IBM Partner Plus Relationship Revalidation

Email screenshot requiring IBM Partner Plus relationship revalidation, mentioning compliance and integrity training, with a "Start your relationship revalidation" button.

About

Every two years, IBM requires its partners to revalidate important company information in IBM Partner Portal and, in some cases, undergo integrity training to maintain a valid contract with the company. This process ensures that all partners remain compliant with the standards and practices that IBM upholds in its operations and business relationships.

Team

1 Lead Designer (myself)
1 Junior Designer
2 Product Owners
3 Architects
3 Squads

Starting point

Partners are notified by email of their requirement to revalidate their partner relationship. All instructions and status updates are communicated through email to at least one partner administrator. Admins are directed to a simple dashboard to monitor the progress of their updated compliance information submissions along with a status table of their employees required to complete integrity training.

Screenshot of the IBM Partner Portal page showing "Relationship Revalidation" information, including reseller status, employee list, and training completion details. Features filters for reseller and status, with columns displaying enterprise ID, overall status, termination date, training status, individuals registered, completion rate, and compliance questionnaire status.

Issues

Communication limited to emails

Partner admins are notified by email regarding relationship revalidation, making emails the only source of truth for requirements, instructions, and relevant links. This becomes a hassle especially for admins who are responsible for revalidating multiple partner relationships.

Stale contact lists

Unverified contact lists may send notifications to former admins, causing important communications to go unread. As a result, some partners were unaware of their requirement to revalidate their relationship, risking contract termination.

Verbose and lengthy emails

Initial emails, along with reminder emails, contain lengthy descriptions and instructions for how to revalidate. There is also no clear call to action.

Underutilized dashboard

A simple dashboard exists to track revalidation progress. However, there is no way for the user to take action towards revalidation without referring back to instructions found within email notifications.

Goals

The redesign aimed to enhance communication with partners about their revalidation requirements and to provide clear, straightforward instructions for completing the process.

User journey flow

I created this flow diagram not only to track a user's journey but also to visualize how all squad responsibilities fit together within the broader context of the project. Mapping this flow showed us how often we would need to send notifications to partners and potential entry points where we could direct admins to the portal to finish their tasks.

Flowchart showing various linked stages and decision points, with text boxes and icons representing different options or steps in a process. Lines connect the elements, forming a complex diagram on a white background.

Final design

Shorter email notifications

The redesign aims to shorten the content within notifications and to direct admins to the dashboard where they can begin their relationship revalidation by following clear instructions and calls to action.

Two layouts of an IBM Partner Plus email titled "Relationship Revalidation Required," with sections on compliance, integrity training, and contact information.
IBM Partner Portal notification screen on a monitor displaying updates and actions.

From emails to in-app notifications

Wherever possible, notifications that are not legally required to be sent by email are sent in-app within IBM Partner Portal.

Updates to dashboard

The dashboard is expanded to serve as a home base for relationship revalidation with the addition of task tiles containing requirements for revalidation along with detailed status indicators and calls to action.

Screenshot of IBM Partner Portal interface showing 'Relationship revalidation' page with sections for 'Your tasks' and 'Revalidation progress.' Includes tasks like Global Compliance Questionnaire and Integrity Training with status indicators and calls to action. Annotations highlight new sections and task details.

Reflection

Through a combination of research, iterative design, and close collaboration with stakeholders and multiple engineering squads, we successfully delivered an experience that minimized unnecessary and redundant notifications while offering clear guidance for partners to submit their revalidation requirements.

This project required me analyze a fragmented experience consisting of numerous notifications, multiple forms, and a seemingly disconnected dashboard. I designed a streamlined solution that brought these elements together into a seamless and cohesive experience.

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