keep the client in-loop the and ensure that we were aligned with their requirements and vision.
Prototype- One of the clients' main pain areas with the existing system was the user experience. In order to alleviate these concerns, we felt it necessary to create an interactive prototype to replicate the user journey before moving to the development stage.
- We explored multiple avenues while involving the client closely through multiple progressive demos. With these inputs, we were able to craft a complete prototype to simulate the journey of the final system for both the web and mobile application
Challenges- Integration and Automated Sync with Zoho Books and Zoho CRM
- Usage Limit for Zoho API Calls
- Establishing geofencing conditions for pool services
- Integration with Zoho Accounts to create Automated Invoices
- Automated creation of over 200 daily work orders
- Migration of Real Client Data
- Automated selection for QA process
- Performance metrics and tracking efficiency of the on-site staff
Development- Once the prototype was ready, we moved to the development phase. After setting up the environment, the team focused on platform-based code development of all the system interfaces with a systematic unit and integration testing strategy to ensure product quality.
- We paid extra measure to the security and privacy aspect as we were working with a live system and real data, so we devised role-based logins to restrict edit and access rights of sensitive information only to relevant parties. We also emphasized making the system as dynamic as possible to ensure extensibility and adaptability for potential process improvement and changes in the future.
- Throughout this phase, we presented iterative demonstrations to the client to facilitate real-time process validation and improvement. The final result - a completed web portal and Android application with tablet support to address all the requirements detailed below.
- A system that supports four types of WOs (Scheduled, Reactive, Delivery, and QA)
- An automated system that creates WOs every day based on the added schedule along with the ability to create WOs manually
- Automated QA WO generation and assignment for Auditing
- Ability to reschedule/reassign the WOs by easy drag and drop on the calendar
- Track the Scheduled, In Progress, and Completed WOs from a single screen for a day
- Dynamic Tasklist creation for the Pool Cleaning services
- Fetch Pool and customer details through ZOHO integration
- Show Customer and Pool details by fetching through Zoho
- Notifications
- Dashboard and Report
- Todo list for Maintenance service
- Dynamic Reactive WO creation with multiple visits
- Dynamic DS WO creation
- QA WO and give feedback
- Performance Score
- Notifications
UAT- The Test Phase: Once the system was ready, we had to establish a strategic and systematic testing strategy. This was not straightforward because of many factors including real client data, automated system processes, complex performance metrics, Zoho integration, and geofencing conditions in the mobile app. There was also the major concern that the existing system had to be transitioned to the new system uninterruptedly.
- We coordinated with the client to set up test accounts and then employed a regressive and robust testing methodology to cover all the possible causes. We even came up with creative strategies to test the 150m geofence set up in the mobile application. Through this, we also looped in the client, so that they could test the usability and flow from their end as well. The final result was a product that was ready to replace their existing system
Completion and Impacts- The Launch: Once the system had been tested thoroughly, we began systematically migrating all the real client data and setting up the environment on the clients' server. We also released the application on the Google Play Store.
- We went live in June 2020. Despite the challenges posed due to the Corona Virus pandemic at the time and the difficult circumstances due to the lockdown situation, our team successfully launched the system and the client was able to seamlessly transition to the new system in a smooth and hitch-free manner.
TheImpact
250Work Orders Processed Daily
20Randomly selected daily QA Work Orders by an intelligent algorithm
- 30
Daily invoices created in Zoho Accounts
- Advanced Dashboards
To provide impactful insights and facilitate intelligent decision making
- Smart Performance Metrics
Daily productive tracker through work time tracking, Smart Score based on QA feedback
