Savills Valuation Workflow System

1. Research

To truly understand the problem we were addressing, it was vital to start with user interviews to learn how valuers across the company worked.

With a company the size of Savills, there were inevitably loosely defined processes, but each valuer worked in their own way to some degree. As the system’s main goals were to improve efficiency and increase the throughput of valuation reports, it was crucial that the system was intuitive and reflected current ways of working, but in an improved way.

After conducting interviews and synthesising the findings, I mapped the current journey to identify where the existing experience was failing. It became clear that there was a strong need to reimagine how valuation reports were produced. This insight enabled us to design features that addressed the challenges users were facing.

2. User flows & Sitemap

After conducting user interviews, we had a clear understanding of how valuers worked and the similarities across departments.

There was a core workflow that underpinned their process, from creating a new job through to delivering the final report. This allowed us to scope the first set of user flows for the four stages prior to any work being done on the report itself.

The way Savills worked internally was inherently complex due to the auditing processes the company was regularly subjected to.

However, alongside these stringent legal considerations, each feature needed to be flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of users from different departments. Each department had slightly differing needs and requirements, so UX was at the forefront to ensure the development team did not have to build the same feature multiple times in the future.

3. Design time

MVP features were then prioritised, guided by the overall workflow. For example, valuers needed to log a new opportunity, validate addresses, perform conflict checks to ensure they could act on behalf of their client, and send fee quotes before beginning any work on the report itself.

Being a business system, the UI was not highly creative, but error and state management, validation, and clear interfaces were pivotal to the success of the platform.

We created a design system up front with components identified through research, such as forms, tabs, cards, headers, and footers. This allowed us to rapidly create interfaces ready for testing.

This client in particular did not respond well to traditional wireframes, so by establishing efficient working practices early on, we were able to rapidly test branded “wires”.

Feature One: Create Opportunity

The Create Opportunity feature was the first we designed, as it was critical to capture potential jobs in the system for progression. Valuers entered key details through a structured form, with data automatically logged in both Dynamics 365 and VWS. Because the form was long and expected to grow with additional fields and save progress functionality, we introduced anchors and dynamic validation to guide users smoothly through sections and catch errors in real time.

• User fills out form detail
• Imports addresses (sometimes 000s)
• Address verification and sanitisation
• User creates opportunity
• Opportunity created in Dynamics 365 + VWS

Feature Two: Conflict Check

The Conflict Check feature was step two in the Create Opportunity flow. Valuers needed to confirm there were no known conflicts before progressing. Information from the Create Opportunity form fed directly into this step and was integrated with the internal Conflict Check System (CCS). If conflicts were identified, valuers could categorise them as no conflict, manageable, or unmanageable. Unmanageable conflicts prevented the work from progressing, but the information was still stored for future reference.

• Send addresses to external CoI System
• Retrieve information on addresses
• Send to VWS
• Mark as Conflict, No Conflict, Manageable Conflict
• Proceed to Fee Quote

Feature Three: Fee Quote

If valuers could proceed, the next step was to issue a fee quote. They first added the key details of the quote: whether it was a desktop valuation, the base fees, liability caps, and the bases for valuation. The system then generated a quote automatically from this information.

Valuers were required to obtain sign off from Group Legal before sending the quote. If amendments were needed, the quote was versioned, duplicated, and the valuer could make edits and resend. Once approved, the quote could be sent directly to the client from VWS. An email was generated automatically using the information already entered in the system and was issued for signature via DocuSign. Once signed, the system officially created a “job,” enabling the valuer to begin their report.

• Configure and send a fee quote
• Acquire sign-off from Legal
• Obtain signature from the client via DocuSign
• Audit trail updated

Phase Two: Turning Insight Into Design

The core workflow, setup, and logging of each job constituted phase one. Phase two of the project focused on how valuers would create valuation reports with ease.

Two key insights from user interviews needed to be addressed during phase two:

• Formatting reports to ensure they looked neat was extremely difficult and time consuming in Word, causing delays and frustration across the company.
• Valuation reports were inherently repetitive. Historically, valuers spent a significant amount of time rekeying the same information into various parts of the report, which greatly increased the risk of human error.

Keeping in mind the balance between control and flexibility, the Report Builder feature was designed to support numerous third-party integrations to obtain accurate property information, minimise rekeying, and allow auto-formatting of reports so valuers did not waste time on presentation.

We assessed hundreds of reports from various departments, identifying similarities and differences to ensure the components were flexible enough to accommodate a valuer’s personal style and departmental requirements. This was particularly challenging because the front end needed to render reports in HTML ready for PDF download, and the client was highly detail focused with very specific requests regarding how information should be displayed.

Iterative design and agile mindset

The Report Builder was a major feature that evolved significantly over approximately 60 sprints and continues to evolve today. For the MVP, valuers created reports using simple rich text editors with the ability to format text, insert images, and use tables. While this was not a long-term solution, it served its purpose while we developed the full Report Builder.

We created a component-based system which offered several advantages:

• No hassle of formatting content, similar to a typical CMS, with previews rendered in the browser via HTML.
• Components and their respective fields could be connected to a feature called the Dynamic Glossary, which automatically populated the correct information into the correct fields.
• Valuers could personalise reports using a range of designed components without worrying about the final report being off brand.

This was by far the most challenging part of the system to design due to several factors.

Each of the eight departments created reports slightly differently based on their respective industries. This required each component to be flexible enough to accommodate these nuances while still adhering to best practice, legal requirements, and brand guidelines.

Additionally, other large features such as Statutory Enquiries, Dynamic Glossary, and Income Analytics, which retrieved data from external sources, had to integrate with the Report Builder to avoid copy-pasting information.