Redesign the navigation interface for administrators.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

Commissulator has a very simple nav component which currently consists of four rows of links to different RESTful resources.

The majority of these resources don't need to be accessed during day-to-day administration. They should be accessible for special occasions, though. Probably, the best way to organize them will be in a series of dropdown lists or submenus of some kind.

It would also be acceptable to sequester some of the resources within a designated 'settings' area or even 'configuration' as appropriate. For example, ReferralSources are simply a list of answers to the question "Where did you hear about us?". It's a list that only needs to be updated periodically. However, it might still expose a resource that's useful to our business, as we can create views and components that communicate information about which referral sources are generating high-quality client exposure, for instance.

Crafting this navigation will therefore require a little familiarity with how the business operates. I believe this will be relatively simple to understand. And, it won't take much to improve on what we are using now.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

In terms of a dropdown platform, we could consider Bootstrap or a framework of that kind if you convince me that it's a trusted vendor for js components. I think Bootstrap is ok but I haven't done diligence in a year or so, and I'm not open to React or Angular or anything like that. Ember or Stimulus might be a different story, but I don't necessarily see this task as big enough to warrant that level of technology. Still, if there are plugins or components that you like and the way they interact with Rails is straightforward, we can use them.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

This interface is only used internally so the design doesn't need to be up to the standards of a public-facing or marketing product. It just needs to be less intimidating and minimally functional for a small number of use cases which I can describe below.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

These are the two states that the current nav can be in. It can be toggled from one to the other. Most of those links lead to RESTful resources and presumably that's essentially what they'll continue doing for the time being. The designs and templates they lead to may well display filtered information based on which admin is accessing them.

Additionally, agents and assistants who are not admins will be using a simplified version of this nav with fewer links on it. The nav could be totally different if that made things better. However, this ticket at present is focused on the interface for admins.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

The first workflow we need to support is printing a registration card. The admin will be accessing the Registrations index, finding the correct registration by referring to the client's name, the agent responsible, and/or the timestamps of when the registration occurred. They'll access the printable view of that object and send it to print. You don't need to build any of that interface, just understand that's what the user will be doing, and the nav needs to make it clear what they should click to achieve that.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

The second workflow we need is filling out paperwork to process a commission. This is the function of the New Commission link in red. That link currently leads to a blank form where the agent can punch in the particulars of their deal. Going forward, we'll likely pre-populate some of that data such as landlord name and client name with our registration data, so the interface for beginning a commission could optionally begin by prompting to select from recent registrations. Perhaps such could be shown in a dropdown or popup at the time when the agent is engaging this workflow. However, it should still be possible to begin with a blank form, in case of extenuating circumstances where the registration info is not in the system.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

The third workflow is for the financial manager to review recent commissions and make adjustments to the paperwork. This is the role of the 'Commissions' link.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

The fourth workflow is for a business manager to review the employment data of recent and past clients. This is the role of the 'Employments' link and it will supersede the roles of many of the other links such as 'Registrants', 'Employers', 'Industries', and more. This task is basically an accounting review, since the manager knows some of the rules for deal submission that the junior agents might not be aware of. The manager should have a sense of how many deals are awaiting review so he or she can catch up every couple of days.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

To complete this task, you should present a visual design that supports those four use cases (makes it clear enough how each one should be accomplished that someone who has been trained can do them).

You should also edit the Ruby code that generates the nav elements and the scss that establishes their styling attributes. If js is used (a la dropdown or popup elements), it can be either an approved component technology (e.g. Bootstrap) or a simple custom solution with js or coffeescript.

mikeymicrophone commented 5 years ago

These are the helpers that are generating the current nav. https://github.com/mikeymicrophone/commissulator/blob/master/app/helpers/application_helper.rb#L17-L67

And this is the scss. https://github.com/mikeymicrophone/commissulator/blob/master/app/assets/stylesheets/registrations.scss#L182-L200

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