Fleet Management Software Application

Empowering fleet managers to make impactful decisions by leveraging integrations and automation.

Project Overview

Our product development team at Versett collaborated with a client in the transportation industry to create a brand-new software application that will drastically change how companies manage their fleet. This new software aimed to reduce manual tasks, become a hub of information across departments, and help reduce vehicle maintenance costs by empowering Fleet Managers to make data-driven decisions.

We approached this project in two phases: Proof of Concept (POC) and MVP. In the PoC phase, we focused on validating product market fit and initial feature sets i. The MVP phase focused on iterating on the core features and expanding on additional functionality that relied on integrations.

My Role

Product Designer

Tools

Figma, JIRA, Notion, Miro

Proof of Concept

Discover What Fleet Managers Want and Need

Our primary objective in this phase was to discover what Fleet Managers struggled with and opportunities to improve their daily workflows. Our research team conducted user interviews and ethnographic studies to uncover Fleet Managers' current environment and their idea of an ideal product. We interviewed 11 people (internal and external Fleet Managers and client subject matter experts) and observed 4 participants, including Operations Managers, Accounting directors, and Sales Managers.

From our research, we discovered a few key things:

  • The common processes in place are manual and not standardized across the industry.

  • The prospect of having a comprehensive product would significantly impact how fleet managers do their jobs.

  • Fleet managers spend a lot of time going through various sources of information to find the right insights to make an informed decision.

This information influenced our focus for this PoC, which was to develop a product Fleet Managers could use as a source of truth for everything they need to manage and maintain their assets efficiently.

Following the research phase, we built an asset management prototype that focused on being a hub of information for fleet managers. This PoC deliverable focused on 2 key features:

  • An extensive asset list to view all of the vehicles contained within an organization.

  • An asset view that outlined the vehicle’s information, including vehicle specs, financial history log, and key metrics like Net Book Value and Total Cost of Ownership.

Conceptual Prototype

Proof of Concept Outcome & Next Steps

We extensively tested and validated our PoC with the client's internal team and external Fleet Managers. The feedback was very positive and confirmed that a product like this had a strong fit in the market. The concept was viewed as significantly impactful because of how much information can be found within one standalone product.

Based on the strong signals and information we discovered in this phase we knew that our MVP needed to focus on improving workflows in the following areas: operations, sales, and accounting.

Minimum Viable Product

.We aimed to build upon our Proof of Concept (PoC) by focusing on refining core features and introducing new ones to address complex aspects of fleet management workflow, such as accounting and sales.

Accounting is crucial as it significantly impacts the daily workflow of fleet managers and their teams. We noticed that performing accounting tasks was laborious and prone to a high margin of error.

In the MVP, we plan to concentrate on creating a vehicle tailored to the specific fleet. Fleet managers often struggle with the cognitive load of the current process and find it burdensome to build a vehicle while referencing their progress.

To ensure the success of this product, it's essential to include features that streamline accounting and sales functions.

Prioritize & Iterate

As a design team, our objective was to address how to optimize operations, sales, and accounting workflows while also delivering outputs at a quick pace. We achieved this by:

  • Leveraging a Tailwind UI kit to design efficiently.

  • Collaborate with the research team to create a plan to test initial user flows and final designs.

  • Work closely with the development team to gain alignment regarding technical feasibility.

Design Thinking & Approach

Design Direction

The dashboard was an important piece of the product. The data found in the dashboard empowered fleet managers to make more sound decisions and allowed them to have a bird’s eye view of the health of their fleet.

At a glance, they can comprehend how much it costs to maintain their fleet, filter specific parameters, and get a better understanding of how to potentially increase revenue in certain areas.

Comprehensive Dashboard

We enhanced the initial vehicle profile page in the MVP by adding more information to provide greater depth to this aspect of the product. Creating a comprehensive vehicle profile page was crucial for all areas of business, as it served as a central information hub similar to the dashboard. Accountants, sales teams, and fleet managers all used this page to quickly access specific vehicle information and to make decisions based on the data available. It was essential for users to have insights into Asset Trends, Financial Events (transactions), and Depreciation History. These sections helped to streamline their workflows, as we observed during our usability testing.

Vehicle Profile Page

Improved Inventory List Functionality

The inventory list features additional functionality that our users found helpful including dynamic filtering, search, table view customization, and more bulk actions. This enhanced functionality allows fleet managers, accountants, and salespeople to perform tasks more efficiently and with ease.

Improved accounting functionality empowered Accountants by giving them the ability to view relevant data within a central source, develop projection reports, and perform accounting related tasks quickly.

In addition to this functionality we set out to integrate existing software to ensure that data across multiple areas was accurate and up to date.

Enhanced Accounting Features

Ordering custom vehicles in the past was very tedious for salespeople, but we optimized this workflow by leveraging integration with ChromeData and using familiar patterns seen in commercial vehicle building tools (i.e. building a car on honda.ca).

Utilizing ChromeData enabled us to expedite the ordering process by automatically populating relevant data that previously required manual input. In addition to auto-filling data, ChromeData also provided salespeople with an overview of available upgrades, specification information, and safety ratings, which they previously had to seek from other sources.

One of the great features of this flow was the option to "Save a Build." This allowed salespeople to create a build once and then reorder the same build without having to go through the entire process again. This not only saved time but also made the workflow more efficient.

Improved Vehicle Ordering Workflow

MVP Phase Outcome

300+

active users

Average monthly savings in maintenance cost

$25,000

$130M business

Powers a

“What this product can do
is way beyond what I could’ve dreamt of.”

Justin K., Accounting Director

The intention for this phase was to iterate on the success we found in the Proof of Concept while also building a product that would scale in the long term. We achieved this by continuing to conduct research to validate new features, discover user needs, and observe additional workflows we wanted to improve. I think our team did a great job in this phase and we were able to launch a product that was positively received and perceived as something that can truly change how Fleet Managers do their job.

Challenges & Lessons

Flexibility is Key

Creating a new product comes with a lot of challenges and this one is no exception. Throughout the project we found ourselves going in one direction only to discover something in our research that forced us to change course.

Is it frustrating? 100%, but it was necessary for us to do in order for the project to be successful. This also has a lot to do with our team being very new to the fleet management space. Context gathering and education was an important piece for us to grasp and there were definitely times where we were scratching our heads trying to understand the ins and outs of fleet management and accounting.

Context is Everything

Speaking of context, learning as much as possible about an industry we’ve never worked in was really challenging.

There were times during user interviews when I felt lost and couldn’t grasp the information. Fortunately for us, our client was very supportive and patient when it came to this. They understood that trying to digest complex information in a short period of time would be challenging so throughout the project they were very helpful in demystifying things and breaking internal language down for us in a way that was easy to understand.