Reimagining a feature used by internal teams and taking it to clients to manage and analyze data.
Background
As companies work to manage the environmental impact of their assets, having complete and accurate data is crucial. This data typically revolves around the consumption of electricity, natural gas, water, and waste output. The primary source of this data is consumer bills. However, when managing hundreds of buildings, thousands of meters, and accounts, especially when some bills are sent directly to tenants and others are retrieved from websites, emails, or physical copies, ensuring complete data sets can become very challenging.
At Brightly, we have an internal team that provides white-glove service to help clients manage data completeness. However, many clients also want the ability to analyze and track this data independently. As the product evolves to support self-service clients, the current lack of visibility into data completeness is a major gap. Internal teams still rely on outdated systems with poor user experiences, highlighting the need for a better solution.
The goal is to create a bill completeness or data completeness interface that serves both internal customer service agents and our current and future clients.
We had a starting point. First, we knew what our internal team was currently using, and while it worked, it wasn’t ideal. Second, we had prior conversations with clients, so we had a good sense of what they were looking for. Third, competitor analysis provided further insights. But keeping up with competitors and doing just enough isn’t how you grow. We wanted to innovate. Unfortunately, fast-tracking a major feature often prioritizes meeting basic needs over innovation. With this in mind, we set up daily one-hour meetings and got to work.
Issues
We quickly identified a few key issues with our current internal system:
Data was spread out: One problem with Stream was that comparing data was difficult because it was siloed across different pages. As noted in the information architecture story, navigating between details and summaries was challenging.
Overwhelming filters: The top half of the page was dominated by filters.
Overcrowded table: The data table contained twenty columns, making it difficult to use.
Notifications: Moving this from internal to external called for a way to communicate status and actions with the client.
It was ugly and out of date: I believe updated, modern UI creates trust and confidence in the product.
The entire software needed a more robust data table. This was the perfect time to advocate for investing in the feature.
Table Solutions
This new table solved a few things very quickly.
We moved the filters into the table: This cleaned up the overwhelming amount of filters at the top of page. Some of those filters were not typically used.
Customization: We had multiple user types that used the table differently. The new table allowed users to hide columns and arrange them according to their needs.
Communication: We introduced a notification feature so that clients could keep up to date on the progress of issues eliminating emails and calls.
Previously, account level and bill level data where in separate places. We introduced a side sheet in order to easily drill-down into the information quickly.
Completeness Widget
This widget gives the user a complete picture of the status of their property or portfolio immediately upon landing on the page. It responds to the filtering on the table as well.
Completeness Ranking
I developed this feature to help users quickly identify asset types, locations, and data sources with the lowest completeness rankings, allowing them to focus their efforts where it's needed most. The widget enables filtering by 1-3 categories, dynamically adjusting based on selected criteria. Users can view data completeness percentages and click the filter to apply it directly to the larger table below.
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