CHALLENGE
The process of documenting solar installations faced inefficiencies due to unstructured communications and evolving requirements. Data migrations across 20+ products required over six months of manual work by a senior software developer, impacting velocity and creating significant maintenance overhead.
Ensuring consistency and accuracy of content was increasingly difficult, leading to discrepancies that slowed down processes and increased operational risk.
SOLUTION
The Admin Portal was designed as a centralized repository for managing submission requirements, enabling users in to publish content directly from a unified database, ensuring synchronization across all tools. This solution eliminated manual data migrations, dramatically reduced errors, and streamlined content updates, leading to increased efficiency, reduced risk, and improved consistency for solar dealers.
APPROACH
Apply a systems-thinking approach to the solar installation process to create a scalable, future-proof solution.
Collaborate closely with users to understand workflows and pain points.
Centralize data management to streamline operations and reduce errors.
ROLE & RESPONSIBILITES
As the sole designer, I drove the end-to-end design process, from conducting user research and defining requirements to delivering detailed prototypes and collaborating with developers for implementation. I ensured seamless integration with the existing suite of commissioning tools, aligning with broader product goals and facilitating cross-functional collaboration to deliver a scalable solution.
INEFFICIENCY AS OPPORTUNITY
Changes to solar installation requirements involved a series of disorganized communications, which resulted in a workflow that required greater efficiency. Data migrations of 20+ products took over 6+ months as a full time senior software developer effort in the form of highly manual and tedious work. Our velocity was affected as a result given our need to maintain up-to-date content.
This was an extremely cumbersome process that placed a premium on stakeholder communication [TechOps, general managers, QAQC, account managers, app support], all external and scattered communications outside of our control
There was a clear need without an obvious solve here, with stakeholders affected by a brittle process: general managers, QAQC, account managers, app support, technical operations, and thousands of dealer constituents and therefore a downstream effect on customers.
Taking all of this into account, I proposed the following information architecture:
The proposed flow would drastically impact operations and future-proof scalability of commissioning tools. The Admin user controls when content will be requirements for dealers, streamlining communications between separate parties
This user journey represents a reworked and streamlined vision for how this data could be handled via a dedicated tool, empowering our users to freely control and govern content while engineers could focus on continuing to build digital products as opposed to error-prone data entry.
CRAFTING A SOLUTION
We worked with our users in Technical Operations (TechOps) to create software in the form of the Admin Portal. This allowed them to easily update requirements and publish them from one centralized database.
Adding 20+ products over a 6 month timespan is no more. This job now takes a day or two to implement; and corrections to any errors or additions could be made in real time.
Admin portal with equipment and corresponding tasks in view. A subtask is selected, which pulls up a panel containing the ability to edit its nested content.
The Admin Portal is designed to be the source of truth for all things commissioning. Edits to content are synced to Sunnova’s suite of tools (Commissioning Web + Catalyst Mobile for dealers and the Engineering Review Site for Sunnova QAQC users), which creates a system that is completely self-serviced and dependable.
Any changes made to content in the Admin Portal (top) affect data as it appears in the commissioning suite of tools (bottom)
CONSTRUCTING A SELF-SERVICING ECOSYSTEM
The structure of the Admin Portal mirrors the way that the dealer and reviewer tools were built in that their content is set at the time of configuration, and won’t change retroactively. This preserves accurate historical records of submissions needed for auditing and customer warranty purposes.
Here, the user may add a new piece of equipment, and link data in Salesforce to allow for auto-configuration of commissioning packages in the dealer process:
Add new equipment flow: users map a master equipment ID to allow for this equipment to be auto-configured in commissioning packages given the information in the contract. Then, users fill out the minimum information required, and set information to 'active' to then appear on commissioning tools.
The user can also add in new tasks and subtasks, with corresponding criteria such as rejection categories, AI model allocations to raise potential issues in submissions, and more.
Add new task/subtask flow: users add in all necessary information in a predictable, intuitive fashion for all commissioning content, to then sync across all tools
We’ve also built out a Changelog to help maintain a robust record of work as requirements continue to shift, allowing users to reference edit history when and where changes were made in the tool.
Users are able to view past edits and reference their paths to navigate to where they were made, demonstrated in the first item on the list
REJECTION MAPPING FOR ENGINEERING REVIEW
The Admin Portal enables users to define rejection categories, classifying them as critical or non-critical. These rejections are mapped to the Engineering Review site, where Sunnova engineers evaluate commissioning packages.
The Admin Portal [left] determines how dealers via commissioning tools [center] address rejections, and how Sunnova Engineers via the ERS [right] evaluate submissions.
AI FLAGGING AND REVIEW AUTOMATION
Users can also configure AI flags that highlight potential issues in dealer submissions. These flags appear prominently in the review interface, assisting engineers by automating the detection of common errors and streamlining the evaluation workflow.
The Admin Portal [left] determines how dealers via commissioning tools [center] are alerted to potential issues in their submitted content via AI flags, and how Sunnova Engineers via the Engineering Review Site [right] view these AI-flagged issues when approving or rejecting submissions.
IMPACT
During the crucial adoption phase of the new solar installation documentation process, the Admin Portal entered the fold at a key point in time. Because users now manages content through this centralized platform, we’ve been able to support rapid scaling as commissioning requirements evolve - referenced every day by Sunnova’s network of over 1500 dealer companies and partners.
A version of this case study was presented to Sunnova's CEO and C-level executives, where the Admin Portal was received enthusiastically, highlighting its strategic value and business impact. Users were also thrilled about the tool, with 100% adoption within 1 month of its release - safely within our 90 day goal.
INSIGHTS GAINED
Developing the Admin Portal underscored the critical need to align tools with evolving business processes and user needs as the commissioning suite of tools continued to grow, requiring a more robust way to handle content that changes over time. Centralizing data management minimized manual work and errors, showcasing how automation and structured governance drive efficiency.
Close collaboration with TechOps and insights from related projects highlighted the impact of iterative design and cross-functional teamwork in creating scalable, data-driven solutions to legacy issues.