Senior Executives from our client base often lacked the time or inclination to log in to the Aerlytix Analytics Suite. They simply needed quick access to reports, which they typically requested from specific teams. To address this need, we developed the Export Reporting feature.
Background
Within the Aerlytix Suite, I worked on an interesting side project apart from my regular product design duties. I developed a reporting system for the frontend of the web application, a highly requested feature from our users. While the challenges were primarily on the development side, which I had to tackle, I thoroughly enjoyed the design process and the discovery involved in visualizing the data.
As the load on developers increased and the team faced resource shortages, I offered to help ease the burden, given my experience with frontend development. The project was brief and did not interfere considerably with my other UX responsibilities.
I collaborated with the lead backend developer to provide me with the data to use in the templates while providing feedback on outputs for optimal results.
This project required me to dust off my development skills a little. The tools and technologies I used and had to learn included:
- HighCharts.js: A charting library for creating interactive charts.
- Handlebars.js: A templating framework used by JSReport, making it easier to apply logic to templates without cluttering them with scripts.
- JSON: The data format outputted by the API, which I used to parse data into the templates.
- HTML & CSS: Since early on my career, I had to write in some shape or form HTML and CSS. I designed the templates in HTML and CSS which helped getting used to JSReport and learn its constraints.
Through out the implementation phase in JSReport, I needed to simplify (and compromise) a little on the styling given that along the aspect of the data source, data came 'null' or empty depending on the usages, so I have to make the templates as flexible as possible to suit the many scenarios and content length. Therefore, the design and styling shifted from what I originally intended. However, the outputs maintained a good level of information and design hierarchy.
Conclusion
In the end, clients were very happy with the result, praising the enhanced functionality in the Analytics Suite and design of the reporting system and the templates. The success of this project not only met their needs but also became a valuable selling point in our future pitches to prospective clients, showcasing Aerlytix's capability to deliver innovative and practical solutions while also moving and delivering quickly desired features.