Not your typical freelancer
Background
Inside the Pipedrive app we have an area called Marketplace Manager, where developers can integrate their apps with Pipedrive using JSON Schema, Iframes and/or API calls to sync data and perform actions in our system. The whole page has many options, but here I'm focusing on the App creation/management area.
Problem Statement
One of the main reasons Pipedrive is not the CRM of choice for most mid-sized customers (50+ employees) is because of fewer adjacent functionalities and integrations (according to Market Study). We know that we cannot build all the functionalities needed ourselves (at least near-term), so we need quality integrations with great user experience. This is confirmed by our main target customer segment: Our aim is to communicate clearly and spark positive emotions in users.
• Potential HVCs consider integrations as one of the top buying requirements (from HVC buying criteria research)
• Our recent research reveals that integrations were considered as the most important topic for trial companies.
But customers don’t need just any integrations - they need integrations with high quality which work natively right inside Pipedrive so that they don’t need to switch between tools.The problem with having these kind of integrations is two-fold:
1 - It is not scalable to keep building “native” integrations ourselves.
2 - Our Developer Platform doesn’t provide capabilities for app vendors and other developers to build deeply integrated native-feeling apps which have complex workflows.
Objective
Provide more capabilities to support new entry points so that app vendors/developers can solve more use cases and build much more valuable apps to our customers
Goals
First, based on feedback from developers, we should split Schema-based and Iframe-based app extensions into distinct sections to make it clear to the developers all the options that they have. Then, make adding app extensions more visual by adding blocks that have an illustration and description to help with the discovery.
Not your typical freelancer
Ideation / flows / prototyping
This is how the file was looking after a few iterations of ideation sessions. Together with the PM and Engineers, we put down the first flows and diagrams of how it should work. The flow was validated with internal and external developers, refined and a final solutions was then chosen.
Breakdown of the solution
Ideation / flows / prototyping
This is how the file was looking after a few iterations of ideation sessions. Together with the PM and Engineers, we put down the first flows and diagrams of how it should work. The flow was validated with internal and external developers, refined and a final solutions was then chosen.
Breakdown of the solution
Not your typical freelancer
These are the forms for each new item
Conclusion
This project was very straightforward. We already had a good research, enough resources, and the steps for the app creation are pretty well defined.
The biggest challenge is probably translating the flow into a visual form and dealing with edge cases. Luckly we managed to create a pretty good validation component for the JSON file, which was a great help for developers using this tool.
In my opinion, a simple project that opens the door for future integrating methods - which is something we are already working on at the moment.
These are the forms for each new item
Conclusion
This project was very straightforward. We already had a good research, enough resources, and the steps for the app creation are pretty well defined.
The biggest challenge is probably translating the flow into a visual form and dealing with edge cases. Luckly we managed to create a pretty good validation component for the JSON file, which was a great help for developers using this tool.
In my opinion, a simple project that opens the door for future integrating methods - which is something we are already working on at the moment.