Slack - Workflow Analytics

Oct 11

Written By Sopuruchi Ndubuisi

Overview

Workflow Analytics

An innovative addition to admin dashboards that offers insight into workflow usage and metrics for organizations.

Info

Role

Product Designer

Duration

12 Weeks

Type

Desktop Feature

Collaborators

Mentor

Product Manager

Developers

Problem Statement

Admins did not have a way to evaluate the value of workflow executions, this was problematic considering that they are a significant component of premium expenses for organizations using Slack.

Business Benefit

Slack must offer customers the means to assess the value of premium features, such as workflow executions, to ensure customer retention. This addresses a product gap highlighted by 18 customers with a total account value of $48.5 million.

Slack wanted to create a Workflow Analytics dashboard for customers to measure the full value of their platform, especially with new pricing for Workflow Builder 2.0, which charges for premium workflow executions. Admins and owners needed a way to evaluate workflow success and value relative to costs.

Solution

I led the design and visualization of Workflow Analytics. A way for admins to evaluate workflow usage and metrics in their organization.

User Interviews

Research Participants

In collaboration with my product manager and mentor, I conducted Customer discovery calls with Slack administrators from 7 distinct companies that use Slack.

Research Goals

Understand the problems they face with quantifying usage.
Know their current solutions to these problems.
Know what more is needed in addressing these problems.

Research Outcome

Wireframes

The wireframes were iterated upon through multiple critic sessions with the team. Throughout the summer I participated in a total of 6 team critic sessions. Alongside other individual critic sessions with my mentor, manager, and PM.

Representing Workflow Usage

Representing Top Workflows

Representing Workflow Types

Representing Workflow Locations

User Feedback

After multiple rounds of feedback from the team regarding the design, I returned to the Slack client to

ensure that the dashboards aligned with their expectations and to determine any additional analytics they needed.

Feedback 01

Feedback 02

Visual Design

Design Guidelines

Analytics dashboards stand the risk of being overwhelming, to avoid that and provide users with the best experience the following principles inspired by Slack’s design principles guided my designs.

Filters

“How workflows are used”

“Top Workflows”

“Where workflows are run''

Prototype

Summary

I designed Workflow Analytics to offer administrators a user-friendly and informative way to measure workflow usage. It includes an overview section, a usage graph for tracking active/inactive workflows and people's usage, a section for identifying top workflows and top channels through clear and concise card views, as well as a section to visualize where workflows are executed using a clear pie chart.

After excellent feedback from the design team and customers, I handed off Workflow Analytics to the development team, and it is currently being built and added to Slack’s admin dashboards.

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