Integrating ForceManager with Microsoft Teams

An integration that lets you handle video calls like in-person meetings, with events, goals, activities, and tasks all connected in real time.

MY ROLE
User experience
Design thinking
UI Design
TEAM
Microsoft team
Product managers
Software engineers
CEO
TIMELINE
Nov 2020 - Feb 2021 Released
CONTEXT
ForceManager is a CRM platform designed to streamline sales processes. The ForceManager integration with Microsoft Teams allows users to easily view and access ForceManager CRM data directly within the Microsoft Teams platform, enhancing collaboration and improving accessibility across devices.
Overview
ForceManager is a mobile and web-based sales management software that helps track, analyze, and improve your sales team’s performance. It automatically handles reporting and simplifies information management, allowing you to focus on what matters most—selling.
Problem
What is the problem?Sales teams today face challenges in managing customer interactions effectively, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed many meetings online. Many salespeople now work remotely and rely on virtual tools to stay connected with clients. However, these tools are often disconnected from their CRM systems, making it difficult for them to access key customer information quickly and efficiently during virtual meetings.
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Why is it a problem?The separation between sales tools (like CRMs) and communication platforms (like video conferencing tools) creates inefficiencies. Salespeople need to toggle between multiple applications, wasting time and increasing the likelihood of missing important details during customer interactions. With an increasing number of B2B interactions happening digitally, this lack of integration slows down communication, reduces productivity, and affects the overall customer experience.
Solution
We aim to solve this problem by integrating ForceManager’s CRM with Microsoft Teams, enabling salespeople to access their agenda, sales activity, and customer meetings, automatically log customer interactions during video calls, and share relevant data—all within Teams, streamlining workflows and boosting efficiency.
Research
After conducting several interviews, I identified key pain points and challenges faced by users using ForceManager and Microsoft Teams simultaneously, highlighting the following key user stories:
Dulce
Sales Executive Manager

"The process between ForceManager and Teams is slow, requiring users to switch back and forth between systems to access content."

Julien
Field Sales Executive

"Creating an event, task, or any entity during a meeting becomes complicated if I have to exit Teams to create it in ForceManager, as it causes me to lose focus on the conversation."

Sergio Miguel
Solutions Architect & Pre-Sales Manager

"I currently do not have a global view of the entities or what happens within ForceManager in Microsoft Teams."

User flow
In collaboration with the Microsoft design team and product managers, I focused on aligning team guidelines and user behavior to create a cohesive style guide. To guide our discussions, I developed and iterated on a user flow, which served as the foundation for refining our approach. The flow included the following steps:
Features
During the interface design phase, I researched Microsoft’s design system guidelines to build components that align with their standards. I also studied platform user behavior to ensure a consistent user experience across the platform. The following pages showcase the results.
The Dashboard provides a comprehensive view of your business agenda, allowing you to track recent activities, goals, upcoming tasks, and events in real-time. You can also join video calls with a single click.
The Events widget displays meeting details with accounts, so you can easily access and join your video calls without leaving Microsoft Teams.
Users can view sales targets for their team and individually with the Goals widget. Track visit goals for sales reps, product line targets, and monitor progress on acquiring new first-time customers each month.
The detail panel gives you quick access to actions like sharing, editing, calling, and messaging.
The top tabs provide quick access to lists of entities, allowing you to create new events, tasks, and more.
Results
Sales teams can now schedule and report all video calls directly within ForceManager through Microsoft Teams. They can create events, specify that they’ll take place on Teams, and automatically send invitations to clients.

After the video call, the interaction is automatically logged in the activity timeline and customer profile, ensuring a complete record of customer interactions for more efficient follow-up and improved sales insights.
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Get in touch!
leonkibuka@gmail.com
Designed by León Kibuka