Overview
Bayer dealers frequently manage multiple accounts across Bayer's dealer portal and Climate FieldView, leading to inefficiencies and reliance on workarounds or customer support. To streamline operations, Bayer and Climate initiated the integration of their portals into a unified platform.
Challenge
The focus was on determining the placement of Climate applications within the Bayer dealer portal and presenting their data effectively to U.S. dealers. This involved mapping user pathways from login to accessing Climate applications, collaborating with Climate's project manager to refine these routes. The goal was to establish the most direct paths to pertinent information, considering data synchronization delays and multiple logins required for security.
Process
My initial focus was on determining the placement of Climate applications within the Bayer dealer portal and presenting their data effectively to U.S. dealers. This involved mapping user pathways from login to accessing Climate applications, collaborating with Climate’s project manager to refine these routes. From there I could move on to designing the pages that would fit within the Bayer portal.
Process-Mapping potential pathways from login through climate application access.
Design Solutions
Dashboard integration: Parent pages on the portal have established patterns that use widgets to display quick data that links to the pages where the user can get more detailed information. Maintaining brand identity was crucial to the business needs but since we were bringing this experience into an already established portal we had to find a way to maintain brand integrity while conforming to the established norms. We used Climate brand colors in data visualizations and a hero image with brand logo to tie the page to the brand.
Report Access and Customization: Users needed to be able to access Climate reports and then customize them before printing. I thought the existing designs for the Climate portal were difficult to understand and had the user searching for how to filter all over the page, instead of in a centralized location. In order to simplify the filtering on the Bayer portal I established a side sheet pattern to house all of the filter capabilities so the users could do it all in one spot and see the outcomes as they made selections.
Farmer Details Page: One particular challenge was what to do with the Farmer details now that the application would need to show user data for both Bayer and Climate. To maintain a good user experience, while keeping the information handy, I opted to use tabs to separate the information on the same page. The user can then toggle between the two to read the details for their farmer.
These design choices aimed to provide a cohesive and user-friendly experience, effectively integrating the functionalities of both portals. Importantly, these solutions are intended to be a stop-gap while the companies continue to work to fully merge their data for a seamless user experience.