NBK Automated Audit

This was a project in which we were brought on as consultants to help improve time of completion of the branding department’s branch audits. We took a mainly paper-based process, and created a digital platform in which all stakeholders can benefit from reduced time to completion and improved usability. The application consists of two main sections. The dashboard where audits are created, distributed, approved and analyzed (through a fully automated, custom analytical dashboard) and an audit section in which staff can partake in creating branch audits via their mobiles or tablets through our platform. Please do note, that all images in this project are not the final designs, these were the proposal mockups. I opted not to do this in protection to privacy of information not to be displayed online. A lot of sensitive data has also been redacted in respect to the client.

The goal was to create a quick and efficient method for staff to complete the audit whilst on the spot on the branch, without having to rely on returning to the office to compile the results.

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This project underwent two phases. The first was that of an android app on custom tablets provided by the bank to its staff members that allowed them to achieve these goals and download all the results when back at the office. This was a quick and easy phase, that was a project to be implemented quickly whilst we worked on phase 2. Phase 2 comprised of a web application that was able to do all of this without the need to go back to the office, but most importantly includes an analytical dashboard that admins and executive management could use to track and analyze the progress of these audits.

The Structure

The web application consisted of 2 main user types (a third was more of a read-only all-access style account, for executive management). The first was that of the admin staff, who managed the dashboard and audits. They are in charge of managing and creating new audits, and managing the user base. The system automatically distributed audit schedules but admins were also able to edit these distributions. The admin also had access to the analytical dashboard for analyzing and gaining insights from past and present branch audits. The staff accounts were the second type of accounts. These allowed staff members to manage their audit schedules distributed by the system, and take the audits on the spot from their phone or tablet whilst at the branch. It also allowed staff to see their history of branch audits and monitor their own progress.

Secure and Private

Due to the sensitivity of the data bring pushed into the system, we did not want anyone to stumble upon this. Even though it did not hold customer financial data or any customer data for that matter, it did have branch branding performance data that we did not want visible to just anyone, let alone the competition. This is why we used a randomized URL, SSL, and without going into detail our own private security protocols on the server. It is also not a system you can sign up for, but are only distributed accounts for which helps control the users included on the system. An added security feature we also added was a time-out feature which does not allow a user to remain idle or logged in for longer than a specified time frame. All data is saved, so even if the user times out in the middle of an audit (for example is discussing an audit item with a branch manager for too long) the staff member can log back in and continue where they left off.

The Key Takeaways:

1. Considerable reduction in time to completion of audits (~75% improvement on time to completion)
2. Improvement of audit accuracy (less manual work, less room for errors)
3. Enhanced ability to create insights out of data and reports filed after audits and ability to cross-reference historic audit data with newer audit data for insight creation (Literally any input or variable in the system is keyable by the analytical system and allows for data filtering and comparison)
4. Improved staff efficiency, as they now have more time to work on other tasks when back to the office
5. Flexibility of data types (web based dashboards, excel sheets, PDF reports etc... can all be generated from the click of one button, in predetermined templates to match the brand of the bank)