Enterprise Travel Management Tool - Bosch
Designed UX for an enterprise tool which helps to efficiently plan all the stages of complex work travel scenarios from manager approvals, ticketing, visa, insurance, accommodation, forex, medical check ups, remittance etc by managing realtime travel information for employees at Robert Bosch.
Skills
System Design
Design Research
Journey Mapping
Information Architecture
UX
Toolkit
Research techniques
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
MarvelApp
Outcome
UX blueprint & Wireframes which the tech team used for development of the application based on Bosch GUI (Guidelines UI). The Project Document floats in NID Library for reference.
Duration
6 months
Project Overview
Background
Bosch UX Studio in Bangalore is a 100% subsidy of Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany) where innovative products and smart solutions are designed to improve the quality of everyday life and to contribute to the organizational vision of “Smart Solutions” for the globe.
My project at Bosch involved in designing a smart, intuitive & easy to use travel management tool for over 12,000 RBEI employees on travelling for work (Inland & International) on behalf of the organisation. The objective was to design a web application which efficiently manages all the stages of travel planning like travel approvals, ticketing, visa, insurance, accommodation, forex, medical check ups, remittance and other process. The tool is a platform that replaces manual approvals processes and physical checking of status with each concerned dept. with a real time travel management application that tracks progress at every stage, holds traveler information and necessary documents for future use and works as a travel assistant for a hassle free, delightful experience for the end user.
Understanding the Problem
Projects at Bosch are collaborative in nature and multiple teams across different continents come together to work and create. Many employees travel inland and internationally on work deputation generating a bulk of travel requests. Each travel plan consists of various travel components like insurance, taxation, immigration, ticketing, accommodation and finance.
For a long time a SAP based obsolete application is available for raising Travel request and Travel settlement. Other process are managed by filling manual forms and getting neccessary approvals through emails or in person. The third party related transactions such as ticketing, visa, insurance are carried out in the same manner and every followup or feedback is done through calls, emails or in person.
This semi automated process which involves switching of modes from SAP application to physical forms/requests and in person coordination has made the travel booking and management a complex and unpleasing experience.
Major implications/risks
• Critical dependency on SAP for meeting critical HR and Finance requirements • It is not viable to adopt third party travel management products and solutions in the market given the unique requirements • Open architecture is necessary to accommodate changes to workflows, policies, rules and partner integration.
User in 2015
Internal Users – 13,000 | Travel Volume – 20,000 per year
Concurrent Users - 200
Expected in next 5 years
Internal Users – 20,000 | Travel Volume – 40,000 per year
Bosch Travel System
Project scope includes the following
1. Design, Implementation and testing of the end to end travel processes listed below;Deputation processExport Control ProcessTravel Plan creation and approval processTicketing processAccommodation processInsurance ProcessForex ProcessCOC processVendor accounting and payment processCustomer billing process
2. Integration of HR-Core, PMD and PEI with existing interfaces as it is3. Meeting the Critical HR and finance requirements.4. Integration of third party ticket booking service (GDS - : http://www.travelport.com/Prod- ucts/Travelport-Booking-Feed) and accommodation service (Tallen - www.talleen.com)5. Migration of open travel plans, cancel travel plans and open claim requests from existing system PI0 to new Travel System.Ticket Booking Partner: Travelport Accommodation Partner: Talleen
Task as. Designer
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Understand & Visualize System
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Establish Core Design Principles
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Design an Improved User Experience
System Study
The system was made of multiple travel planning processes meshing between different departments, raising across many administrative levels like steps. To redesign the system essentially involved complete, in-depth study of the entire process which involved many scenarios like inland and international travel but also complex scenarios like work permit & Transfer. My understanding of the system derived from the set of flowcharts describing each process provided to me and a one-on-one interaction with the respective process owner. Detailed understanding of all the travel related processes and organizational flowcharts were carried out. These were in the form of internal travel policy manuals of BOSCH that traditionally define the end-to-end travel process in the company.
Pictures taken during the process study through flowcharts.
System Visualization
End-to-End Travel wheel showcase the overall sequence of travel process to be followed for both international and inland travel within the Bosch organisation.
The wheel consist of 3 broad catergory of travel phases, such as Preparation, Travel, Settlement. These phases have many long and short duration process which sometimes work independently, also can work be overlapped with an adjoining process.
Why was it needed ? It was created for a simple and more realistic visualisation of the travel processes in the organisation for ease of understanding. In the real practice of everyday things, there was no travellers guide that gives clarity or sufficient understanding of the steps for employees to plan and manage their work travel. Due to the lack of a systematic tool/guide, they merely deal with he situation by sometimes looking for help from a senior, assistance of the HR and travel depts or physically reaching out to the concerned department/process owner.
What does a Travel wheel represent ?
It represents the overall and individual nature and duration of each travel process or phase. The length of the color strip in each process denotes the duration of it.
The next process to it will be represented by a different color and so on. The travel wheel shown in the figure takes place for a single travel of an employee every time he/she makes a travel and comes to closure post settlement of expenses and reimbursement.
It is dynamic in nature and is a mere visulaization of the process. It is possible that some processes start at different times but keep coexisting simultaneously within the system.
Travel Scenarios
Inland Business Trip
Any domestic business trip made by the employee for a fixed duration of time with a stipulated start date and end date pre defined before the start of the trip with and agenda of work/ activity related to work is called an Inland Business Trip.
The trip can be at one location or a sched- ule of multiple locations. The ticketing is done by the third party vendor according to the provided details. Hotels are booked nearest to the work point, mostly the ones that have a tie up with Bosch. Their are fixed lodging allowance provided accord- ing to your grade/designation and a preset daily allowance. All the settlement is made at the end of the travel process and balance is provided according to the originals.
International Business Trip
Any International trip made by the employ- ee for work reasons to a foreign destination strenching to a pre set duration with a advance knowledge of the start and end of the trip is called a International Business Trip.
There are many objective of a business trip, could be work, training, info etc. In case of a international business trip, the stay is booked through bosch hotel portal which consist of bosch tie up hotels at multiple international locations. In addition to lodging and boarding allowance, kit allowance is also provided if a employee is travelling international for the first time and can be availed after 5 years again.
International Work Permit
The International work permit scenarion the the most exclusive scenario of travel which includes all the processes existing in the system. It is a relocation kind of travel or a duration of time under a contract and work permit.
It can be only the employee travel or even can be inclusive of his immediate aily depending on the contract and clauses. If the stay is more than an year then their is a provision of a hoe trip after completion of 11 months. These kinds of travel involve detailed cargo and accomodation phases. The company arranges for a contracted apartment stay along with cargo transfer and other allowances. In addition to usual allowance, language training and driving liscence is also provided dependint on the country norms.
Transfer
When an employee shifts his/her base from one Bosch office to the other across countries/regions thans he/she fall in the catergory of transfer.
In such case, travel request for only a single day is raised and tickets are provided according to the transfer. If its a official transfer than disturbance allowance is provided by the company. All the required stay and cargo arrangments are made by the inviting client and the billing is done to them.
No insurance is provided for the duration of stay, it is only for one way travel and from than onwards all the expenses and support are borne and facilitated by the inviting client.
User Research
Personas
Since the organisation is huge with numerous departments functioning in sync with each other in the same office and sometimes across the globe, it gave a very diverse set of user for this tool. It is aimed to be used within India but had a possibility to be scaled to a higher level which was a point always kept in mind while designing the tool. The tool had to be more universal and global in nature and easily adaptable to all kinds of travel scenario.
The users to the tool were of 3 kinds of nature,
1. The traveller / employee
2. The Reporting Manager / GRM
3. The process owners / Third party vendors
The Traveller.
The employee who has to undertake the travel for work/ training/info other purposes to some destination under all the compliance of the company using the travel management tool. He/she will be the primary user of the tool who will be interacting with it at every step and feeding the system with required relevant information for travel booking process initiation. Almost every employee will have a chance to use the tool once if he/she stays in the organisation for a sufficient time has work associated to trips.
The Reporting Manager.
This is a very interesting user of the tool who will use the tool for two purposes. The primary purpose would be to book/plan/manage his/her work travel. The secondary reason would be to monitor and approve the travel processing of thier subordinates/team members. The usage of such user is expected to be more Photo often for the secondary purpose but they do fall in the catergory of traveller themselves as they would be the ones making trips along with thier teams too.
The Process Onwers.
These catergory of users are the ones who will keep changing at every process. They will be the ones who would keep veiwing the request, perorm the required action depending on the clauses and pass it further back to the user. They will have the task of perfoming such an action over multiple profiles/requests each day, hence that complexity has to be kept in mind in the process of designing the service.
They should also be able to develope reports based on their work per day/month etc. to keep a knowledge of the overall process performance.
User experience Mapping
User experience map is a tool to encapsulate the experience of a user during different processes within the travel system. The process is very dynamic and has many touchpoints / influencing factors hence it was decided to be scaled on a broad manner.
The processe of mapping the journey of a traveller when interacting within the system gives an idea about the mazor zones which are infected with user disatisfaction. It equipes them to judge their experience on the below provided scale of good, average & bad.
User Insights
International Business Trip
“ The idea of initiating a travel request makes me sulk, as the service lacks transperancy, ease of use, convinience. ”
Number of Sample 18
Inland Business Trip
“ When I was using it the first time, I would call for help at every page. It needs to be more intiutive ”
Number of Sample 20
International Work Permit
“ There is no one system to handle all my travel work. It is always running at the back of my mind to ensure if things are fine ”
Number of Sample 12
Key Findings.1. Over all system is Dumb, obsolete and time consuming.
2. The Travel request interface is boring and cluttered with unneccassary items and menus.
3. Deputation process is tiresome process to observe as their is no feedback or processing of information
4. At visa desk, similar set of documents are asked over and over again even though the employee is a requent traveller. No repository of visa data.
5. The travel request portal has bad interfaces and interactions between screens. Irrelevant icons and vague placements on screen with very small sizes
6. The system is become a bundle of complex travel flowcharts and jargons, which users dont understand. Needs to be simpler and connect- able.
7. System non editable/revisable. Each change has to be initiated with the help of HR and is not fool proof.
Key Findings.1. The switch from manual forms to complex service portals breaks the sync of the entire process. It is hard to manage inormation on both siultaneoulsy.
2. It is not a user friendly system interms of travel booking and status update.
3. Travel settlement system is manual and keep no records of bills once submitted. There are high chances of them being misplaced.
4. There is no facility for team travel booking. Each time a team travels to a comon destination, all the employes have to make similar est o travel request again and again. In such scenari- os, ticketing, any changes with the return dates etc. all are to be done again by each employee withing the team.
5. Usually incase of any changes in case of return dates, than there is no provison in the existing system for makig changes. A call is to be made to the HR, she/he talks to the tech team and changes it at the back end.
6. No guidelines for employee entitlement is mentioned clearly within the tool.
Key Findings.1. There is no proper system to support and facilitate the travel/deputation process.
2. Apart from the HR, there is no information about the contact point or a particular travel process. It always channels through some assistance.
3. Smart information which system should prompt are missing. Poor Service.
4.Travel settlement is always a hassle as the oldest bills and other documents have to be saved. Also there is no visiblity within the system for the users.
5. User constantly elt that each time they are travelling to a new country they have no clue about its norm and other information. A proper repository doesnt exist for the same.
6. No options or tickets are provided bt the ticketing desk. Landing at odd hours
7. Components of the Travel request portal are slow, misleading and always hangs at specific points.
Travel Experience Map
After completing the user interviews and detailed research, we gathered enough insights and user feedback and clubbed all the respondents inputs to understand the system holistically and also analyse the condition on the existing service. This helped us in generating major research findings and insights from the entire research to help design appropriate solutions.
Opportunity Mapping
Travel experience map summarizes the entire employee experience journey in the existing end-to-end Travel System of Bosch. Its visualizes the step by step process of travel booking for in a overall way for all the scenarios. It shows the activities which act as the touch- points between the user and the process owners at each stage in the system. Its shows the gain points and pain points faced by the user while dealing with the service. It impacts the experi- ence feel and mood of the user while interacting with the service. Its an attempt to represent the encapsulated experience of the traveller while on a business/corporate travel for BOSCH.
Design Principles
End-to-end Travel Management.
The system should be an integrated solution for all the phases of a employee travel plan from starting to submit Travel Approvals to finally receiving reimbursement and expense settlement.
Transparent System.
It sold showcase at every point the timeline of the entire process step by step and also inform the user about the progress at each step in the overall Travel process.
Intuitive System.
It should be a smart system that adapts quickly to the user information and travel needs such as hold the travelers important details for next time use, show local details and time zone based on the destination etc.
Delightful Experience.
The tool should be easy to use for all the use cases and has an over all smart and efficient Tool to make travel booking experience delightful and hassle free.
Traveller Use-case
Raise a Travel request.
The most common use case of all is when an employee makes his first travel and comes across the travel management portal for the first time. They are noice to the protal and ready to discover it for the first time. They visist and explore maximum during this time while getting to familarize with the service. They should be made comfortable with their first visist as they say, first impression is always the last impression. At the same time, the experience during this visit is like a knowledge bag for the further visits that they will continue to have..
Check status of a Travel request
The use case of checking or monitoring the progress of your travel plan is the most critical use case.
It is common to all the travellers at any designa- tion and of any level; expert to begginer. It is also important in terms of checking the status after every or a few processes like visa or ticket- ing. Situations in which you have multiple travels coming up and have to manage their corre- sponding plans simultaneously, a sound tracking and checking system becomes most promising in such states.
Some times, once you have crossed a stage and expecting the status for priority travel for urther updates will also all in this catergory.
Edit an existing Travel plan
Here are those times when you have been stuck in middle of a travel process because the system fails to give you a choice to undo or make a few changes in your existing travel plan. They mostly occur incase of officials / employees at manage- rial or above post who tend to travel frequently on sudden basis and have temprorary or tenta- tive return dates.
Also incase you are a first time user of the tool and make a few unintentional mistakes, than you fall in the above usecase.
Wireframes
In this phase of design process, we incorporated all the user research insights to set the most important task flows when planning a travel and worked towards setting the hierarchy of the information on each page as we moved along each step of travel planning.
Captured in this photo is my team at the Bosch UX studio with these incredible minds always in nook for an idea for smart living through Design thinking.