Creating Spaces
Partnered with Creating Spaces, a leading design agency, to develop a custom Notion tracker tailored to their unique needs.
From streamlining sales support and admin control to offering an executive dashboard and centralized client access, this company tracker integrates essential features into a cohesive platform.
Role
Notion Designer
Project Type
Client Work
Date
Sep’23
BACKSTORY
A LinkedIn Post
The founder posted a requirement of a notion designer. It struck me since thats was something unusual in the UX market.
I reached out to the founder to know more about the role and we scheduled a call for the same.
Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash
OBJECTIVES
Need of Personal Company Platform
Sales Team Support
Develop resources specifically for the sales team.
Administrative Control
Include an admin role to control the entire company tracker on Notion.
Executive Overview
Offer a personal dashboard for the CEO to monitor profit/loss, view ongoing projects, and manage meeting schedules.
Team and Communication Management
Maintain a team directory.
Store and schedule all company social media posts on a dedicated page.
Centralized Information Access
Help everyone in the company access information related to various client projects.
Allow clients to view their project status and download the latest milestone assets.
Cultural Integration and Documentation
Make the interns well-versed with the company culture by providing comprehensive documentation.
Provide a page informing people about current hiring positions, if any.
ABOUT CREATING SPACES
The Business
Creating Spaces is a design agency that is all about giving their clients an awesome design experience and helping them grow in the digital world.
Mission
Believe in the power of design and deliver nothing but excellence.
Unique Selling Point
The 'design first' approach
Photo by Joshua Oluwagbemiga on Unsplash
SECONDARY STUDY
Soaking in all the Additional Information
Initial Discovery and Insights
During the initial discovery call, I realized that the most beneficial solution for them would be integrating their operations into a platform like Slack, along with other complementary software.
Client Requirements and Preferences
However, they preferred a one-stop solution tailored to their specific needs rather than adopting multiple platforms. Hence, the idea of having everything on a Notion-based solution came to them.
Custom Solution Development
This marked the beginning of our journey to create a custom Notion tracker from scratch. Based on our discussions during the discovery call, we identified and finalized the requirements for tracker.
Competitor and Market Analysis
I then researched competitors and existing solutions that might fit their needs.
Unfortunately, I found nothing that fully matched their requirements; available resources only addressed individual aspects, such as creating Gantt charts or managing project timelines.
There was no comprehensive solution that seamlessly integrated all their needs into a cohesive and functional system.
METHODOLOGY
Various Steps
This project involved creating Product requirement document, conducting competitor analysis, user flows, use persona and an information architecture.
FEATURES
Tracker Requirements
This is where I tried bringing in some personality to the tracker since the requirements put up by the clients were pretty boring. Thus, theses features were a breeze of fresh air on the face of tracker.
Photo by FlyD on Unsplash
CHALLENGES
Difficulties during the project
Limits of Notion
While certain things were fairly easy to implement/put on Notion, there were a few things I had to learn before adding it on the tracker.
For example
The feature which when updating the individual task on the to-do list, updates it across the project listing is something I had to learn.
Similarly, how to connect an API with notion was another task. Because a few of the documents of Creating Spaces were on Google sheet, which couldn't be merged.
Thus I had to look up for an API connection between Google sheet and notion, which allows for live updates on the notion.
Photo by Aakash Dhage on Unsplash
FINAL OUTCOME
The Tracker
LEARNINGS
Reflections from the project
Research and Constraints
Before starting the project, I thoroughly researched Notion, including its free plan and constraints. However, I overlooked the fact that people at Creating Spaces would access the tracker from their organization IDs.
The smart team at Notion had devised a robust system that restricts organization accounts to a maximum of 1,000 blocks of content on the free plan.
While I created the tracker using my personal Gmail account, which allowed for unlimited blocks as it was considered a personal project, the moment an admin from Creating Spaces logged in with their company account, they were notified that the tracker required a paid plan.
Fortunately, I was able to design the entire tracker within the 1,000-block limit. Additionally, there was a progress bar that indicated how many blocks had been utilized.
Handover Issues
While transferring the tracker from my personal Notion account to the company's Notion account, I encountered an issue with the ownership transfer.
I was unable to hand over ownership to the CEO. It seemed like the tracker wanted to spend more time with me.
However, within an hour or so, I was able to resolve the problem, and the handover went smoothly
WORK GLIMPS
Curated Project Work
