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Salesforce Time Warp

Implementation of Time Warp Functionality for EPA OPP Project to Allow Concise Overview of Project Timelines and Actions​
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Executive Summary

For the AD (Antimicrobial Division), BPPD (Biopesticide and Pollution Prevention Division), or ISB (Information Services Branch) Users of Office of Pesticide Programs(OPP), we identified a better way for the business to see its data—an unknown need—and then offered an out-of-the-box Salesforce feature—Time Warp—to solve that need adding the benefit of a concise, visual overview of project timelines, due dates, and actions for all related records including Requests, Actions, Task Group cases and all related Tasks.

 

After an extensive demonstration and discussion of how this would be implemented and released to the team, the OPP team agreed to try the proposed solution. When the users reported back the value, we moved forward with an early adopter phased rollout. The Time Warp feature was successfully implemented for a total of 199 users.

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The Subject

Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) regulates the manufacture and use of all pesticides (including insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides, disinfectants, sanitizers and more) in the United States and establishes maximum levels for pesticide residues in food, thereby safeguarding the nation's food supply. In addition to regulatory functions, OPP provides information and coordinates with partners and stakeholders on issues ranging from worker protection to misuse of pesticides. 

 

There are seven divisions in OCSPP, three of which were selected to pilot and implement the Pesticide Registration Information System Workflow (PRISM Workflow) in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) office, OPP was ready to upgrade yet again. The PRISM Workflow will replace a 15-year-old legacy system and a partially paper-based review process with a fully digital Cloud Platform-based solution—a web-enabled portal that automates legislatively mandated pesticide registration processes and improves OCSPP's ability to evaluate, review, and register new and old pesticides and enforce pesticide requirements.

 

Innovate! has been developing and implementing Salesforce solutions for public and private sector clients since 2008 to solve a multitude of business challenges, including Knowledge Management (KM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and data visualization. Our team of elite delivery solution specialists occasionally bring strategic solutions to manage their mission requirements and activities.

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The Challenge

Date tracking became cluttered and confusing causing unnecessary difficulty for the user to find the information they needed within the System. Overtime, the output required additional required information be managed within the system resulting in more date fields being added. Ultimately, this led to cumbersome pages and dashboards with numerous date fields causing inaccurate and delayed information for both the users and customers.

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The Solution

While working on continued development for due-date tracking on internal tasks, the Innovate team discovered the need for a more concise and encompassing view of all due dates, past and future. Listing out these dates on each specific child-action case became cluttered on the page and led to additional confusion or superfluous dates appearing. Initially, the Innovate team found the most user-friendly approach for capturing the necessary information while maintaining streamlined Salesforce pages with distinct, understandable date fields. Ultimately, the client wanted a Gantt Chart without the complexity usually associated with assembling, organizing, and maintaining a Gantt Chart. 

 

During continued review of new Salesforce features to add benefit to our customers, an internal employee discovered the Time Warp functionality and saw the benefit it could add to the OPP project. Time Warp was built and released by Salesforce Labs on the appexchange allowing users to view and interact with related records on one beautiful, interactive timeline. Users can scroll, zoom, hover and click their way to visualizing a complete picture of customer data. The Time Warp functionality would allow the OPP team one view to see all information that would be needed by the team to allow for proper actions according to the time frame needed for the case.

 

As this was not a specifically requested solution by the client, the Innovate team put together an extensive demonstration that included the planning, communications, and training materials that would be developed to support the effort of how Time Warp could be implemented and released to the team in order to solve this persistent complaint. Seeing the immediate benefits, the OPP team quickly agreed to move forward with a trial run to specific users among each team on the project. 

 

Layered with a phased rollout & early adopter approach, we were able to gather real-time feedback to determine if this feature would be well received by the larger user group. The initial group of users invited to test this functionality were given the appropriate permission sets to see & utilize the Time Warp within their Salesforce instance. This same group of people were then invited to a Salesforce chatter group to discuss any questions, concerns, or feedback they wished to share with the Innovate team. The phased approach also allowed for any modifications or changes to be made to how the tool would be utilized to maximize adoption.

 

Finally, the Innovate training team strategized together & documented instructions on how to navigate the new tool. The team provided a meeting to the early adopters to demonstrate the tool and answer any questions. This training was also recorded for anyone who was not able to attend, and could be utilized for the larger rollout.

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Implementing Time Warp for the Office of Pesticide Programs(OPP) users presented several benefits, including allowing the users to:

  • View related records across standard and custom objects in one place,

  • Easily see patterns of interactions and trends over time,

  • Scroll, zoom, hover and click through visualizing clusters of activity, 

  • View key customer interactions at a glance, allowing for a complete picture, 

  • Quickly identify the date or deadline they are looking for when on the phone with a customer or responding to emails to maximize efficiency

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Acknowledgements

  • Rebecca Thomas, Contract Manager, Innovate!

  • Tim Lynch, Project Manager, Innovate!

  • Nancy Vosburgh, Project Manager, Innovate!

  • Kristen White, Business Analyst, Innovate!

  • Hamaad Syed, Deputy Director, Information Technology and Resources Management Division (ITRMD), Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP)

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