Envoy Emergency Notifications
User Problem / Opportunity
Employees miss urgent notifications due to limitations in existing systems, creating an opportunity for Envoy to use real-time presence tracking to deliver timely SMS alerts to on-site employees.
Business Goals
Identify a new Envoy product that will drive upsell opportunities when bundled with a new higher-tier product suite.
KPI: 10% of enterprise customers to activate feature within 30 days of release.
Role
Sole Product Designer
Worked with a team of ~6 engineers to implement
Project Timeline
2 months
Responsibilities
User Research
Interaction Design
Usability Testing
Visual Design
Qualitative Research
Held monthly calls with enterprise admins to gather product feedback
Identified a recurring need for emergency communication tools
Existing solutions (email, Slack/Teams) were unreliable and limited in scope
Realized Envoy’s real-time presence data could solve this in a smarter, more targeted way
Project Planning
To scope the feature and deliver value quickly, I created a user story map based on the most urgent needs we heard from enterprise admins. I broke the work into five milestone releases, starting with the simplest version: sending SMS alerts to employees. Each milestone added meaningful functionality while minimizing risk—such as support for visitors, delivery logs, alternate delivery methods like push and email, and ways to ensure admins had complete contact info for all recipients.
Design - Milestone 1
In this first milestone, I focused on SMS only to employees only (no visitors).
I designed the flow through two entry points on the mobile interface: a plus symbol in the home header, and a new link under the “More to Explore” button.
Design - Milestone 2
In milestone 2, we added the ability to send to visitors.
I collaborated with the Visitors team to give admins an option to require visitors to enter their phone numbers at check in, and to update the visitor iPad experience.
Design - Milestone 3
In milestone 3, we added a sent log. On initial release of this log, we learned that admins wanted search and filter capabilities.
I also realized that this sent log had the opportunity to get much more complex once we added other communication methods, so I started asking admins questions about their needs to start planning for future updates.
Design - Milestone 4
In milestone 4, we added email, Slack/Teams messaging, and push notifications through the Envoy App.
Calculating the number of people in each group was more technically challenging than expected, so we iterated and ended up including it where we could, but removed it from the “Send” button.
We also added a “sent by” signature to build trust with employees, based on user feedback.
Design - Milestone 5
Milestone 5 was about supporting admins in collecting employee phone numbers.
We added banners on the Envoy App and homepage (configurable by admin), Updates to Envoy user profile (app & web), and built tools to help admins track which employees had entered contact info.
I also collaborated with the Visitors team to give admins an option to require visitors to enter their phone numbers at check in.
Impact
We already had nearly 10% of enterprise customers onboarded by the time we “launched”.
This became one of the most in-demand features in the Envoy Suite, and drove the new bundling of “Envoy Workplace”, which is the most used Envoy product today.
Surprises & What I’d Do Differently
I was surprised how skeptical end users were about were about where the messages were coming from.
If I were to do the project again, I would have focused on gathering more feedback from visitors to better understand their unique needs.
