Xero
Unified Client Record

Problem

Xero Partners rely on accurate and trustworthy information within the tools provided to them. A key dataset within practices is their client record, and for those using both Xero Practice Manager (XPM) and XeroHQ, two records exist that may contain discrepancies between each other. Our goal was to provide a unified source of client information for practices.

Xero can’t automate choosing what piece of data is the correct one to keep, as we don’t have the context of our practice’s clients. Practice’s know their client data intimately and will have the information to make informed and accurate choices to choose what data they need to keep.

Key success measures

  1. 100% of eligible practices reconcile their client records within 6 months

  2. The time from commencing to completing reconciliation is less than 6 weeks for a practice

  3. Less than 5% of eligible practices exit the workflow without completing the reconciliation experience

  4. Customers have increased confidence in the accuracy of their client data

Approach

Project assessment and planning

  • Initial research was undertaken to understand user trust in client data and form a baseline

  • Technical spikes that covered topics such as required fields for consolidation were undertaken to assess the feasibility of any proposed solutions

  • Risk assessments were undertaken to understand any potential impact to users

  • Dependancy mapping to ensure work was carried out with key stakeholders remaining informed throughout the project

  • Defining the brief to include scope, expectations, and success measures

Design, development, and delivery

  • Planning workshops were held with internal stakeholders

  • Ideation sessions with design and product teams

  • High level concept creation and testing with participants

  • Collaboration with Pod teams to develop working user journeys that could be tested in a real production environment

Solution

To ensure practices are in control of their data and are able to review duplicates or discrepancies, we designed an experience which allows them to check the merged information from XPM and HQ records is correct. This was important to retain and grow the trust that our partners have in us ensuring that Xero can be the most insightful and trusted practice management platform.

Central to this journey were 3 key steps

  1. Review duplicate sets identified by Xero

  2. Review client information within these sets

  3. Confirm details within the new unified record

Using insights from research and user testing, the solution focussed on simplifying the complexity of these steps, providing information to users that helped them complete their task, and ensuring that the approach was flexible enough to cater to all user types.

Deliverables

  • A research plan covering pre and post solution delivery that measured the impact of consolidating client data and understood user sentiment towards Xero in relation to trust and accuracy of data

  • High-level concepts created as wireframes and tested with users to understand their requirements and needs through the process of consolidation

  • Design and refinement of user journeys associated with project goals. These journeys included informing and educating practices of the upcoming requirements, providing entry points into a consolidation journey within existing IA, design of an easy to use consolidation journey to assess, edit, and commit data to achieve a unified client record

  • Ongoing documentation to inform and consult with key stakeholders throughout the business. This included Confluence documentation, Asana tasks, weekly video updates, and presentations to provide progress updates

Improving user flows by reducing steps and remaining within pages using modals

Outcomes

Practices won’t have to spend time and money on fixing duplicates within their client records and will have accurate/uncorrupted client data.

We know that trust in client records is heavily influenced by their accuracy, recency, completeness, security, consistency, and usability. A consolidated, single client database will help mitigate issues regarding consistency, completeness, accuracy and recency as there will only be one platform to maintain, not two. Test this assumption once the consolidation process is complete

Learnings

Understanding motivations for users to complete the process of consolidation journey was crucial. Success measures were based on the number of practices which completed the consolidation process. This was a business metric that was required for progress to be made towards a broader goal of creating a unified product offering. By understanding user motivations earlier in our process we could have tailored our ideation to address known risks associated with user behaviour.

Based on research we now also have insights that will allow us to mitigate any future risk by reviewing other areas of our products.

Key considerations uncovered included:

  • Consider improving the usability of setting up and editing new client records to instil trust

  • Consider introducing an audit trail of changes made to client records to improve visibility and control over access and security

  • Design team | Product Designers - Sophia Cuttriss, Zeb Reynolds, Research - Jazz Klinkert

    Engineering | Lead Engineer - Salaja Balakrishnan, Engineering Manager - Jakob Lindehammer Sørensen, Team Lead - Peter Hsu

    Product | Product Owner - Ryan Turton, Group Product Manager - Sarah Paulin

    Marketing | Product Marketing Manager - Andreea Balaianu

    Leadership | Design Director - Clint Schnee, GM Product - Toby Delamore, EGM Practice Management & Partner Experience - Luis Sanchez Castillo, GM Engineering - Andrew Blakey