This case study focuses on the design of the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) for IoT Digital Experience Platform, an internal application for IoT customer life-cycle management. The goal of this project was to create an intuitive and user-friendly design that would improve the overall user experience and increase engagement with the digital products and applications.
IoT Digital Experience Platform (DXP)
Internal application for IoT customer life-cycle management
2017 – Ongoing
Telus IoT is a suite of IoT (Internet of Things) solutions offered by the Canadian telecommunications company Telus. These solutions allow businesses to connect and manage a wide range of devices, sensors, and equipment using Telus's network. With Telus IoT, businesses can track and monitor assets, collect and analyze data, and automate processes, all in real-time. Telus IoT offers a range of applications, including asset tracking, predictive maintenance, environmental monitoring, and more, that are customizable to meet the specific needs of each business.
Summary
This project is aimed to drive business transformation by focusing on optimizing, orchestrating and automating high-volume and high-value activities. The IoT DXP enables new products and services through highly functional in-house agile development. The key is to maintain this application as the foundational layer for main business activities.
Key pain points:
Data is captured using large Excel workbooks and stored in multiple copies.
The process of onboarding a customer is time-consuming, taking at least 3+ months from opportunity to solution implementation.
The sales and pricing team develops business proposals and tracks them through emails and workbooks, without proper version control.
The Centre of Excellence (COE) team struggles to execute many time consuming manual tasks such as IP assignment, MSISDN assignment etc; as there are no process automations.
Task coordination and handover among COEs is challenging when data is spread across different systems and locations
Solution
Digital Experience Platform (DXP) is a software platform that helps this organization to create, manage, and optimize digital
experiences across various channels and touchpoints, including web applications, mobile apps,
market place, and more. 3 broad streams of what DXP currently looks like within Telus IoT team:
Llama Core:
An internal application for IoT customer life-cycle management
IoT Customer Console (ICC):
A combination of a customer-facing order process and an order orchestration/automation tool that is internal
IoT Shop:
Self serve portal to buy IoT connectivity and devices online, and manage their connectivity via a self-serve portal
IoT Shop
Llama Core
This customer life cycle management application is designed to improve customer
retention rates, increase sales, and ultimately grow business by providing a
comprehensive solution to manage customer's journey. From initial contact
to post-purchase follow-up, this application enables you to track and analyze
customer interactions at every stage of the cycle.
With user-friendly interface and powerful analytics capabilities, this tools can
help to easily identify areas for improvement, optimize marketing efforts,
and deliver personalized experiences that keep customers coming back.
Type
Web Application
Tech Stack
AngularJS, Bootstrap 4 - currently being migrated to Angular 14, Bootstrap 5.0
Team
1 Product owner
2 FE developers
2 BE developers
2 QA
Old vs New Process
Figure: Old vs new processes
Site Map
Figure: Site map of Llama Application
Whiteboard Session
Figure: Whiteboard session on list of working and non-working features at that time
Wire frame
The below wireframe was designed for the Opportunity flow.
Figure: Wireframe created for Opportunity flow
Customer Journey Map
Current process flow using Llama Core to create an opportunity, pricing request, contract requests and onboarding requests.
Figure: User journey for creating and opportunity
1: Opportunity
Sales Team creates opportunities in llama to track potential IoT deals.
2: Pricing Request
Sales Team creates pricing requests within the opportunity of which some can be auto approved and others can have custom pricing and approvals.
When custom pricing is requested a Pricing Manager is engaged to review and approve a pricing request. This is an optional step.
3: Contract Request
Once the pricing request is approved, the sales specialist can request for a contract through DocXpress application.
4: Onboarding Assessment
Sales or Customer Solutions Architects (CSA) can start working on the onboarding request at the same time as pricing request or contract request. The onboarding request cannot be submitted until the contract is signed.
If a private APN is requested then a risk review will be performed. The risk reviewer has the power to approve or reject the onboarding request. If rejected, the sales specialist will be notified via email. This is an optional step only performed when the solution requested is not a cookie cutter solution.
Onboarding assessment is done by the Centre of Excellence (COE) team. This team also have the power to approve or reject the onboarding request. If rejected, the sales specialist is notified via email and the onboarding request goes to the initial stage where risk review has to be re-evaluated after the necessary changes are made.
5: Onboarding
Solution Onboarding begins. COE and Project Manager will be engaged if the solution is complex or involves private APN.
Prototypes
Figure: Initial design for opportunities list, hi-fi prototype made with AxureFigure: Initial design for onboarding request, hi-fi prototype made with Axure
Figure: Final revised version to map TELUS branding guidelinesFigure: Final revised onboarding request version to map TELUS branding guidelines
Core features implemented with few screen shots
Dashboard
Onboarding statistics
Announcements
Notifications
Loading statistics
Customer Management
Customer information - Addresses and contacts
Opportunity details - Solution and change requests
Documents
Expotable reports
Figure: Screenshot Customer Management
Solution Management with Change requests
Detailed configuration management (foundational for automated deployment)
Immediate market pricing, including discounts based on TCV
Multiple versions; scenario analysis
Pricing approvals, with fully customizable pricing overrides
Comparison tool
Notifications to stakeholders
Figure: Screenshot Pricing Request
Onboarding requests
Replacement of consolidated workbook (15 sheet excel file)
Smarter solution design
Form validation, ensuring higher quality requests and reduce human errors
Ability to share design with customer and get their technical inputs
Risk reviews
COE onboarding assessments
Notifications & COE Bulletin Boards
Notifications system for all Llama users and for COE-centric communications
Controlled by IoT Operations Manager
Summary visible on dashboard, click through for full details
Static IP Utility - Private and Public IP Management
Resolves the issue of static IP assignment/re-assignment capability exposed via API integration from 3rd party sim Management software.
COE provides list of ICCIDs and Llama allocates the IPs and assigns
Visibility to the database of available and assigned IP addresses
Job history & audit trail
Outage Notifications
Joins Customers, Solutions and Customer Contacts data sets
Used by the IoT Operations Manager for outage notifications to clients
Figure: Screenshot Outage Notification with a preloaded email template
Results
The most significant highlight pertains to enhancing the work styles of the sales team and COE personnel which in turn contributed to job satisfaction and positive office vibe.
Bring IoT Connectivity service deployment to its final form through fully automated network deployment.
Deliver best-in-class value chain optimizations for Insights, Transportation and other products / services.
Drive substantial revenue and profitability growth through value-added services.
Continue to strive for a hyper-scaler-like self-serve experience for IoT Connectivity and associated services like marketplace enablement platform.
2020
2021
2022
Active Users
177
903
1075
Opportunities Created
402
585
1913
Pricing Requests Submitted
550
913
954
Customers Onboarded
61
55
68
Extensions
Integrations with other IoT products and services making DxP the core application:
IoT Customer Console (ICC) - Device Management
IoT Shop - Digital sales
Static IP Utility
MSISDN Management and Assignment
Nimbelink Utility
SMS whitelisting
DocXpress - Contract generation tool
Figure: Site map of current Llama Application with new utilities, IoT shop and ICC integrations
My Role
I am the lead designer and front-end developer for this project.
Design responsibilities:
Ideation, stakeholder alignment, user flow design, visual design, prototyping, user testing
Front-end Dev responsibilities:
Front-end application development, RESTful API integration, OpenAPI specification design,
end-to-end testing, support during release, bug fix and maintenance
