A Line That You Don't Stand In
Back Story
The University of Massachusetts Lowell just opened a new shiny building called UCrossing. This new building houses University Presidents, Offices for Admissions, Study Rooms, a Cafe, a Bookstore, and a Solution Center. At the Solution Center students, parents and prospects can ask questions about enrolling, admissions, transcripts, and anything academic-related. With this new building, there came a lot of foot traffic, and the University wants to keep a nice welcoming appearance for everyone to feel organized and not overwhelmed. One thing that immediately becomes an eyesore is a giant line of impatient and stressed people. That is quickly what became of the Solutions Center.
Solution
The leaders of the IT department decided to do something about it. We were already using SalesForce to track these questions coming in and what kind of questions they were, but how could we use this CRM tool to somehow eliminate this giant line that kept piling up?
Actions
The solution we decided to go with was to build on top of SalesForce an App that allowed people to check in via a kiosk and give them the ability to view their place in line. This solution also needed a way to notify the person when they were up next and what counter to go to.
My task was to design this app and research how to implement it. At the time I was new to SalesForce and its programming languages VisualForce and Apex. I learned the system and the languages and began the journey of designing a system for this application.
I began with what we already had implemented, the SalesForce Cases queue. I created a new queue for the Solution Center that would hold any cases from walk-ins. I also added a field on the cases to assign a counter number to be used later on when notifying the person where to go when the clerk was ready to help them.
Next, I needed a way to input and pull this data. I started by creating some apex classes. One to query the people waiting and one to query the people called to a counter. I used SaleForce Object Query Language (SOQL) to pull these cases and sort them based on time input. This Apex class required me to also create Apex Tests that covered the code in order to deploy to production.
I then connected this class to a VisualForce page and styled it with CSS. I wrote conditions in JavaScript to only show certain text if someone was called to the counter and to also number the people in the queue so they knew what order they were in.
Once the output was created I then focused on creating an input form. I made the form using Flows in SalesForce. This allowed me to create a low code input that can have fields that are easily altered. I then connected this form to another VisualForce page.
After the pages were made and moved to production, I deployed these pages using Sites. Sites create an unlicensed user so permission for this new user needed to be modified so that the sites have access to the appropriate objects. And there we have it, a new system built in SalesForce to handle lines without having people in line.
Results
After all my hard work and research I was able to provide the university with a product that allowed them to streamline the Solution Centers process. People were able to quickly check into a virtual queue and were then free to explore the bookstore or cafe for a quick coffee. This also removed the need for a cluttered line in the new building, keeping it appealing to the eye and not a dreary RMV style place.
What I Learned
This was a great learning experience for me because it was my first real task as a professional. I was put into a position that forced me to grow my knowledge and plan accordingly. I had to book time with product owners to get requirements down and set expectations. I was also given the freedom to approach this in the best way I deemed. This showed me that I have the aptitude to learn and grow.
