Bringing Collaboration to Salsify's Workflow

Workflow is a feature specifically designed to boost a customer's operational efficiency after adopting the Salsify ecosystem. It consists of two main components: 1) the tooling to create one or more workflows, and 2) tasks generated by the workflows, assigned to users or groups of users.

In late Q4 2019, as we prepared for the upcoming quarter, our team delved into guiding jobs-to-be-done documentation, engaged with customer champions, and collected feedback from existing customers. This process uncovered several experience pitfalls that matched our future vision. We then conducted brainstorming sessions to outline the priorities and goals for each option, aiming to overcome the barriers related to inefficient workflows, unclear instructions, or ambiguous tasks. Ultimately, this strategy aligned with our long-term ambition of transforming Salsify from a Product Experience Management (PXM) platform into a cutting-edge Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system, complete with advanced eCommerce features.

A crucial aspect of our discussions centered around collaboration. We wanted to ensure that our Workflow personas fostered a strong sense of teamwork while clearly focusing on each individual's role.

Content Comparison

We carefully studied the content creation process used by Salsify customers and devised personas for content managers, copywriters, and asset specialists. Our team iteratively refined gray-box wireframes and early visual compositions, addressing user interface concerns through weekly internal reviews and validation check-ins with engaged customers.

"I wish I could highlight text." As content comparison concepts progressed, we identified collaborative discussions as a common theme. As a result, we decided to incorporate Comments as a natural extension of the feature.

Keeping Everyone in the Loop

Thanks to our early adopters' invaluable input and our engineering team's tireless efforts, Workflow Collaboration quickly became a cohesive and user-friendly tool. This progress allowed us to tackle stretch goals for Q2 following the launch of our initial milestone (M1). In addition, we created a batching system for individual comments using our mailing service to prevent clutter in users' mailboxes.

Milestone 2: Content Versioning and Next Steps

With content comparison in place, our next goal was to introduce content versioning to the feature. This addition would provide flexibility for managing seasonal content and content backups, addressing retailer content takeovers.

Reception, Learnings, and Outcomes

Workflow has proven to be a key differentiator in our competitive market, exhibiting consistent monthly adoption growth. We continued to monitor comments as a vanity metric to gauge internal customer adoption, with over 3K monthly comments and a 6% growth MoM.