The mobile app shaping organizational habits

BEAT mobile app is a digital tool in the change management framework created by Trainers' House. Organisations ranging from SMEs to global corporations use the app as part of Trainers’ House’s change management programs. 

The purpose of BEAT is to create and root organizational habits and track how behaviour changes. Business goals are split into small, measurable tasks on an individual level for every employee. Want to speed up sales? Define the tasks that need to be repeated by your salespeople every day or every week. Want to build trust in your teams? Define tasks to enable bonding and openness. Business KPIs are always visible, and management can immediately see how changing behaviour links to tangible results.

Our work with BEAT began in 2016 when the app still went by its former name, Pulssi. In 2018, Pulssi took a leap towards international markets and was given a new visual identity and name: BEAT.

In 2019, it was time to take the app into its new generation. Growth of the user base posed new needs for the app’s performance, speed and reliability. Simultaneously, we evaluated the app from the user perspective: How do end-users actually use BEAT? Is there something that they find confusing? What’s most important? We improved the app’s UX/UI, simplified the structure and optimised the visual identity to work better in digital.

The new version of the app is built on a React Native, GraphQL, Java and Postgres stack, with various supporting technologies. We moved back end from Node.js to Java to better serve the purpose and needs of the app. To ensure scalability, BEAT’s architecture is completely built on parallel microservices. The app runs on AWS, and the infrastructure is managed using Terraform and Ansible.

Developing mobile apps with React Native brings numerous benefits in terms of development cycles and usability. Implementing the front end with React Native allowed us to create smoother and more intuitive interactions and transitions. Using React Native, we can develop one app for both iOS and Android platforms, enabling quicker development cycles and lower costs for our client. 

The Home screen is the first thing users see when they open the app. Here users can see their open tasks, summary, and statistics for the week. As a way of giving recognition to individuals and teams, this screen also shows highlights of the previous week: statistics on how the team, company or individual is doing as well as the best performers. 

Notifications can be accessed from all main screens. The user receives notifications about tasks and posts as well as their engagement with other people through comments and likes. The app sends push notifications about unanswered tasks if the user has allowed it in their phone’s settings.

Tasks are the most central feature of BEAT. Creating desired behavior through repeated tasks is the basis for rooting organizational habits in the Trainers’ House change management framework. Seven different task types ranging from yes/no to consolidated questions allow admins to use tasks for a broad array of needs. Tasks can be assigned as daily, weekly or monthly or as one-time tasks. Below their task, users can see in real-time whether and what others have answered. 

The Results page brings together simplified statistics of the whole company’s performance. Users can view their own stats, company-level stats as well as those of other individuals. Results can be filtered by person, role or team. Anyone’s performance is visible to everyone - this is how transparency culture is built.

The Discussion section is the company-wide social media where users discuss, comment and like each other’s answers. The goal of the discussion section is to create a positive environment around answering tasks and to make using the app fun. Anyone can post random, fun things they want to share with others.

On their Profile, users can adjust settings like language, update their login details or set themselves to Vacation mode, in which they won’t have tasks assigned to them.

In addition, the app features an Admin panel where admins manage tasks and users. BEAT has two admin levels that are used by Trainers’ House and their client admins. The Admin panel is mostly used in the desktop version of the app.

Trainers’ House has product ownership and we work closely with our client's product management team in the project. We bring the design and development team and consult with digital strategy. The project team meets every other week to align on goals, actions, and progress. Our maintenance and service desk ensures that the performance of the current version is never compromised while we develop new features.

Working with BEAT mobile app is extremely rewarding as the product keeps cornering new markets and growing its user landscape. If you’re interested in trying out BEAT mobile app in your organization, don’t hesitate to contact Trainers' House.