Haavest | Analysis on a Social Network Platform

Task

Our client operates a network platform and analyzes user behavior. Out of necessity. Constantly. Of course he does! He obviously wants to understand his users better, in order to enhance user friendliness, as well as the attractiveness of his platform.

The objective of our task was to reach a deeper understanding of the user community’s interactions with the platform, and to measure new features on the platform and their acceptance more easily. In addition, our job was to raise attractiveness of already existing reportings and increase their usage. Consequently, the company’s employees had to become more familiar with the reporting tool. And the best way to achieve this was to give them hands-on training with its applications.

Implementation

Therefore, the challenge consisted in supervising and performing the development from the data modeling to the publication of the report on the Tableau server in an expedient way. In the process, we worked together with different company divisions, with a similar procedure in each case: first we defined the overarching goals in a joint workshop with the project owners and the most important stakeholders. After that we created user stories which 1. grouped the respective consumers and 2. captured the questions they had regarding a report. Then we at Haavest collected ideas internally in order to create a solution, join targets and develop user stories related to the individual functions in a coherent report.

In the next step we defined, in teamwork with the company’s data specialists, a data model, while at the same time a mock-up, or demo model, for a report structure and the first design was developed based on dummy data. The data structure had to meet the requirements of the targets defined above and especially of an effective and long-term solution for the Tableau tool. And since before our collaboration there had repeatedly been performance problems with the reports at the client, we now had to pay special attention to shifting the calculations either to the database or to the Tableau tool. In order to fulfill such demands, a close co-operation with the IT department is indispensable, because it’s them who lay the foundation for a successful project.

With the stakeholders we defined the report structure and the design. Soon we were able to replace the mock-up data with the real data model and to implement the various functions in accordance with the user stories and targeted goals. In the process, several feedback rounds with the clients and his consumers of the reports were conducted. As a result, before and after the first publication of the report, ideas and suggestions by the users could flow into the final product.

After the final publication of the report we offered as a last step individual training sessions for the users. Here the objective was to make the report as long-lasting as possible, since requirements can, of course, change quickly over time. In this event the client himself should ideally be able to make necessary alterations. And talking about independence: besides, we designed training methods for an optimal use of the Tableau server and detailed documentations regarding the individual reports.

Thanks to the co-operation with Haavest, the company now not only has a better understanding of who its customers are and which features have which effects on them. Also the attractiveness of the reportings in the individual divisions was increased many times over. Each of the created reports immediately made it to the most frequently used dashboards – delivering a future for the network platform that promotes data-driven decisions and places the company’s customer at the very center.