GT Nexus Global Search
The GT Nexus development team was working on Global Search for the supply chain management platform. The focus of Global Search was to surface relevant transactional documents users need to find on the platform.
Product Designer | Hook & Loop/Infor GT Nexus
Collaborated with the Product Manager, Stakeholders, and the Engineering Team to determine a design timeline, conduct research, and define features.
(product is in development)
Challenge
GT Nexus search allows users to complete an informational query and a navigational query. To start an informational search the user had to define specific document fields including the type of document before typing in the reference number.
Phase 1 of search needed to identify all the transaction documents such as Orders, Invoices, Shipments, and Shipping Orders that related to the user's search string.
Research
As part of the research phase, I talked to the product teams in charge of the applications that Global Search would be pulling from. This helped define the content for each card, making it easier for users to identify a document across different document types. I structured existing use cases into job stories to help identify the different entry points.
Building out Requirements
Collecting and organizing the information provided by the product teams was necessary to determine what data needed to be indexed by the development team. Wireframes were used to show what layouts worked best and how the “search related” feature would work.
Conclusion
The objective of Phase 1 of Global Search was to find a solution to existing limitations but also explore new features. The goals achieved were: users are able to use a single search string to generate search queries, Key information is provided for each document when running heterogeneous search results, and view related documents. Phase 1 is slated for the 18.12 release, with a go live date of January 2018
Phase 1
Phase 2
As phase 2 of the project begins we can explore new search functionality. This includes the ability to search for places, partners, people, products, conduct a boolean search, include a type ahead, show string matches in the search results, view recent searches, and have Global Search be a command-line interface for GT Nexus users.
Final thoughts
Working on the search pattern for GT Nexus helped me understand the extent data GT Nexus has and how to simplify, so users can navigate and search through it to achieve their daily tasks. Throughout the project I didn’t have access to the users, most of the input was collected by solution consultants and product managers. In retrospective being able to conduct user research with various customers and end-users, would have given me a better idea on how different users were using the search pattern and how the search strategy could surface up relevant information and help users complete tasks more effectively.