archie chatbot

the problem

Customers had to email Support or their implementation manager for answers. Many tasks had to be done one by one because there was no bulk editing. Custom reporting, one of our most requested features, meant relying on external tools or our team.

the research

I onboarded and interviewed customers to see where Archie added the most value. The findings showed which view each persona preferred. Owners wanted full screen for reporting, while production managers and purchasers wanted a side panel for bulk tasks and quick lookups.

my role

User research, product design, frontend development

the team

1 designer, 2 engineers, 1 AI specialist

the timeline

1 month

the tools

Figma, Claude code, Posthog

the goal

Let customers answer questions, update data in bulk, and create reports inside the product, and use real customer prompts to find gaps in our toolsets.

the solution

Two views available on every page: full screen and a context-aware side panel. Familiar chatbot patterns, so there’s nothing new to learn. Example prompts tailored to each user’s role and permissions

the impact

Customers could get answers, bulk updates, and reports in the product instead of going through Support or external tools. Reviewing conversations also exposed gaps in our toolsets that engineers then closed, improving the underlying product.
 
 

the solution

Users were given a collapsible panel on the left side of the Bill of Materials which allows for adding items, materials, and routing steps to the BOM & routing interchangeably while viewing the full BOM & routing. This panel also includes settings, attachments, and quality checkpoints for each routing step and the full routing sequence. The original UI used a number of modals that fully obstructed the view of the BOM & routing and forced users to add items and routing steps separately.

 
 
 
 

drag & drop

We also added the ability to drag and drop elements from the panel into the BOM or routing as well as within the BOM & routing levels. I also added the first right click functionality in the site here so that users could quickly copy and paste elements, delete elements, or duplicate portions of the BOM. We also updated the order of the items to reflect newly added items and materials at the top so that relevant data was readily accessible.

 
 
 

shortcuts

Based on research into other softwares and workflows common for the power user of the BOM & routing, we chose to include shortcuts often incorporated in other softwares. This included right clicks that allowed for quickly deleting or duplicating elements and creating new items. This was the first implementation of any right click shortcut in the entire product.