2017 Case Study | Georgia Power
Southern Digital Sign
Customer
This was an internal project at Georgia Power, a Southern Company. The software will be used by agents and managers employed by Southern Company as well as external contractors.
Project Overview
The current contract signing process is very segmented and hard to track. Agents have to manage each contract individually, and communicate via email to the signees. There is no central location where users can view all the contracts they are responsible for, and no way to receive updates.
Discover
We conducted contextual interviews & organized mapping workshops with SME's. We learned that our primary users are:
Agents - Drafts the contract, assigns the contract manager & facilitates contacting the signees
Managers - Reviews the contracts and applies status updates throughout the contract lifecycle
Key Insights from Contextual Research
"The current process for signing and managing contracts is arduous and inefficient."
"The process is completely manual, and relies fully on hardcopies and emails."
"Any commentary regarding the contract was done so via email. This separated the conversation from the contract and causes a disconnect in the process."
Contract Creation & Upload
Contract creation and formatting occurs outside of the SDS application. It was important to map out the process of artifact creation in order to create an intuitive experience for the Contract Agent. This user is responsible for uploading the artifact, data entry, and assigning external users + contract managers.
Define
The current contract signing process is very segmented and hard to track. Southern Company wants to continue to use Adobe Signature services and their current technology stack when it comes to user management. Southern Digital Sign must serve our internal users needs as well as external contractors with no training.
The application should show users contracts they are responsible for, and which contracts require attention. SDS should automatically alert users about required actions and the status of active contracts.
One Central Location for all Content
It was clear that one of the most sought after features was a dashboard view that would showcase the status of open contracts as well as metrics from inactive, rejected, closed, or approved contracts.
We need to present a hierarchy of data that provides at a glance insights into KPIs that inform the contract validation process.
Communication
All discussions were previously held in disparate email chains, which were separate from the actual contract notification emails.
"We need to cut down on the amount of emails because it causes confusion." - External Approver
"It would be great if we had a messaging section of the application that tied back to the contracts directly" - Submitter
The first concept was exactly that, a dedicated email client within the application.
Prototyping Insights
We leveraged our internal SME's to test prototypes built in adobe xd. This led to some immediate insights about the hastily implemented communication concept.
This concept failed because we brought over all the pain points from the typical email client application. There was a separation of context, the contracts and the discussion.
The following solution sought to break down any walls that separated the discussion from the contract.
We revised our personas into two roles: Submitter and Approver, in order to allow for a more lateral integration of job titles. Agents and Managers often took on multiple responsibilities, sometimes needing both submitter and approver access. User flows are pictured below.
Develop
During the design process I was in constant communication with developers knowing full well the constraints the Front End technology would place on design concepts. We would be Using a foundation of Bootstrap 3 and implementing the data driven elements with Kendo UI.
Deliver
Southern Digital Sign is a very successful web application within Georgia Power, and within a few months it was launched globally over Southern Company.
"Thank goodness I don't have to dig through my company email to find updates" - Submitter, Georgia Power
"It's amazing I only have to download and setup one application. We are a small contractor and technical support is non existent internally at our offices. We would constantly have to make tickets for support from Southern Company for each and every contract & discussion we had issues with. If we ever have an issue now we can just refer to the contract ID within the application & message support from within SDS." - External Approver
