Back in November 2022, Qatalog 2.0 was launched. After three months of hard work we managed to launch a new version of the platform, now a Bespoke Operating System for Work.
In the past, users where struggling with the fact that they needed to adapt to the different features the platform had to offer, we wanted to remove that effort from their side completely. We wanted to give users of any industry the power to sign up to a platform created just for them, with their needs and abilities in mind, backed up with AI.
In Qatalog 2.0, features are modular components that can be customised by the user in order to create exactly what they need in their day to day. So instead of having to adapt their daily work to a very set-up-in-stone features like Projects and Goals, they can mix and match Qatalog’s components to create their own. Of course this features needed to go through a process of de-complexity that would almost strip them to the bone in order to be able to adapt to each and any industry in the world.
One problem made itself visible early on in the process. Our avid goals. Qatalog’s Goals feature allowed users to set up their Objectives and Key Results and most of them wouldn’t be able to migrate to the new Measurement component as a consequence of that simplification. We needed to change that.
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Qatalog Goals Interface (2022)
In order to do this internally, we needed to divide and conquer all the work that we had in front of us and unlearn everything we knew about the platform until that time. As I had been deep diving in Goals (our Objective/Key results feature) in the past, with a Product Manager and the help of 2 engineers we were set up for success.
This is what we did:
- Identifying the main reasons we couldn’t migrate the previous users:
- There was no way to set up calculated measurements.
- Users cannot link a measurement to another and combine progress.
- Users have to manually update every instance that has a measurement on it.
- Analysing the constraints we were facing in terms of Back-End capabilities.
- Based on that analysis, discussing with the engineers and PM to formulate the requirements we needed to fulfil to take this users to the newest version of the product, solving the main problem and spotting bugs we could fix in the process.
- Taking those requirements and turning them into fully fleshed user flows and high fidelity production designs and share with the Front-End engineer.
- Implementation and GA.
We ended up creating a very powerful add on feature that would allow users to measure a vast list of use cases, no matter what industry they’re in or framework they have in place:
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Qatalog Goals Interface (2022)
There’s two types of measurements now: Manually Entered or Calculated from Items.
Manually Entered — users manually enter their data to update the graph. This information is also stored in the feature’s history feed. This one would be the most similar to a Key Result in the OKR framework.
Calculated from items — users are able to connect measurements (manual or calculated), numbered custom fields and tasks from other instances. When any of this elements gets an update, the graph updates itself automatically. This one would be the most similar to an Objective in the OKR Framework.
This is a side by side comparison between the OKR UI we had previously and the new UI:
- Context relevant information: Status selector — Due date signposting — Post an update entry point: this was simplified to only show the status selector (that depending on permissions users can customise who is able to change) and a time stamp of when it was last updated.
- Users can add multiple measurements to their instances and can switch the view between them using a dropdown menu.
- A new graph that shows every update individually instead of a grouped update per day.
- A section with different actions that can be taken: See update history / Edit measurement / Update button (in manually entered measurements) or Calculated signposting with an explanatory tooltip.
- A list of connected elements (measurements, custom fields and tasks are available depending on the set up)Context menu that allows users to update, disconnect or delete element.
- Context menu where users can update fields or manually updated measurements connected to this one, disconnect and delete.
- Connection of these elements happen within a dropdown menu instead of inline, removing the extra line above the list that would occupy too much space.
Overall, this changes and improvements added an extra layer of usability to a very simple component. Adding this complexity not only allows users the liberty to customise the way they want to measure success and project completion but also helps users implement their traditional frameworks easily, not having to adapt to a platform and it’s features but a adopting a product that adapts to their particular needs.
After implementation we successfully merged our previous Goals heavy users to the new version of Qatalog and migrated all their instances successfully.
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