Note: Personal as well as company names have been changed due to non-disclosure agreements.
SQUAD, an internal dashboard for influencers.
SQUAD is an internal dashboard solution to manage and operate influencers, sales and project managers, as well as agents and optimize the way they work together. With multiple modules it is easier than ever to take care of business and community decisions for influencers.
Evaluating the project through personas
Sometimes projects are more complicated than they seem at the very beginning. With fictional personas we determine demographics, skills and goals to find out what are key features that should be present. Frustrations are often times deal breakers, and lead to a user leaving or joining a product.
With requirements we want to check the global scope and complexity of a project. Creating multiple diverse personas show us different use-cases and must haves. Therefore important features that drives a user to our product, rather than to our competition is key to a successful launch and product.
The core of SQUAD
The Dashboard is built upon the core sidebar and top that lets you navigate to all modules and extensions of SQUAD within a few clicks. Modules are the key components that the dashboard has to offer. These hold so called widgets that have different visuals, different functions and use-cases, ranging from a simple calendar / time widget, to a livestreaming chat with multiple custom features. In general, some widgets are mandatory, some optional and others interact with the community and managers.
With the use of permissions, managers have access to different parts of the dashboard, such as statistics, advertising campaigns or finances. This way influencers don't have to take care of all the unwanted aspects of being a public personality.
While managers can manage their influencers dashboard and help them optimize their workflow and business tactics, external sales managers have access to a different dashboard that lets them create and run ad campaigns with the influencers of their choice.
Extensions are an optional way to further engage with the community of our influencers. Usually they are separate websites with very different user groups and expectations. Extensions hook into Twitch's API as well as SQUADs backend and are a centralized way to keep community, management and business happy. More examples for extensions are activations for sponsors and ad campaigns, or uploading vacation photos in return of being entered into special giveaways.
Your Account
With such core elements of SQUAD, it is necessary to have a strong backend with lots of flexibility. Each user has a set of settings and connections they can include into their SQUAD Dashboard to enhance the experience.
Connections
Connections allow the user to link their external profiles like Twitch, Twitter and other platforms and manage them through SQUAD. This also gives managers the ability to manage them, if the user enabled this option. Some are mandatory like Twitch (for live streaming influencers) and some are optional, like Twitter.
Account Log
When adding managers to your account and something happens or has been changed, the user will be able to see all changes that have been made in your name. This lets the user keep track of wanted or unwanted edits, additions or messages.
Settings
To give the userbase the most versatile and customized experience in SQUAD, we opted in for a global settings page that manages account, module and extension settings. It holds information such as Account Details, enabling certain extensions and third-party applications. For certain extensions it is also capable of setting a primary color to match the websites.
Admin User Management
Our first admin dashboard is the User Management. As SQUAD is an internal dashboard, users get an invitation to create an account. An admin of SQUAD can search and manage users, set rulesets (which is another Admin function), activate / deactivate accounts and see other information. Note: Images and names have been altered.
Admin Ruleset Editor
Rulesets grant and revoke access for users. The Ruleset Editor manages all rules, which can then be set to certain accounts and groups. Creating a ruleset consists of a module it accesses, the widget of it and a certain action that should be allowed.
Widgets forming modules
Each module has widgets that enable certain aspects of SQUAD. Some widgets are mandatory, some optional and others interact with the community and managers. In general, a module consists of certain actions and own rulesets that can be changed based on a users account. "Senior" influencers might have access to newer / experimental widgets without disrupting the experience of others.
Widgets come in different form and function. While some are non-interactable like a current time widget, others offer the ability to whitelist links, blacklist inappropriate words and phrases and show generous donators across a certain time span.
Dashboards and Chat Bots Module
Dashboards are customizable by the user and give them the ability to add widgets of modules to one page to see everything in one place. A user can create multiple dashboards based on their own preference. Typical use-cases will be Business, Streaming, Organization.
The Bot module manages everything regarding Amazon's Twitch.tv and interaction with the influencers chat. It has modules for scheduling announcements, whitelisting URL's, blacklist words and phrases, custom commands based on the influencer and their community, a calendar and more.
Finances
With ad campaigns also comes money. To quickly see overdue, pending and paid invoices a user has access to this module. Filtering clients / companies and exporting to pdf and csv helps managing clients and accounting. Users are also able to send a reminder about a missing payment and inform the opposing side via email and SQUAD notification.
Campaigns
Campaigns is the link between external sales managers and users on SQUAD. Sales managers can create ad campaigns, ranging from sponsorships to one time deals. Ad campaigns are versatile and can span across multiple influencers, for example a game release event with the whole team. Users on SQUAD with pending campaign offers get all details and time requirements and are able to accept or decline the offer. Once accepted, the influencer sees all milestones to complete the campaign. This ranges from assets such as overlays, to automated tweets about a product or service.
Work Board
Influencers on Twitch and YouTube often times do not have the time and resources to develop emoticons, overlays and other streaming / video relevant graphics. Influencers can request work to be done by artists on SQUAD and track the progress. Artists can upload their work to SQUAD and get paid through the influencer or their management.
Extensions
Extensions are optional and serve the purpose to interact closer with the community. An extension that is available straight away is Subday, which lets users that log in with Twitch (through an external website) to vote on games that should be played by the influencer / streamer. This is also the use case for the primary color in a users settings. Some extensions are themed based on the color choice of the influencer.
Closing words
This case study is based on a real world project i have been working on at N3RDFUSION. Names and information have been altered based on non-disclosure agreements. For some modules i'm not allowed to showcase them or are experimental and not ready for production and / or showcasing.