OPC IT Portal
Modernizing IT Asset Management & Staff Self-Service
Role: Senior Product Designer (Consulting)
Platform: SharePoint, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI
Stakeholders: IT Operations, Product Owners, Engineering, Staff, IT Leadership
Understanding the Business
Rather than jumping into screens, I met with both staff and IT to understand how work actually happened. Key pain points emerged: Equipment requests were increasing. Most tracking happened through email alerts. Staff had little visibility into request status. IT lacked a centralized way to manage equipment throughout its lifecycle.
Those conversations also revealed that the portal wasn't just about equipment…it also needed to support training, policy acknowledgements, incident reporting, and reporting for IT administrators.
AI Changes the Design Conversation
Traditionally, I'd begin this phase with hand sketches to align the team around early concepts. For this project, I introduced generative AI as a collaborative ideation tool to accelerate those conversations. Rather than replacing sketching, it helped us quickly visualize ideas, compare directions, and gather feedback earlier.
My role remained the same: facilitating discussions, evaluating ideas, removing scope creep, and shaping concepts into solutions that satisfied both user and business needs. The objective wasn't to produce more screens—it was to reach the right product, faster.
Product Compromise Training & Knowledge
Initially, I proposed richer learning experiences with progress bars and completion tracking.
Engineering confirmed Power Apps could support it. However, maintaining that information would create additional work for IT. Together we decided on a simpler approach. Instead of constantly updating portal status, the system would send reminder emails whenever employees needed to complete required training.
The result reduced administrative effort while still keeping employees informed. Sometimes removing features creates a better product.
A UX Pivot
Incident Reporting introduced an important realization. Initially, Staff and IT shared many of the same screens. As workflows became clearer, we recognized they had completely different goals. Staff needed a fast way to submit incidents. IT needed investigation tools, assignment workflows, reporting, and resolution management. Instead of forcing both audiences into one interface, we separated the experiences while maintaining one consistent design system. The result reduced complexity for employees while giving IT the operational tools they actually needed.
The Challenge
OPC's internal IT processes had grown increasingly difficult to manage. Equipment requests, approvals, and tracking were largely handled through email, making it difficult for both employees and IT to understand request status or locate assets.
I was brought in to assess the existing business processes and design a digital experience that reduced friction for both staff requesting equipment and IT teams responsible for managing the asset lifecycle
Designing for Multiple Audiences
One of the first discoveries was that this wasn't a single-user experience. The portal needed to support several distinct audiences, each with different goals and permissions.
Staff needed a simple way to request equipment, complete training, acknowledge policies, and report incidents.
IT Administrators needed tools to manage the equipment lifecycle, investigate incidents, and monitor requests.
IT Leadership needed visibility into operations, compliance, and reporting.
Recognizing these different needs early helped shape the information architecture and ensured each experience was tailored to the right audience while remaining part of a unified platform.
Working With Development
Development had an established workflow that relied heavily on PDF reviews rather than collaborative Figma sessions.
Instead of forcing a different process, I adapted.
I organized the designs into clearly structured Figma sections and generated discussion-ready PDFs whenever needed. As stakeholders became more comfortable with the work, mockups became the center of conversations, making it easier to discuss UI tradeoffs while still supporting the team's preferred workflow.
Creating a Shared Understanding
Product provided the technical requirements that were extensive. Although branding guidelines already existed, there was very little guidance around reusable components or overall experience. To accelerate discovery, I used AI to generate an initial experience map covering the complete employee journey—from requesting equipment to training, policy acknowledgements, incident reporting, and asset returns.
AI Acceleration
What traditionally would have taken hours became a discussion-ready artifact in minutes. Instead of replacing design thinking, AI allowed the team to begin conversations with a shared North Star much earlier in the project.
Aligning on the Business Process
After meeting with staff and IT, I facilitated a story mapping workshop to visualize the end-to-end experience—from equipment requests and approvals to training, policy acknowledgements, incident reporting, and asset returns. The exercise helped Product, IT, and Engineering align on priorities, identify dependencies, and establish an MVP before moving into detailed design.
Defining the Core Experience
Working closely with IT Operations, we mapped the complete equipment lifecycle.
The core experience centered around:
Equipment Checkout
Equipment Returns
Incident Reporting
Equipment Availability
Training & Knowledge
Policy & Governance
Once these workflows were understood, the UI became much easier to organize.
Simplifying Equipment Checkout
Equipment checkout became the foundation of the portal. Staff needed a fast, self-service way to request equipment, while IT needed visibility into approvals, availability, and fulfillment.
Working with Product and IT, we simplified the request process into a single guided experience. Instead of navigating multiple emails and approvals, employees could submit requests, track status, and receive updates in one place.
Throughout the design, we balanced employee simplicity with IT's operational needs—giving staff a straightforward request flow while providing administrators with the information needed to approve, assign, and manage equipment efficiently.
Equipment Lifecycle
One of the largest workflows involved equipment assignments. Engineering confirmed Power Apps could support barcode scanning and asset tracking, allowing us to design around capabilities instead of assumptions. Working with IT administrators, we designed a scalable lifecycle covering:
1 Assign 2 Transfer 3 Return 4 Surplus 5 Repair 6 Lost or Stolen
IT Admins wanted to include numerous confirmation pages and status management screens. Rather than increasing complexity, I proposed keeping detailed approval messaging within email while using the portal for action and confirmation only. That kept the experience focused while reducing unnecessary UI
Policy & Governance
Unlike optional learning, policy acknowledgement was mandatory. Rather than presenting employees with one overwhelming document library, I organized policies into clear categories and simplified acknowledgement workflows. The experience respected government compliance requirements while reducing the effort required from employees.
Bringing It All Together
The homepage was intentionally designed last. By that point, the core workflows for both Staff and IT were well understood, allowing the most important information to naturally rise to the surface.
Training, equipment requests, inventory, approvals, and required actions were consolidated into a single landing page, giving each audience immediate visibility into what mattered most. The result was a role-aware dashboard that helped users quickly understand what needed attention without digging through multiple sections.
Outcome
The redesigned portal transformed disconnected email-based processes into a centralized self-service platform supporting employees, IT administrators, and leadership.
The project reinforced several lessons:
Understand business processes before designing screens.
Adapt to how teams work instead of forcing new tools.
Use AI to accelerate discovery—not replace design thinking.
Simplify workflows whenever possible.
Different users often need different experiences, even within the same product.