Hub Helper, small fixes for the reports we read every week

Every week our delivery leads read the same two reports, utilization and project delivery, to get ready for our weekly Client Success Check-in. Both reports had the data. Neither made it easy to see what needed attention.

Hub Helper is a set of quality-of-life fixes on top of those pages. Sortable columns, quick date ranges, filters, a difference column with a color band down each row, and totals folded into the headers.

On the delivery report, a Weekly Review button turns a handful of checked projects into something ready for the check-in, with each project's open tickets listed by name. Notes and tickets can be written right from the review, so the meeting prep and the follow-up happen in the same place.

Small details that matter

• Rounded numbers decide the color. Two people both showing -5% always land in the same band, even if the raw numbers differ slightly.
• Context matters. Internal investment projects used to be marked down for having no client. thoughtbot is the client there, so now they aren't.
• The thresholds are guesses, and I say so. The amber and red lines sit at the top of one file. If they don't match how people actually read the numbers, that's the most useful feedback I can get.

A good constraint

I can't change the app underneath, so every fix has to live in the layer on top. I like that constraint. It forces the question of what really needs to change in the product versus what just needed a better view.

The other lesson kept proving itself. Get the real page before fixing anything. Guessing at markup cost me several rounds every time.