Botanical Blitz is a growing floral design company that specializes in exterior floral design and maintenance. The Botanical Blitz team was using a large and complicated spreadsheet to predict, maintain, and update their seasonal inventory numbers and keep track of projects for clients. While this spreadsheet served them well for a while, it was becoming difficult to maintain and would not reflect real-time inventory numbers.
The team needed a better solution that reflected these real-time changes and could be used on-the-go as the team visited customers for consultations. Forecasting future inventory numbers was also a must-have for the new program.
Building a seasonal planning web app that supports real-time inventory updates
Using the spreadsheet as a model for building the site, the Emergent Software team designed a cloud-based web app with enhanced inventory forecasting and planning. The app allows users to filter by client name and season to access detailed reports of all the inventory that was ordered and planted for each project. Within each project report, the Botanical Blitz team can add, adjust, or remove inventory, as well as take notes to refer to when planting begins. Each client record or project can be duplicated for the upcoming season, so the team doesn’t have to spend time manually entering in previous inventory amounts or the types of plants ordered.
The Botanical Blitz team also can browse their entire inventory and vendor list when visiting with a client or planning a project. The pricing catalog includes the pricing for wholesale, employee, and client use, along with the product name and size. Team members can easily add in new inventory to the system to keep it accurate.
Supporting on-the-go use of the app for client site visits
The app is accessible anywhere with an internet connection and works well on mobile, which is ideal for when the team visits clients and orders plants to use in their gardens. As a Botanical Blitz team member works with a client on-site planning their landscaping, inventory is easily added, ordered, or removed from the project record. The project total section helps clients to get an idea of how much their project will cost and automatically updates with every addition or subtraction of inventory.
Although the web app has just rolled out for the 2020 season, both teams are already planning future updates for 2021. Streamlining order and inventory management is a top priority, along with increasing overall usability. Additional reporting on forecasting and planting and the ability to assign planters to clients and scheduling is also on the horizon.
Technologies Used
