Client
OnPlan
Services
About the project
The OnPlan platform offers a suite of financial forecasting tools that are compatible with Google Sheets. These tools encompass customized financial models, data visualizations, streamlined workflows, and a range of additional features. What sets this platform apart from conventional spreadsheet-based financial models is its capacity to seamlessly integrate with ERP and CRM software and its adaptable modeling capabilities. Users have the flexibility to import Excel-based models into the OnPlan platform, allowing them to integrate their data with an existing model, thus transforming it into a robust tool for harnessing valuable insights.
Challenge
The challenge faced by Momentum Design Lab, an HTEC Group Company, was to refine and streamline OnPlan’s existing platform while enhancing user-friendliness and introducing new features. Tackling the challenge required a deep understanding of the business requirements and user expectations. In collaboration with OnPlan’s founder and primary stakeholder, Momentum’s design team took the challenge to meticulously craft new elements and functionalities for OnPlan’s web-based financial modeling application.
Solution
Momentum’s solution to the challenge involved a comprehensive approach. The design team delved deep into financial modeling and forecasting to understand the platform’s intricacies. They also conducted usability tests to assess the current state of the platform. Moreover, Momentum established a close partnership with the founder to understand the business and ensure its vision was valid thoroughly. This holistic approach allowed Momentum to refine the platform effectively, making it more user-friendly and introducing innovative features and functionalities.
Onboarding
The onboarding process served as a means to educate users by introducing them to the fundamental OnPlan user interface. As data is entered, the platform’s functionality gradually unveils itself, creating a seamless connection between the user’s actions and the step-by-step construction of their model and its associated features.
Used info, templates and strategic insights
Gathering information pertaining to the user and their business enabled OnPlan to provide more intelligent recommendations regarding data modeling. These recommendations can include the pairing of templates with Income Statements or Balance Sheets to streamline and automate the modeling process. Moreover, insights derived from user-related data can be utilized to gain a deeper understanding of factors such as engagement levels, churn rates, growth potential, and market alignment.
Navigation and testing
A fundamental role of OnPlan is to serve as a repository for sheets, which are integral to the product’s functionality. Given the intricate nature of these sheets, it was imperative for us to meticulously design their functionality. To achieve this, we conducted brief usability tests that centered on various tasks associated with the sheets accessible through the left navigation. This evaluation process unveiled prevalent issues with the existing design and provided valuable insights that guided subsequent design refinements.
Sheets and navigation personalization
Financial models typically consist of diverse sheets, and their relevance varies among users due to differing roles and workflows within an organization. To address this diversity, we crafted a sheet management system that empowers users with personalization options and flexibility in access their sheets. Simultaneously, this approach streamlines the interface by reducing clutter and enhances overall efficiency.
Merged sheets
In the earlier platform, financial models often comprised 30-50 sheets, some of which had only 1-5 line items. While these sheets served a necessary purpose, they also had an impact on usability. To address this challenge, OnPlan introduced a solution by automatically consolidating such sheets into a single Merged Sheet.
Quick pop
A significant factor setting OnPlan apart from other tabular data products like Excel is the application of metadata to each line item within a table. We dedicated efforts to develop a solution for efficiently and intuitively managing this metadata.
With the team’s unprecedented dedication to workflow modeling and requirements creation, OnPlan’s platform is now empowered with streamlined task flows, improved usability and increased number of functionalities including automation, personalization, more intuitive metadata management, and a help & chat function.
Chart builder
Effectively visualizing financial data is crucial for comprehending forecasts. While OnPlan offered recommended charts, users often required the capability to visualize additional datasets tailored to their unique requirements and the narratives they aimed to convey. The team built the chart builder feature, which enables users to create and customize data visualizations directly within the context of their data tables, as well as to refine and personalize their financial storytelling.
Help and chat
Financial modeling can present a significant complexity and may be unfamiliar to certain OnPlan clients. In response, the team developed a comprehensive assistance feature, including Contextual FAQs and a live chat option, that addresses the functionalities within the interface but also tackles broader inquiries related to financial modeling and forecasting.
Visual design and style guide
We collaborated closely with the client’s team to align the aesthetics with their envisioned design principles and formulated concepts that fulfilled these specifications.
Success
Re-design with automation and personalization
With the team’s unprecedented dedication to workflow modeling and requirements creation, OnPlan’s platform is now empowered with streamlined task flows, improved usability and increased number of functionalities including automation, personalization, more intuitive metadata management, and a help & chat function. The support provided by Momentum Design Lab is fundamental to ensuring superior user-friendliness of the client’s existing OnPlan platform while strengthening their competitive edge.
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