With a history spanning over half a century and a network boasting more than 1,000 stores, this company ranks among the largest retail chains in North America.
Driven by a commitment to delivering exceptional experiences for customers and employees, the company consistently endeavors to enhance its operational efficiency. However, the organization found itself grappling with significant challenges that hindered productivity. Among these challenges was the cumbersome task of completing approximately 30 ServiceNow forms to provision a single environment for an application. Furthermore, developers often faced hurdles due to their unfamiliarity with all the required fields, exacerbating the inefficiencies within the process.
In an effort to overcome these roadblocks, the company explored the possibility of implementing a custom user interface within ServiceNow. Unfortunately, this approach proved ineffective, as updates to the UI incurred substantial deployment times, ultimately impeding the organization’s agility and responsiveness.
It became evident that optimizing the process of provisioning cloud infrastructure across diverse cloud environments was imperative for maximizing productivity and mitigating the burdensome task of navigating through numerous forms.
A Comprehensive One-Stop Shop Tailored for Developers
In response to these challenges, the company initiated the development of a comprehensive Developer Experience Portal. The primary goal was to align operations with cloud strategies by streamlining processes and automating and transforming numerous forms into a seamless, self-service experience of just a few clicks.
The organization embarked on a search for a partner capable of spearheading the extensive development required for the self-service portal. With a blend of expertise, talent, and deep industry knowledge crucial for supporting such initiatives, Brillioemerged as the ideal choice to lead the project forward.
To achieve the client’s goals, a series of pivotal features were prioritized for development, with ongoing enhancements in the pipeline. The development of a Create Request Page enabled a streamlined interface empowering developers to effortlessly initiate new requests, facilitating smoother workflows and reducing administrative overhead, while adding a My Requests Page as a personalized dashboard provided real-time visibility into the status and progress of their requests, enhancing transparency and collaboration.
Additionally, Custom Email Templates were implemented, ensuring consistent and clear communication throughout the request lifecycle, along with a Search Functionality, which enabled users to efficiently navigate and retrieve information from existing requests.
Withdraw Request was further implemented as a convenient functionality allowing developers to retract or modify submitted requests as needed, bolstering flexibility and agility in the development process.
The ongoing development includes Storybook Integration, with several enhancements on the horizon for further implementation. Envisioned upgrades encompass Developer Onboarding, GCP cloud integration, as well as requests for SQL and Postgres Databases, and provisioning of repositories, among others.
Crafting a Seamless User Journey for Streamlining Efficiency
The self-service portal was crafted with a focus on catering to various high-level themes, incorporating a range of enhancements aimed at boosting efficiency, enhancing user experience and collaboration, fortifying monitoring and ESG capabilities, and empowering development efforts.
During its development, particular emphasis was placed on providing a seamless user journey.
First, the developer is undergoing an Onboarding process, streamlining knowledge acquisition and reducing the time required to contribute effectively to projects. Through Access Provisioning, the portal optimizes resource utilization and minimizes operational delays during project transitions.
Access to solution architecture blueprints, tech solution review, and more is provided with Development & Solution Review, facilitating project development, code quality, and solution efficiency.
In addition to its operational benefits, the Portal serves as a catalyst for continuous professional growth and skill development. Through Developer Empowerment, users gain access to support channels, knowledge-sharing forums, tutorials and guides, industry certifications, and more.
To track action items, insights into developer performance, tasks, defects, roadmaps, developer efficiency, and leaderboards are enabled. Additionally, for efficient Monitoring and Management, features that ensure real-time visibility, prompt issue resolution, financial efficiency, and resource optimization were implemented, leading to application performance and cost savings.
Furthermore, the Portal champions environmentally responsible coding practices, sustainable development, and ethical governance standards within software projects. It offers ESG tools to track environmental impacts, promote sustainability, and uphold ethical and governance principles, thereby fostering a culture of environmental stewardship and ethical conduct within the development community.
Finally, when Offboarding is required, access to transition documents ensures seamless responsibility handover, and access revocation safeguards data and resources during personnel changes, minimizing security risks and ensuring operational continuity.
