Creating a Monitoring Experience for PAN African Towers

PAT

2024 Q3

2 Weeks

Team

Daniel Joseph - Product Designer, Lead
Josiah Bello - Product Designer, Lead
Ayomide Abisagbo - Product Desginer

Background

In the world of telecommunications, where uptime and efficiency are critical, ensuring the seamless operation of sites is paramount. At PAN African Towers (PAT), I worked on a Monitoring Dashboard Interface that tracks site performance in real-time and introduces a new level of transparency and control for our users.

Understanding the Challenge

PAT needed a centralized system to monitor the performance and uptime of its telecommunication sites across the country. With multiple tenants like MTN and Airtel co-located at various sites, it was crucial to have a system that could provide real-time monitoring, alert management, and accurate billing. The existing solution, Galooli RMS, was robust but lacked an intuitive interface that catered to the specific needs of different user types within PAT.

Image by Saqib

How might we create a user-friendly Monitoring Dashboard that provides real-time insights and alerts to various user types, ensuring the uptime of telecommunication sites while managing tenant billing effectively?

Image by Tixel Peg

Understanding the Problem: Research

To gain a deep understanding of the problem, my team and I conducted a series of interviews with key stakeholders, including NOC Admins, Super Admins, and Tenant Admins. We interviewed 10 individuals who represented these user categories to uncover their pain points and needs.

Key Findings:

NOC Admins needed real-time alerts and an easy way to resolve issues.
Super Admins required comprehensive site management tools and control over user access.
Tenant Admins wanted visibility into their specific site performance, raise escalations in case when any site is down and energy consumption.

Proposed Solution: Crafting the Experience

Based on the research insights, we proposed a Monitoring Dashboard Interface tailored to the specific needs of each user type:

Super Admins can manage users, sites, and billing.
NOC Admins have access to real-time alerts and site status.
Tenant Admins can monitor their sites, can raise escalations and view energy consumption.

Process

Our design journey was circular, starting with gathering initial understanding from several stakeholders (Empathize) to comprehend their issues. We then progressed to high-fidelity where I made some basic drafts, before evolving into low-fidelity wireframes for additional evaluation, high-fidelity and culminating with accurate prototypes. The design underwent a presentation to the client, and subsequent alterations were made based on the results from A/B testing and Usability testing, ultimately securing their approval.

Sketch

This helped us quickly make iterations and test different design options that suit our purpose.

PAT Experience

Some visual representation of PAT ReMS

Insights from the Journey

This project was a deep dive into a domain I was unfamiliar with, requiring me to learn the language and terminologies of the telecommunications industry.

Without a Product Manager, I had to manage the project independently, relying on self-directed research and close collaboration with the Project Manager.

The Road Ahead

The success of the Monitoring Dashboard Interface has set the stage for the next phase: the Billing Management Module. This module will further enhance the transparency and accuracy of tenant billing, automating the invoicing process and providing more detailed reports.