CASE STUDY · LEGACY ENTERPRISE

ReportCaster — Redefining UX in a 40-year-old scheduler

I took on ReportCaster two weeks into my role — a hidden, 40+ year-old scheduling engine powering millions of automated reports. My job was to modernize it, pull it into the WebFOCUS hub, and simplify the mental model without breaking what enterprise customers relied on every day.

Impact at a Glance

What changed once the new scheduler shipped.

60% fewer clicks
From 10–15 clicks in a separate legacy tool to a clear, 5-step, in-hub scheduling flow.
50% fewer entry clicks
ReportCaster Explorer is now one click away from the hub home—no more deep-menu hunting.
50% faster task completion
Consolidated workflows reduce context switching, repeated configuration, and navigation overhead.
3 tools → 1 integrated experience
Unified admin, explorer, and scheduler into one coherent, modernized UI.
ReportCaster before and after redesign
Before & after view of the ReportCaster scheduler redesign showing the transformation from scattered legacy dialogs to a unified, in-hub experience.
View full ReportCaster story (PDF)

Stakes

Why this wasn’t “just a UI refresh” — and what was on the line for real customers.

WHAT PROBLEM EXISTED

  • Scheduling lived outside the WebFOCUS hub in an outdated, separate tool.
  • Users needed 10–15 clicks and multiple browser tabs to create or edit a schedule.
  • "Basic" vs. "Advanced" schedules duplicated effort and caused confusion.
  • Entry points were hidden behind right-click menus.
  • Power users memorized workarounds; new users were completely lost.

WHY IT MATTERED

  • ReportCaster is the silent backbone of WebFOCUS.
  • If scheduling breaks, enterprise reporting breaks.
  • Many organizations run millions of automated jobs through it annually — it is fundamental to their operations.

WHO IT AFFECTED

  • BI developers creating hundreds of recurring jobs
  • Admins responsible for uptime, job health, crash recovery
  • Analysts who needed quick changes without opening 10+ dialogs
  • Enterprise customers whose operations rely on precise report delivery
  • Customer support, overloaded with navigation/confusion tickets

BUSINESS & USER IMPACT

  • Competitive pressure from Power BI, Tableau, Qlik made RC look ancient.
  • Customers repeatedly requested "modern UX" in VUGs.
  • Support reported excessive tickets tied to:
    • Tab sprawl
    • Basic/Advanced confusion
    • Users losing track mid-workflow

The stakes were clear: Modernize without breaking the workflows customers rely on.

Constraints

The reality I had to design within: legacy code, conservative engineering, and almost no documentation.

LEGACY & CONTEXT

Legacy Systems

  • 40-year-old Focus codebase
  • IBI design system with limited patterns & legacy components
  • No modern JS framework allowed
  • Strict backward-compatibility requirements

Missing Documentation

  • Almost no usable documentation existed
  • SME knowledge scattered across:
    • Support
    • QA
    • Senior engineers
    • Long email threads

No PM Initially

  • Zero product requirements
  • No clear owner
  • No roadmap — I built the foundational structure myself

TECHNICAL & ORGANIZATIONAL

Conservative Engineering

  • Extreme sensitivity to regression risk
  • Long-lived logic (bursting, blackout rules, retention, priorities) couldn't be refactored
  • "If we break this, enterprise jobs stop" energy everywhere

SME Complexity

  • Bursting logic
  • Heartbeats
  • Retention policies
  • Crash recovery
  • Job health monitoring
  • Advanced distribution rules

Each required deep understanding to avoid UX oversights.

Technical Limitations

  • Multiple tools not designed to ever be unified
  • Deep logic embedded across different modules
  • Multi-tab behavior baked into the old design

These constraints shaped every decision and made the redesign uniquely hard.

Strategy

I framed the work as a structural redesign, not just a visual facelift: integrate, unify, and guide.

FRAMING THE PROBLEM

How I framed the problem

I framed this not as a UI refresh, but a structural redesign:

"Unify the mental model. Simplify configuration. Bring scheduling into the hub. Build a guided flow, not a maze."

To get there:

  • Mapped hundreds of legacy screens
  • Documented 5 fragmented workflows
  • Collected tribal knowledge across engineering, SMEs, support, QA
  • Compared competitive scheduling flows (Power BI, Tableau, Qlik NPrinting)

ALIGNMENT & UNBLOCKING

How I aligned stakeholders

  • Built workflow diagrams that everyone — engineers, PMs, SMEs — aligned around
  • Created a phased modernization strategy to reduce engineering risk
  • Walked teams through narrative walkthroughs instead of raw mockups
  • Presented early IA to design leadership to secure long-term support

How I clarified workflows

  • Collapsed Basic + Advanced into one unified flow
  • Reduced branching paths into a single, predictable guided path
  • Anchored scheduling in a 5-step model that works for both beginners and power users
  • Simplified distribution and bursting without removing power
  • Rebuilt job visibility and monitoring patterns

How I unblocked teams

  • Translated undocumented behaviors into UX decisions
  • Managed trade-offs when legacy technical limits prevented ideal states
  • Settled feasibility disagreements between architect, engineers, and PM
  • Created low-fi prototypes that engineering used to validate behavior

How I shaped the solution

  • Designed the first-ever integrated, in-hub schedule builder
  • Developed a scalable IA that works embedded OR standalone
  • Designed Explorer and Admin updates to match the unified model
  • Ensured the UI taught itself with just-in-time micro-guidance
Industry comparison with ReportCaster and other scheduler tools
Industry comparison with ReportCaster and other tools who have schedulers — ReportCaster scheduler comparison.

The Work

Four concrete steps: from mapping a messy, external scheduler to designing a guided, in-hub experience that admins and analysts can actually teach.

Step 1 — Discover & map the real workflows

I started by treating ReportCaster like an unknown system, not a UI. I needed to understand how jobs really lived, failed, and recovered before I moved a single pixel.

  • Mapped 5+ core scheduling flows end-to-end across Explorer, Scheduler, and Admin.
  • Documented hundreds of legacy screens and how they chained together in real use.
  • Sat with support and QA to trace "broken" workflows back to UX decisions.
  • Partnered with SMEs and senior engineers to unpack bursting, blackout rules, retention, crash recovery, and job health patterns.
  • Turned all of this into a single, navigable system map that became the source of truth for design, PM, and engineering.

Step 2 — Reshape the structure and mental model

Once the real flows were visible, the next step was to reshape the mental model so scheduling felt like one system instead of three tools glued together.

  • Collapsed Basic and Advanced schedules into a single, guided scheduling model.
  • Proposed bringing ReportCaster directly into the WebFOCUS hub, instead of treating it as an external tool.
  • Redesigned the IA to unify Explorer, Scheduler, and Admin into one coherent hierarchy.
  • Defined entry points from assets, folders, and hub-level controls so users could start a schedule from where they already were.
  • Made key IA decisions collaboratively with the architect and PM, balancing ideal UX with legacy constraints and backward compatibility.

Step 3 — Design the guided experience

With the structure in place, I focused on making scheduling feel calm, predictable, and explainable — even with complex rules underneath.

  • Sketched multiple wireframe variations for the main scheduler, exploring different ways to chunk time, distribution, and bursting.
  • Iterated through several flows for the new 5-step scheduler, testing how much configuration to show in each step.
  • Built clickable prototypes that simulated job creation, editing, recovery, and monitoring — used for reviews with PM, engineering, support, and design leadership.
  • Standardized dialog patterns, field groupings, and interaction states so RC felt like part of a modern WebFOCUS experience, not a bolt-on.
  • Used each iteration to simplify copy, reduce branching, and minimize "where am I now?" moments in the flow.

Step 4 — Deliver, de-risk, and keep everyone aligned

The last phase was about making sure the design survived real-world constraints — and actually shipped the way it was intended.

  • Worked closely with engineering during dry runs to translate legacy behaviors into concrete UI states and edge cases.
  • Paired with QA to define test scenarios for bursting, crash recovery, failures, and status visibility in the new UI.
  • Made deliberate trade-offs when ideal designs conflicted with deeply embedded logic — keeping the UX coherent while respecting risk boundaries.
  • Mentored a new designer on the project, handing off clear documentation, flows, and rationale so work could continue smoothly.
  • Stayed involved beyond "handoff" to review builds, adjust details, and ensure the final product matched the intended clarity and structure.

Screens & Flows

A closer look at the core ReportCaster screens and flows — from legacy entry points to the new in-hub experience.

Legacy ReportCaster UI separate tool with multiple views and tabs

Legacy ReportCaster UI — separate tool with multiple views and tabs.

ReportCaster persona illustration

ReportCaster personas and user context.

Five-step scheduler flow diagram

Five-step scheduler flow: one clear path instead of multiple fragmented branches.

First iteration of the scheduler of the entire ReportCaster tool

First iteration of the scheduler of the entire ReportCaster tool.

Second iteration of the ReportCaster tool

Second iteration of the ReportCaster tool.

Third iteration of the final UI, almost the final one

Third iteration of the final UI, almost the final one.

ReportCaster initiating menu with all options

The initiating ReportCaster menu — the first step where you have all the ReportCaster options: create schedule, create distribution list, create access list.

Task dialogue in the scheduler

The task dialogue in the scheduler.

Distribution dialog in the scheduler

The distribution dialog in the scheduler.

Properties and recurrences in the scheduler

Properties and recurrences in the scheduler.

Job logs for all schedules with filtering and export options

Job logs for all schedules — a way to easily view all job logs with options for copying, downloading, export, and filtering by dates.

Distribution list and access list creation UI

The UI for distribution list and access list creation.

ReportCaster Explorer redesign

ReportCaster Explorer redesign.

ReportCaster status admin area redesign

ReportCaster status — the admin area redesign.

Demo — See the New Scheduler in Action

This is the official WebFOCUS ReportCaster launch demo that walks through the new in-hub scheduler experience we shipped.

  • Start from a report in the WebFOCUS hub and launch scheduling without leaving context.
  • Walk through the guided five-step dialog that replaces the old 10–15-click legacy flow.
  • See how Explorer and Admin views make it easier to inspect jobs, troubleshoot failures, and keep schedules healthy.

Impact

Metrics, adoption, time saved, and system unification — what changed once the new experience went live.

METRICS

  • 60% fewer clicks
  • 50% faster schedule creation
  • 3 tools → 1 unified experience
  • Fewer support tickets tied to navigation & lost workflows

REDUCED ERRORS

  • Clearer path reduced misconfigured schedules
  • Fewer accidental overwrites
  • Less confusion between Basic vs. Advanced

ADOPTION

  • SMEs immediately validated the new model
  • Engineers accepted unified flows as "cleanest version ever shipped"
  • Leadership greenlit future enhancements based on this foundation

TIME SAVED

  • Less context switching
  • No more tab sprawl
  • Easier to teach new analysts
  • Admins could finally understand job health at a glance

SYSTEM UNIFICATION

  • Explorer, Admin, and Scheduler brought into one consistent UX
  • Scheduling became a first-class citizen inside the WebFOCUS hub

This redesign fundamentally reshaped how scheduling works across the product.

"She impressed everyone with how quickly she grasped all aspects of a highly intricate system and translated that understanding into a clear, modern, and user-centered design."

— Yingchun Chen, Principal System Software Engineer

What I'd Do Next

If I were to continue evolving ReportCaster:

I would build job health analytics directly into Explorer, add schedule templates for fast creation of common workflows, and introduce bulk editing for enterprise admins managing large fleets. I'd improve explained configuration, especially around bursting & distribution, and add predictive insights to detect failing or inefficient schedules. I would also expand the standalone scheduler version customers requested and introduce guided onboarding for new analysts.

The shipped redesign lays the groundwork for all of these enhancements — structurally, the system is finally ready for long-term, scalable UX investment.

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