Contextual Budgeting

Senior Product Designer • React Native

PROBLEM

The existing process for tracking budgets and maximizing budget use had a few key challenges for the on-site operations teams placing client orders and for Crafty’s Client Management (CM) teams:

Creating and managing the Google Sheets (called Budget Trackers) was a manual and time-consuming process for the CM team
Information in the Budget Trackers could be inaccurate or out of date due to human error or oversight
There was not a standardized process or place for communicating budget information to Client Ops teams
Client Ops teams did not have insight to how a client wants to use their budget (i.e. is it ok to go slightly over budget), resulting in some client teams not maximizing clients' monthly budgets and leaving allocated dollars unspent.

SOLUTION + RESULTS

Using data already in the Crafty Platform, like scheduled delivery days and client budget amounts, calculate and display to users a suggested Delivery Day Target order amount alongside client's Budget Strategy*.

By showing this information where users place client orders, they no longer need to go searching for suggested order amounts. By calculating this number from the latest system data, users can trust that the numbers are up-to-date and accurate.

Improved budget utilization by 6%, resulting in an $270k increase in client spend per month, annualized to $3.2 million per year
Sunset an existing manual and time-consuming process (Google Sheet Budget Trackers)

*Budget Strategy is a concept developed by Crafty's leadership team to define how a client approaches their budget.

Reverse Budget Trackers - the old process for determining what an order's value should be to stay on budget

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Crafty Client Management and operations teams need adaptable, real-time budgeting tools that communicate pertinent information about their clients’ budgets.

Information like total monthly budget, budget remaining for the month, and an estimated per-order amount are all things that CM teams were tracking in a Google Sheet file. Every Crafty client (approx. 400) needed a separate file to track this data, leading to a lot of manual updating and tracking across the company.

My team's goal was to remove the need for this information to be managed manually in Google Sheets and contextually surface budgeting information to users in our Platform, showing them what they need to know within the context of their day-to-day work.

MY ROLE

My role in this project was to own the research and design for the Operator App. This App is used by Client Operations team members who work on-site at clients' offices. They use the App to complete tasks like taking inventory, restocking shelves, and placing orders. When placing orders, they need to know what total dollar amount they should target in order to stay on budget.

Another designer worked on the Core Platform designs, where we surfaced information like total monthly budget and remaining budget. We collaborated on these designs so that we would build a comprehensive solution that flowed seamlessly between platforms.

DISCOVERY RESEARCH - User Interviews to understand the Budget Tracker process

Through interviewing users on the Client Management team and Client Operations team, I gained an understanding of the current processes and their pain points. Our solution needed to solve for the following pain points:

General Pain Point

Using this tool, which exists outside of the Crafty Platform, requires users to manage and reference this information in multiple places

Process Pain Point 1

The data in the green sections was input manually, leaving room for user error and data inaccuracies, causing users and clients to question why these numbers did not match the system numbers.

Process Pain Point 2

This tool assumed an 8% tax which was not always accurate based on client location, so this small variance would lead to data discrepancies between our system data and the data in this Sheet.

Process Pain Point 3

The data in the orange section, 'Order Not To Exceed,' is a number that needed to be communicated to field teams.

Relying on humans to communicate this critical piece of information meant that it sometimes was not communicated properly.

Different Client Management teams had different ways of communicating this number to the Ops teams (who are placing the orders), which made the process inconsistent across Crafty clients and client teams. Users were doing this in the following ways:

Slack messages or text messages - requiring users to leave the Operator App to find this information, adding friction to their ordering process
'Budget notes' (which show up in the Operator app) - these must be created/updated in the Core Crafty Platform and can quickly become outdated if a number changes or if someone forgets to update them

DISCOVERY RESEARCH - Research to identify all the places that users submit orders across the Crafty Platform

The next phase of research consisted of mapping out all the places in the Crafty Platform where users can place orders. The Platform is very flexible, and users can place orders using different functionality depending on their use case.

The goal of this research was to understand the use case of each tool and inform the prioritization of which areas of the Platform to update with budgeting information.

Click to enlarge

Based on frequency of use and need to see contextual budgeting information, we decided to move forward with building a solution in the Operator App.

THE DESIGNS

The first iteration of these designs included updating the Operator App to display a number called 'Target Order Amount', calculated from data already in our system - like the remaining number of delivery days for the month and the client's remaining budget for the month.

Another key part of the design was to show the math behind the calculation in order to build trust with users.

Slide 1 - the first iteration of designs that we brought to users for feedback

Slide 2 - initial design explorations shared with design and engineering teams

RESEARCH: UI feedback with users

We conducted another round of research to share the first iteration of designs with our key user groups - Client Management and Client Ops team members.

Our main research goals were to:

Identify user reactions to the updated UI
Understand how users think about the 'Target order amount'
Identify what other information could make this feature more contextual for them when placing orders.

RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS

I made the following recommendations to improve the designs and make them more contextual for users:

Add an indicator to show a user if their order amount is below / on / over target.

This acts as a double check for users to make sure they are aware of their order amount and their targets.

Display the target order amount as a 'Delivery Day Target' and show how many programs they need to place an order for.

This gives users the freedom to break up their orders as they see fit if there are multiple orders to be placed for a certain delivery day.

Add an indicator of what the client's Budget Strategy* is.

This is important for our users to know when placing orders so they can balance the products in the order against the Delivery Day Target amount.

*Budget Strategy is a concept developed by Crafty leadership to define how a client approaches their budget. Is it a firm number that we shouldn't exceed under any circumstance? Or is it a soft target and it's ok to exceed if it means keeping shelves stocked with the best products.

FINAL DESIGNS

Incorporating the findings and recommendations from the research, I finalized the designs for delivery to the engineering team.

See the final Figma documentation

RESULTS

This update has been in use in the Operations App since September 2024, making a significant impact on our success metrics.

Improved budget utilization by 6%, resulting in an $270k increase in client spend per month, annualized to $3.2 million per year

Aided in the removal of an outdated, manual process - Google Sheet Budget Trackers - with 0 Budget Trackers in use as of November 2024