SharePoint · Gems and jewellery

Product development portal that takes jewellery designs from brief to approved sketch

A SharePoint portal that connects merchandisers, designers and project owners. A design brief becomes uploaded sketches, approvals, modifications and prices in one place.

Client: A jewellery company with design and merchandising teams working in different regions
Industry: Gems and jewellery
Platform: SharePoint

01The challenge

Product development ran on spreadsheets and email threads. Merchandisers could not see which designs were with the designer, which were waiting for approval and which were late. Sketches, remarks and prices were scattered across inboxes.

02The solution

We built a multi stage SharePoint portal. A merchandiser raises a design request and assigns a designer. The designer commits to a date, uploads sketches with their diamond and gold weights and submits them. The owner classifies, approves, rejects, modifies or asks for a price on each sketch, and the project ends with a design approved status that releases the sample.

How a design moves through the portal

Raise the design requestThe merchandiser records the customer, project type, process, number of sketches, due date and priority, attaches the brief and assigns the designer. The designer is emailed.
Start design and commitThe designer sets the status to Designing started and commits to a date. Moving the date needs a root cause and every revision is logged.
Upload sketchesEach sketch is added with its image, center and total diamond weight, gold weight, shape and priority. The set is submitted for approval, with a reason if it is late.
Classify and reviewThe project owner classifies the design by category, class, business, collection and halo, then reviews each sketch.
Approve, reject, modify or priceApprove and reject lock the sketch. Modify sends it back with a remark. Get price asks the designer for a price on that sketch.
Revise and resubmitThe designer uploads a modified design or the price file. The sketch returns to the owner and can go round until it is decided.
Design approvedThe owner approves the design, with any open sketches rejected after a confirmation. The sample go ahead date is set and the project is marked complete.
Close, chat and reportThe owner can close a project with a reason at any time. Project chat and reports with Excel export cover the rest.

Screens from the system

Sample data only. These screens show the layout and flow, not real records.

Screen 1 of 11Built for this client

Dashboard with pending work

My requests, Pending requests and Completed requests. Each person sees the projects waiting for them: a design to upload, a sketch to approve or a price to give.

What we built

Multi stage design workflowRequest, design start, sketch upload, review and approval as clear stages with a status after each.
Sketch line itemsEvery sketch has its own image, weights, status, remarks and price, so decisions are made one design at a time.
Approve, reject, modify and price actionsApprove and reject lock a sketch. Modify and Get price keep it open until it is settled.
Committed date trackingRoot causes for date changes, a log of revisions and a mandatory reason for late submissions.
Thirteen master listsCustomer, project, category, class, collection and halo lists managed by admins.
Project chatA plain text conversation on every project instead of email threads.
Email notificationsThe designer, owner and merchandiser are emailed at each key step, with no manual follow up.
Reports and permissionsFiltered reports with Excel export, and SharePoint groups that decide who creates, designs, approves and administers.