Out of Office

Challenge: How might we allow an away message in Cadence?

Background: Many Cadence users were requesting a way to send an automated response when messages came in at inconvenient times (i.e., when they are on vacation or on nights and weekends). They wanted students to be alerted that their text was received and that someone will get back to them at a later time, similar to an email “out of office” message.

Process: I conducted user interviews to understand more of why this function was being requested, and the current workflows of users. The information learned from the interviews was used to begin creating wireframes, while working with product and engineering to understand the technical requirements and restraints around the feature.

The Wireframes

The Result

Out of Office on the Mobile App

We also added the Out of Office functionality to the native Cadence iOS and Android mobile apps. This was a highly requested feature by users.

Outcome: Implementing an Out of Office auto response was a great feature to give existing users, who were very happy to now have this option in Cadence. This helped with retaining existing clients, and was also a major talking point when communicating with prospective clients, helping Mongoose to specifically close 5 new deals with clients who listed this feature as a “must have.”