Contacts & Messaging
Overview
A fully-featured ERP system isn't a good one without a dedicated communucation service that is present between the different modules.
Contacts web application is useful to a one-click move to call a specific person : a prospect, a client or even a registered user in the ERP platform.
In the other hand, Messaging web app was built to be able to send mails related to activities or events. It offers an SMTP credentials customization and useful features like pre-defined templates that are still editable before the sending of the emails ( invoices, payements documents, finance reportings, customer sheet description and more ).
My contribution
Product strategy User research Product design Project management
The team
1 x project manager 2 x engineers
Year
2020
Process
Communication tools are a must-have in any ERP software range
Contacts is a full contact management app similar to Google Contacts : allowing us to add a contact that could be directly linked to a specific customer sheet, or a prospect or an internal user on the ERP system.
It is displayed as a mini-icon on the top-right bar of the platform, allowing users to fnd quickly contacts.
In the other hand, Messaging is dedicated to send mails to contacts we were looking for. It's packed with a SMTP parameter configuration per user in the ERP system, that allows us to send email from our profesionnal Gmail account via the platform for example. It catches also incoming emails via a manual synchronization feature.
Both apps started to be developed at the same time, with a deadline of 4 weeks until their first production release.
My missions
It was the opportunity to work on new topics and especially exploring ways on how to integrate cross-functional services into an existing system, by keeping the user experience enjoyable. Here are my missions related to these projects :
#1 Product strategy
- Feature releases planning
- Customer relationship management
#2 Product design
- Wireframing
- User flows
#3 Database design
- UML
#4 Core API Development
#5 Testing & features delivery
Challenges and progress status
Contacts & Messaging applications are unfinished project when I left the company in 2021.
MVP features were delivered at right time despite some technical constraints. Since these two applications are "cross-functional", collaboration with the other project managers was essential to ensure that source code management and UI integration were well synchronized.
Outcome
Shipped features
Contacts management, search and assignation to prospect or client or internal ERP user.
Messages management, SMTP for incoming & outgoing mails, sending email with attachments from different apps of the ERP system.
Integration of the two API services on the whole ERP system ( inside other apps like Payments, Billing, Finance, Payroll etc ).
Impacts & benefits
50% of time saved when it comes to search for a contact and send a manual reminder about an invoice or an upcoming customer appointment
70% of time saved by sending directly documents related to ERP apps via the Messaging app instead of opening GMail.
80% of existing clients were satisfied about the product features requirements after the 1st release.