Where a custom web app can improve your workflow

A custom web app can help when people repeatedly move information, chase a status or wait for someone else to approve the next step. It is most useful when you can identify the work that needs to change and give the people doing it a clearer route through the task.

Start by watching one real piece of work move through the business. The most useful requirements often appear at the handovers: where a spreadsheet is emailed, an invoice is captured again or a customer phones to ask what is happening.

Map the current work before proposing screens

Choose a recent example and follow it from start to finish. Record who supplied the information, where it was entered and who needed it next. Ask the people involved to show you the workarounds they use when the usual process fails.

Keep the first review manageable. One process with a clear beginning and end is enough to expose a useful opportunity. Trying to redesign the whole business at once can make it harder to agree what the first release should achieve.

• Where is the same information entered more than once?
• Which decisions require a particular person?
• Where does a record wait without anyone knowing why?
• What happens when a customer changes their request?
• Which mistakes require the most work to put right?

Choose the kind of change the process needs

A missing connection may need an integration. A confusing screen may need an improvement to existing software. A process spread across several tools may benefit from a web application that gives people one place to complete the task.

At MTE Xpress, the later Shiplogic-to-Sage work addressed invoice synchronisation. Review, retry and catch-up controls form part of the delivered solution. The useful outcome is a connection with a way to handle records that need attention; the scope did not require replacing the whole business’s software.

That is a helpful question for any proposed app: which part of the current operation is already working, and which gap needs attention?

Make each handover clear

For each step, define what must be present before work can continue. Decide who can change the record, who makes the decision and how its status is shown. Include a clear way to correct information without losing the context of what happened.

In a customer-facing product, the handover may be between people outside your business. ViaVia’s app brings invitations, connections, journey requests and trip chat into a shared experience. Those features support people moving from a possible lift to agreeing its details. Their usefulness depends on how the steps connect.

Give exceptions somewhere to go

Automation needs a defined route for work that cannot finish. If a required record is missing or a connected service is unavailable, someone should be able to see what needs attention and what they can do next.

Agree whether the system should retry, wait for a correction or ask a person to review the record. Be careful with actions that could create a duplicate invoice, payment request or customer notification. Test the recovery route alongside the ordinary process.

Check whether the change is helping

Record a baseline before the change where practical. Useful measures might include time spent re-entering information, records waiting for approval or requests that need follow-up. Pick measures connected to the problem you set out to solve.

After launch, review completed work with the team. Ask whether they still keep a separate spreadsheet or send the same chasing emails. If they do, understand why. The next improvement may be a missing field or an unclear rule rather than a new dashboard.

Bring a real example to the first discussion

You can start with one process, the tools involved and a few examples with sensitive information removed. Our existing software improvement service and custom software service can help establish what needs changing. If the main issue is repeated movement between systems, start with integrations and automation.