Lab Ops Ticketing System
Design and improvement of an online internal request ticket system for desktop to streamline biopharma laboratory operations
A drug development lab doesn’t run itself
At Juno Therapeutics’ Seattle office, the Lab Ops team handled the day-to-day repairing, purchasing, and troubleshooting tasks for the lab so scientists could focus on conducting experiments.
In 2018, I worked with one other scientist to design and launch an internal ticket system for Lab Ops to manage requests from their customers.
Once the tool was rolled out, I worked with Lab Ops to continue improving the system and adapting it to their needs.
- Product owner
- Information architecture
- Interaction design
- Microsoft SharePoint Designer
- Microsoft InfoPath
- Pen + paper
Inside the labs at Juno Therapeutics' Seattle office.
Building a proof-of-concept
Since my desk was next to Lab Ops, I noticed several things as our department started to grow:
Lab Ops was drowning in emails with requests for help, without an easy way to see what was already on their plate
Scientists were constantly dropping by to ask for status updates
It wasn’t clear to customers, myself included, whether someone had already asked Lab Ops about an issue
To help both Lab Ops and their customers, I proposed that we create an online tool where Lab Ops could define the services they offered, scientists could easily place requests, and Lab Ops could see what requests were on their plate.
I worked with one other scientist to define the MVP. Because this was a homegrown proof-of-concept, we chose to build a low-tech ticket system on our company’s intranet with the following components:
Concept model for Lab Ops’ ticket system, where the gray boxes denote the objects we needed to design & create.
After our IT consultant had set up the ticket system’s framework, my team member and I iteratively tested the ticket system to identify bugs before rolling it out.
Within the first month after launch, 72 tickets had been created on the site—that’s 72 requests successfully diverted from email or in-person requests.
Scientists were using it!
Scaling the tool with the organization
After the ticket system was rolled out, I became solely responsible for designing and implementing changes to the ticket system.
As the drug development department grew, and therefore the size of Lab Ops’ customer base, we started to experience our share of growing pains:
Too many tickets
More scientists meant more tickets. Soon the Lab Ops team’s status page became a wall of tickets that seemed to scroll forever.
The ideal solution wasn’t technically feasible, so I proposed a compromise: a navigation bar at the top of the page to allow users to jump to page sections, and more options for ways of viewing tickets.
New ticket types
Over time, it became clear that purchasing equipment was much more involved than purchasing plastic containers. After interviewing Lab Ops to understand the process, I drafted the new purchasing form.
I tested the form with Lab Ops and scientists from different teams and incorporated their feedback to improve the new request process:
Nuisance emails
More tickets meant more notification emails flooding Lab Ops’ inboxes. However, customers appreciated the communication from Lab Ops. To solve this, we chose the two most critical steps at which to send notifications, thereby reducing nuisance emails by 50% or more per ticket.
As part of these email notification changes, I also overhauled the visual design of the email template to reflect Lab Ops’ increasing visibility within the organization and commitment to customer service:
Lab Ops was thrilled with the new email template:
“Oh my god, I love it! The old one got the job done. It looks so much more professional, like something you would get from Amazon.”
A feedback loop of growth
The ticket system is now the standard way that scientists ask Lab Ops for help. Capturing those requests in the tool has enabled the team to understand how much demand there is for each service and which teams are the biggest customers.
In turn, Lab Ops has used those metrics to justify hiring more members to meet customer demand, resulting in better overall customer experience.
The ticket tool rolled out in 8/2018 and over the course of 2019, the number of new tickets per month grew steadily. The dip in requests in 2020 corresponds to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moving on
Over the past few years, Lab Ops has expanded their services to even more teams, becoming an integral part of the organization, and the ticket request system is an integral part of their workflow.
However, we’ve reached the technical limits of what the intranet site can handle. Because it’s more critical than ever that Lab Ops and their customers can rely on the ticket system, I’ve initiated a partnership with our IT team to evaluate a new platform for the ticket system.