MGR360 - Office 365-Based App

THE NEED

One of the leading stressors in today’s workplace is poor management skills. It probably doesn’t help that the professional work environment has gone from the physical office space to the virtual one. Today, roughly 45% of teams work remotely, often in different time zones. This has prompted many businesses to get creative in the ways they lead their teams, and these businesses are finding that they need enhanced tools that enable team members to collaborate, coordinate, and communicate more effectively.

Those tools are exactly what leadership development and software company, Manager360 — also known as MGR360 — wanted to offer in one, easy-to-use Microsoft Teams-based web application. . 

MGR360 gives managers a consistent system for managing, leading, and coaching their team to success. 

MGR360’s goal: create a Microsoft Teams-based web application that would allow managers to easily schedule goals, tasks, and meetings. In order to achieve that, they needed a team of developers who could produce a fully-functional application and push it through to the beta phase where they would then take over the completion of the project.

MGR360 identified the following needs in order to create a more seamless and positive experience for the user:

• Connect to the Office 365 calendar for managing events.
• Tag meetings as one-on-ones, team meetings, etc.
• Distribute the app through the Microsoft Office Marketplace.

Enter in: Inventive’s team of innovative and dedicated engineers who were excited about the opportunity to create something amazing, taking into account what MGR360 envisioned and customizing it to fit all of their needs.

And that’s exactly what we did.

The Solution

We completed the foundational design of the MGR360 Microsoft Teams-based web application in just six short months, starting from scratch until all of the beta requirements were met. 

Our Inventive engineers used a combination of the following tools and programs to complete the implementation of the application:

• Frontend - VSCode IDE, React Typescript application, and MS Active Directory Authentication
• Backend - Visual Studio IDE, .Net Core web api application connected to MSGraph for Office365 API, and CosmosDB for application specific data
• Hosting -  Azure

Throughout the development process, our team discovered that the project was missing many requirements that were in the original project scope. We documented and kept  MGR360 informed of the change orders. 

The goal was to create a custom web application that addressed each of the goals MGR360 had for their final product. Our design efforts allowed for a more efficient and streamlined user experience that provided a way for managers to increase their communication and scheduling efforts. 

Functionality, ease of use, and the seamless adoption of the web application into the end user’s routine were key.

Several of the implementations our team developed include:

• Intuitive and easy-to-use interface, allowing managers to be great leaders.
• Highly visible presence in the Microsoft Teams app store.
• AI-driven capabilities to show entire data sets across partners.
• Easy management of weekly and standup meetings.
• Customized search, sorting, and reporting features.
• Virtual leaders can make meeting recommendations based on availability and when users are falling behind on goals.

App Features Include

Cascading Goals

Subtasks

Direct Report Search

Additional Customizations Around One-on-Ones

Surface Statistics and Metrics 

Subscription Management Tools

Default Meeting Templates

The Result

In just six short months, Inventive completed the design of MGR360’s Microsoft Teams-based web application, creating an easy-to-use, fully-functional, valuable tool for professional managers and leaders. 

All project goals were accomplished, including receiving approval to distribute the app through the Microsoft Office Marketplace, allowing customers the ability to purchase and install the application.

Presently, the web application is in the final stages of beta phase development by the MGR360 team. Inventive is proud to have played such an integral part of the development process and are grateful for the opportunity to have worked with the incredible people at MGR360. We look forward to seeing the finished product when it’s rolled out.

About Inventive

Inventive Group builds software solutions that solve complex problems. We live and breathe our mission of Improving Lives with Technology, taking product ideas from discovery to launch and scaling our experienced teams to innovate and deliver world-class solutions.

Inventive believes in making technology and innovation more accessible to all. We improve lives with technology. Ten percent of proceeds are donated to our Inventive Cares Fund. Every Inventive client enables us to improve lives with technology for nonprofits, veterans, women in tech, and underserved groups. 

Contact us for a 45-minute consultation. Let’s identify your needs and show you how Inventive can deliver a complete digital solution.