Maintenance work in oil refineries and on drilling platforms is extremely dangerous. A work permit system mitigates risk by requiring maintenance teams to follow a slew of checklists, approvals, piping isolations, and health and safety guidelines before doing work of any kind. eVision's most successful product, Permit Vision was undergoing a complete overhaul due to a move to the cloud. Like many cloud-based services, it required a single sign-on experience and support for offline work. These require new authentication and signing procedures.
Challenge
1. Create a single sign-on authentication experience for a federated identity environment - supporting the sequence of interactions between the user, identity provider, and application.
2. Determine a mobile check-in and check-out workflow for offline work in remote locations.
3. Explore options for an efficient signature process compatible with federated identity.
Research & Takeaway
I worked with our software architects to iteratively work out the above challenges. We communicated using UML sequence diagrams, sometimes with mockups superimposed. I learned a lot about cloud architecture and the complex interactions involved, as well as the implications for UX.
