Email + Internal Commenting
Extensive research revealed that users relied on various tools like Canopy, Outlook/Gmail, Teams/Slack, Asana/Jetpack Workflow, and even physical sticky notes to collaborate and manage client communication. This scattered approach caused fragmented information and frequent context-switching, hindering efficiency and productivity.
Client:
Canopy Tax
Year:
2020 - 2021
Disciplines:
UX Design, UX Research, Prototyping
The Challenge
We identified two key challenges:
Unifying External Communication: Users needed a way to manage client communications and tasks without leaving the app.
Internal Collaboration: Users required a system to collaborate with their team directly within the app, reducing the need to juggle multiple platforms.
Goals & Objectives
Streamline communication between practitioners and clients.
Foster team collaboration directly within Canopy to reduce reliance on external tools.
Enhance Canopy’s position as a system of record, keeping all data and communications in one place.
The Solution
We enhanced Canopy’s communications platform to address both needs:
Email Inbox for External Communication
A dedicated Email Inbox was created to help users triage client communications within Canopy. Key features included:
Task creation from emails for streamlined workflows.
Email tagging for improved organization.
File attachments from the client’s account within Canopy.
Multi-account syncing for seamless inbox management.
Impact (Email Sent Growth):
April 2021: 22,171 events
April 2022: 37,992 events (+71.36% YoY growth)
April 2023: 41,400 events (+8.97% YoY growth)
Adoption shows consistent growth, proving the inbox feature’s value to users.
Internal Team Commenting
Built-in commenting tools allowed teams to collaborate directly within the app:
Individual comment threads tied to specific emails, tasks, or files.
Attachments of images and files from Canopy.
Quick actions on comments, such as liking, marking as urgent, setting reminders, or completing them.
@Mentions to tag teams or individual members.
A centralized Comment Dashboard enabled users to:
Triage mentions and comments.
Quickly navigate to tagged areas or resolve actions.
Filter through comment threads to locate specific conversations.
Impact (New Comments Sent & Created):
Both comments.new-comment-sent and comments.new-feed-created steadily grew throughout 2023, with a noticeable spike in activity after June 2023.
Users adopted the feature quickly, leading to consistent engagement by year-end.
The Results
Email Inbox:
Delivered a robust, feature-rich inbox on time.
Enhanced user workflows, with adoption steadily growing.
Customer Feedback:
“It keeps me from needing to go to my native email inbox; I can stay active and efficient doing the work in Canopy.”
“I like being able to jump right to the communications section in a client’s file when I’m working on their taxes or another project for them. It’s easier than searching my Outlook inbox.”
Internal Team Commenting:
Successfully rolled out as a phased feature:
Launched in the email inbox, then expanded to a centralized dashboard, with ongoing implementation in tasks and files.
Positive user adoption and excitement, with users requesting broader integration across the app.
Customer Feedback:
“This has been a game-changer for our team’s workflow. We love being able to keep everything in one place!”
This project was a team-wide effort involving UX, product management, and development. By collaborating from the start, we:
Addressed technical limitations early.
Ensured alignment on user needs and overall experience goals.
Broke the project into multiple phases for iterative releases, continually improving the platform based on user feedback.
These enhancements transformed Canopy into a powerful collaboration hub, reducing user frustration, eliminating context switching, and solidifying its position as a trusted system of record.