ServSharp

2022

School Project

Project Overview

Streamlining Asset Management for IT Teams working to support clients around the globe

My Role

UX Researcher
Product Designer
Prototyper
Implementation

Team

Derek Knodt
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Tools

Figma
Visio
After Effects
Zoho Creator

Duration

3 Months

ServSharp

Work Project, 2022

Role

Lead Designer, worked with one coworker to quickly realize the MVP

Introduction

At Pandesco, one of our primary business functions is as Managed Service Provider for several different companies in the fashion and retail industries. Our clients have many locations around the globe, and part of our job is keeping track of their devices. In order to provide quality service when problems arise, we need to know where a device is, who is using it, and what its specifications are. These dynamic inventory tools built specifically for keeping track of technology entities are known as “Asset Management Systems”

Problem

Our services business has grown significantly, and with this we have outgrown our current Asset Management System. The use cases of our teams is constantly changing and our current tool isn’t flexible to accommodate the expanding scale. We need a new flexible system that allows us to navigate our managed inventory faster and smarter. Our goal being to solve our own problems as well as others in the IT Industry by licensing our product when it is further developed.

Solution

I worked closely with our support teams to understand their pain points and identify areas of growth to design an intuitive MVP that was versatile enough to accommodate the wide range of usecases where they previously would get stuck. While awaiting development allocation, I created a useable prototype using a low-code platform for our team to utilize. Cutting costs immediately and providing new functionality needed for our expanding services business. This prototype has been used for managing over 2500 assets around the world and is a tool I continue to iterate on.

Skills

Figma

UI/UX Design

Flowcharting

Prototyping

Process Flows

I began this project by working closely with our support teams to flow out their processes, understand their core usecases, edgecases, and where they get suck in the current system.

Existing Tools

I researched to understand where our current Asset Management tool was not meeting our needs but also researched alternatives in the IT Services space to understand their weak points and failings. With this research I would work to become better informed to design a solution that solved the problems met by not only our team but others as well.

Based on my research, the main problem with existing Asset Management tools is that they are designed for a single strictly linear process.

They tend to work when you first start out, but as tickets come in, projects start, business expands, the needs change and the tools are not flexible enough to accommodate.

Research Takeaway #1

Linked Assets
Our current tool had no way to link Assets together with a location, this is a necessity when you have equipment that is plugged in and dependent on one another.

Research Takeaway #2

Flexibility
‍We have an ever expanding set of use cases and projects, we need to be able to adapt the screen display, searching, and groupings very quickly to solve tickets and meet our SLA’s.
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Please Note: Due to this being a work project, there are aspects of this project and processes I cannot show on a public website

Research Takeaway #3

Filtering
‍Our current tool required you to meticulously input filters based on text which were very time consuming to input, and prone to failure. We need a way to have a way to add and combine filters that you select and can be dependent on one another.

Research Takeaway #4

Shipping
‍We are constantly shipping and receiving assets from our client locations, assets often get marked as the wrong location, or are left in transit with no note to where they were meant to go.

Research Takeaway #5

Standardization
‍In our current tool many key fields including the Product Name, Model Number, and name had to be repeatedly input for each and every asset. This resulted in wasted time, misspelt entries, and inconsistent assets that wouldn't show up in searches.

MVP Draft

I then worked on create a MVP draft that could be designed and developed modularly.

Meeting our immediate needs while finding opportunities to expand the functionality with versatile features.

After getting feedback from the team, I iterated on our MVP, clarified our goals, and continued on the design to be presented for development.

MVP Introduction

For IT Teams its crucial to have a strong visibility on your gear. I proposed versatile mechanisms that are capable of navigating the large sums of equipment as usecases from tickets, projects, and problems arise.

Cross Field Keywords

Quickly search across all Asset Fields

Use Case: A store associate calls in that they are having issues with their store phone, they do not know what model phone it is but they can read some numbers off on the back to the Support Team.

Support team can easily find the phone with just a few numbers and trouble shoot their issue based on the product model.

Dynamic Grouping

Dynamically structure your view on the fly by easily changing the grouping displayed.

Use Case: The IT Team wants to prepare for their yearly review by ensuring all assets are correctly assigned to their current owner and store.

Quick Ship

When its time to send out assets, input your shipping info and ServSharp tracks the delivery status.

Use Case: The IT Team is shipping out a configured iPhone to a new hire. They do not want to confuse the other members of the support team by having it shown as Available in the stockroom, but they do not want to have it prematurely show as being in use. So they create a shipment that automatically updates when delivered.

Change Views

Quickly save and switch views for use at a later time.

Use Case: The Pandesco IT team needs to easily be able to view assets for each client, project, and contract without having to re input complex filters.

Dynamic Layouts

Within each asset the details, specs, repairs, shipments, and services, and more can be tracked. Dynamic layouts based on conditional fields to expand upon certain asset types, models, and more.

Usecase: Networking equipment require different fields from mobile devices, in order to not have expansive amounts of non applicable fields to mobile devices, assets are automatically setup to display only the relevant fields and sections

Impact

After designing this MVP, I created a low code prototype for the team use while awaiting development. This prototype aims to mirror the functionality proposed in the MVP Design as closely as possible.

I have continued to iterate on this prototype and it is currently being used for managing over 2500 assets around the globe. Solving both the cost and functionality concerns we were facing with our previous tool.