Hestia Price Management Application UI Design Challenge

Welcome to the Hestia Price Management Application UI Design Challenge
The scope of this challenge is to design the UI for an online application to receive, store and manage complex tiered pricing data for thousands of vendors and their products. Today this data is collected in a multitude of formats, and managed with various legacy systems. A new system will standardize the data input, and allow users to easily sort and access the detailed information they need in a single location. It will also enable other systems to obtain the correct price data to use with their processes for purchasing and sales.

Challenge Objectives

• UI design for a desktop web application
• Create approximately 5 unique UI features, plus functional variations
• Provide a clear and intuitive experience for users to accept, find and examine detailed pricing data

Round 1

Submit your initial designs for checkpoint feedback
01. Dashboard
03. Price Sheet Details
05. Historical Price View

As part of your checkpoint submission, you must upload your submission to MarvelApp so we can provide direct feedback on your designs. Please include the MarvelApp URL in your notes.txt
Make sure all pages have the correct flow. Use the proper file numbers, (1, 2, 3, etc.)

 

Round 2

Submit your final designs with all checkpoint feedback implemented
01. Dashboard
02. Search / Filter Results
03. Price Sheet Details
04. Edit Price Sheet
05. Historical Price View

As part of your Final submission, you must replace your checkpoint submission with the final submission into MarvelApp so we can provide direct feedback on your designs. Please include the MarvelApp URL in your notes.txt
Make sure all pages have the correct flow. Use the proper file numbers, (1, 2, 3, etc.)
If you're not submitting in the Checkpoint/Round 1, you are not eligible to submit in the Final/Round 2
OVERVIEW
Hestia is a large supplier of plumbing supplies. They deal with thousands of vendors and their products, which are sold and distributed to as many retail and wholesale outlets. Pricing Managers track and manage the options in product pricing dependent on a great number of variables. They have a very complex responsibility to ensure they provide the correct price for any product in any situation.

A vendor’s price sheet for a line of products requires variations to prices. Price sheets are changed and updated often. Currently, the process to collect and store this complex pricing is clunky and disconnected. It does not store and calculate the correct unique pricing for all changing situations. Hestia team members are not always confident they are assigning the correct price to sales. They have a difficult time clearly viewing the history and variations of pricing for a specific vendor or product. Hestia requires a more robust application for price management to sort the complex pricing variations and serve the correct price data for other applications to use.

BACKGROUND
The Past: Trilogie Pricing – Trilogie is the past/current system managing hundreds of different Basis Values for sales, purchasing and cost. Trilogie uses formulas to determine the correct pricing. Each of these formulas begin with a $ amount stored as the Basis Value.

• For example: Pricing for one customer may show a formula of “L - 0.35”.  This means the sell price for that customer = Basis Value L, less 35%.
• There are 11 different levels of Basis Values. The Basis Value can be different for each warehouse, main branch, logon, or master. This requires Hestia to effectively manage hundreds of different Basis Values in thousands of different formulas.

                                
The Future: Oracle Pricing – Oracle is the system that Hestia has adopted to use for their Quotes, Sales and Purchasing processes going forward. Oracle will also use formulas to determine the correct pricing (and costing). However, Oracle pricing formulas will be based on Master Price Sheets. They will use effective dating to assign a single List Value for each product. So, rather than hundreds of different Basis Values, there will be one (1) List Value for each product. The master List Value of a product will be used in combination with Discount Lists to achieve the correct price.

• For example: We can set Discount Lists by Customer Type, Price Columns, and Product Grouping. We can set Discounts to be as specific as a single Customer, and single Product, for a certain time period.

Our objective for Hestia Price Management is to manage a single Master Price Sheet for Sales, Purchasing, and Costing. Today the Oracle Price Sheets are maintained in Order Management and are only available for Sales. We need to develop an integrated solution using the same Master Price Sheets for all departments. This solution will store Price Sheets independent of any particular Oracle Module.


Goals to be addressed

• Display a standardized format for pricing data with an intuitive interface.
• Single source for finding all details regarding price sheets.
• Upload, store and display complex pricing variations which are continuously updated and changing.
• A unique accurate price for any product should be identifiable after conditional input is provided.
• Provide access to historical pricing even as sheets are updated with current data.
• Confidence that the correct prices have been captured and errors have been eliminated.

Functional Expectations for Hestia Price Management:

• Effective way to review and approve a new Price Sheet
• Enable robust search and filter functionality to find a specific Price Sheet or product based on any number of criteria.
• Enable effective dating with Start and End dates
• Enable Price Sheet precedence where a temporary Promotional Price Sheet can have a higher priority regardless of effective dates.
• Effectively use Price Sheet Statuses for the approval process.
• Store pending Price Sheets loaded prior to their Start Date.
• Store older expired Price Sheets, for both reference and reuse.
• Enable authorized users to edit/update existing Price Sheets data.
• Enable date changes to renew/extend Price Sheets that are Expired.
• Price Sheet edits will create a change log audit entry. For example: Who, When, What was changed.

Exploration Score
Creativity: Conservative; use conventions that are intuitive and proven to work.
Exploration: Flexible; use the provided screen requirements as a base, and propose improvements that positively impact the user goals.
Aesthetics: Hi-fidelity design; provide a top-notch finished-looking visual design.
Branding: Flexible; Must use provided header/footer design. Use provided fonts and color palette.

Glossary

• Purchase Price = The price Hestia pays to purchase a product from the vendor.
• Sell Price = The price a customer pays Hestia for a product.
• Cost = The price a Hestia branch pays to purchase a product from the Hestia Distribution Center (warehouse).
• Basis Value = The old base $ number that Trilogie uses to calculate price variations.
• List Value, List Price = The current base $ number that Trilogie and Oracle uses to calculate price variations.
• Market Cost = The cost on the sales invoice per the vendor, which may be the same or different than the original purchase price.
• Branch = A Hestia location selling to end customers.
• Distribution Center = A Hestia warehouse that serves multiple branches in a region.
• Fabricated List Price = When a List Price is not provided, a Fabricated List Price is calculated based upon the Market Cost. For example: (Cost * 3)
• Discount Group = A group of products identified with a code, which share the same formula to discount a purchase price. For example: DG A512 = (List Price less 45%)
• UOM Fulfillment = Unit of Measure Fulfillment. The lowest saleable unit of measure for the product. For example: A valve may only be sold in quantities of 5 or higher (UOM Fulfillment = 5)
• Vendor Price Sheet, Branch Add Sheet, Market Cost Sheet = Various types of documents used to provide pricing data.

USERS
Price Management users are Hestia employees who are responsible for managing pricing data for vendors and branches. For example: Branch Associate, Pricing Manager, Technical Administrator, Regional Pricing Manager, Senior Pricing Manager.

Persona

• Jamie Edison, Hestia Pricing Manager
• Comfortable working with online applications.
• Open to adopting a new application which will make her job easier.
• Is responsible for ensuring that branches get accurate pricing so that they are able to complete transactions.

Workflow
The Hestia Price Management application should allow the user to complete their workflow with tasks as outlined below. Users will primarily be reacting to changes in pricing for the vendors they deal with. They will also need to respond when a question is directed to them or when an error is identified.

Typical workflow:

1. Jamie needs to easily determine her workload and prioritize her tasks.
2. When she views her Hestia Price Management dashboard, she sees all the new/updated Price Sheets to be reviewed. These Price Sheets are in Draft status.
3. To review a Draft Price Sheet, Jamie may view the sheet to confirm it contains appropriate information. If all is good, she changes the status to Approved. If it is not acceptable, she will change the status to Rejected.
4. Jamie is notified of a pricing error or a question about data. She can easily search or filter to find the Price Sheet or the specific product in question.
5. Jamie is able to select and edit fields if errors are found or changes are required. She may edit the List Price, Market Cost, Start or End Date.
6. An audit or activity history shows Jamie what changes have recently been made to Price Sheets by herself or other users.
7. After completing urgent tasks, Jamie is able to do routine organization and maintenance related to her vendors. She changes a schedule for updates by extending the End Date for an Expired Price Sheet so that it will remain active.  
8. Jamie Submits a Promotional Price Sheet for one of her vendors. She is able to give that Price Sheet priority to be used above any other Price Sheet for the included products.
9. The system stores a number of old/expired Price Sheets. When investigating problems or doing maintenance, Jamie may check the history of a Price Sheet or a single product price. She is able to see what data was changed and compare how a price for a product has changed over time.

SCREENS / FEATURES REQUIREMENTS
Required Price Sheets Fields
Please refer to this link for the sample data:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NTjeflZCVOjzDm4yifkKAFbzgcbwp2fS?usp=sharing
Note: Some fields below are not shown in the samples. Assume these will also be required fields and include all of them in your design.

• Status (label: Draft, Approved, Cancelled, Expired)
• Price Sheet ID (name, date, etc.: FE_KOHLER_COMPANY_09.17.20_CNV_US)
• Vendor Code / Vendor SKU (alpha number: K-3493-RA-0)
• Item (Hestia’s number: 3066749)
• Alt. Code (Hestia’s number: K3493-RA-0)
• Description (product name: CCN HIGHLINE PRES CLST EB W RH TR)
• UOM (Unit of Measure Vendor, letter code: EA)
• UOM Fulfillment (Unit of Measure, number: 1 or 5 or 2500)
• DG (Discount Group, letter/number code: 8740 or A512)
• List Price ($ number: $518.00)
• Market Cost ($ number: $226.33)
• Purchase Cost ($ number: $44.78)
• Start Date (MM/DD/YYYY - i.e. 9/17/2020)
• End Date (MM/DD/YYYY - i.e. 9/7/2021)

00. Global Elements

• Title: Hestia Price Management
• Hestia Logo
• Navigation as needed
• User Identification: Jamie Edison, Pricing Manger

01. Dashboard
This will be the application’s landing page for our user. Assume the user has already logged into the corporate environment (NO login flow needed).
User will need:

• See all new or updated Price Sheets that have been provided and have Draft status.
• Select to review a new or updated Price Sheet before changing the status.
• Ability to search for a Price Sheet or specific product based on any available criteria (see Price Sheet fields above)
• Notes interface - A common section shared by all users to read and add notes. For example: a fabrication formula could be stored here “Kohler (Cost * 3)”
• Basic Error Handling Notifications - For example: A Price Sheet may be flagged with a missing Start Date. Ability to navigate to the item in question.

02. Search / Filter Results
This view would include the set of data related to the Search or Filters applied. It could be a mix of multiple Price Sheets or multiple products. This view could be a separate screen, overlay, or dropdown, depending on the design solution.

03. Price Sheet Details
The user will see this view after they have selected a specific Price Sheet to review, or after they have searched for a particular Price Sheet or product.
This is the primary interface for managing the Price Sheets data.
User will need:

• See and scan all data contained in that Price Sheet.
• Ability to filter the display of data within the Price Sheet (For example: by Discount Group, by Effective Date, or combination of criteria).
• Ability to set and change the Status as needed.
  • Draft: Entered and saved but not submitted
  • Approved: Reviewed as complete and correct. Will become active as the Start Date dictates.
  • Rejected: Reviewed and determined to be incomplete or incompatible.
  • Expired: Has reached expiration as determined by End Date.
  • Cancelled: Was cancelled before or during its effective dates.
• Access past (Expired) and future (Approved but not yet effective) Price Sheets for the same products. This is an entry point to the important feature to view historical pricing (05. Historical Price View).
• Ability to edit a field if changes are needed. Editable fields: List Price, Market Cost, Start or End Date. This is an entry point to 04. Edit Price Sheet.
• Ability to export the Price Sheet to an Excel file.

04. Edit Price Sheet
This view will depend on your proposed UI solution. Include the flow of how the user will edit single or multiple fields within a Price Sheet. Editable fields: List Price, Market Cost, Start Date or End Date.

05. Historical Price View
Important! This is a key feature to allow the user to see historical prices for a specific product or group of products.
Seeing changes in pricing is important for users looking for errors or comparing pricing over time. The content should include some presentation prices from multiple Price Sheets: past, future, promotional, or other special cases for that vendor. The user should be able to access details around what field changed, when it was changed and who changed it.
This view will depend on your proposed UI solution. Ideas: Prices could be supported with graphic elements to show increase/decrease over time. Prices that were manually changed could be highlighted. Get creative with ideas for this feature!

BRANDING GUIDELINES
We will share the branding guidelines in forum. You will be able to see it once registered on this challenge.

TARGET DEVICES
Web/Desktop: 1440px x 900px (Height can be increased if necessary)
Export your screens to 2x when uploading to MarvelApp, so everything can be seen crisp and sharp.

SUBMISSION AND SOURCE FILES
Submission File
Submit JPG/PNG image files based on Challenge submission requirements stated above
MarvelApp link for review and to provide feedback
Declaration files document contains the following information:     

• Stock Photos Name and Links from allowed sources
• Stock Art/Icons Name and Links from allowed sources
• Fonts Name and Links source from allowed sources
• Full Details of the Topcoder Policy can be found in this LINK

Source Files
All source files of all graphics created in Sketch, Figma and Adobe XD and saved as an editable layer

FINAL FIXES
As part of the final fixes phase, you may be asked to modify your graphics (sizes or colors) or modify overall colors