Story Spine
Problem & Constraints
The in-house “case-exclusion” tool was infamous for 40-second loads, manual email chains and a UI that breached accessibility rules.
Complicating matters:
▫️Holiday crunch — delivery was first pegged for 31 Dec 2024, right through the winter break.
▫️Shifting scope — deliverables grew as stakeholders realised the legacy dashboard logic.
▫️Data access pain — Databricks permissions failed several times, blocking QA.
▫️Fragmented management — because multiple Reply subsidiaries were tapped, 5 different PMs cycled in to “help coordinate.” Ownership blurred, decisions slowed, and responsibility gaps emerged.
Insight
Two remote workshops surfaced three clear personas:
Market Requester
Submit large batches of exclusion requests at once, instantly see remaining quota, and receive automated confirmations and status updates.
HQ Approver
Work through a filtered, KPI-specific queue, rely on automatic duplicate and limit checks, and meet strict SLAs aided by progressive reminder nudges.
HQ Admin
View every market’s full queue in real time, override exclusion limits when necessary, and fine-tune country-specific thresholds directly in the dashboard.
Pain-point mapping showed that status opacity and manual limit checks cost ~15 min per request. We framed the product principle:
“Make limits & status self-evident.”
Solution
Design system
I built a Figma component library in one week, then paired with engineers to port tokens to Power Apps. We adjusted brand colours to hit 4.5:1 contrast while keeping the corporate palette.
Role-driven UI
The canvas renders columns and actions based on the Rights & Roles matrix.
Automation layer
▫️Power Automate flows trigger all eight email templates and a three-step reminder ladder.
▫️Auto-approval logic consults the Databricks limit table nightly; overrides if case was previously excluded.
Dashboards
Secondary designer led Power BI; I reviewed layouts and injected the exclusion status filter and colour tokens.
Impact
Despite the holiday-season crunch and a staggered rollout, the first production release delivered clear, measurable wins that validated the redesign and set the stage for future feature work:
5× faster load
8s screens vs 40s legacy tool
34 markets
minor launch bugs surfaced
but were fixed within the first week
Conclusion
Shipping a 5× faster, WCAG-compliant platform to 34 markets — despite holiday absences, shifting scope, and a five-PM shuffle — proved that tight deadlines don’t have to force shallow results. The project’s success hinged on front-loading design systems, automating repetitive checks, and staying ruthless about visible performance wins.
Key takeaways:
✔️ Design tokens pay compounding dividends in multi-role apps.
✔️ Clear SLA nudges (Teams or email) are as valuable as UI polish.
✔️ Performance metrics tell the story better than feature lists when executive attention is scarce.
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