Overview
The Measures tab in Manage Services in Oracle Primavera Cloud plays a vital role in evaluating the performance of portfolios, strategies, projects, and programs through metric-based tracking. It is a "background job" or "pending task" that runs in OPC while the User does other tasks. Users go to the measures tab in manage services to check the status of the running job and to see if anything went wrong and why. This case study focuses on redesigning the Measures tab for clarity, error management, and actionable feedback..
Please note that due to information concerns and an NDA agreement, the critical details of the project and problem space can’t be disclosed, therefore the emphasis will be placed on the overall process work and deliverables
The Problem
Users struggle to understand why Measure jobs fail or partially complete due to lack of information, unclear UI feedback, and a disjointed user flow for investigating and resolving issues. These limitations result in frustration, delayed reporting, and underutilization of the Measures functionality.
The Design Journey
I researched the user interaction flow by observing multiple job executions (both successful and failed) over time. This included analyzing:
Missing Jobs like Programs and Projects
Logs from daily job runs
Missing Information on errors
User confusion over why portfolios or strategies failed
Redundancies in job status views
Pain points in debugging formula errors
I also gathered insights from common enterprise usability heuristics, such as clarity of system status, error prevention, and user control.
Key Pain Points
Unclear Error Messages
Failed jobs log do not specify why job has failed and where to fix it. There’s no direct link to edit or fix the measure from the error log. User must go back to original job and search for the issue
Disjointed Error Context
Users must jump between multiple tabs and submenus to correlate the error to the job then to the formula source. There is no context as to why a job failed or was skipped.
Poor Visual Hierarchy
Errors are hidden and portfolios and strategies share a space. Projects and Programs are nested inside larger portfolios and strategies. Hard to prioritize when scanning long lists of portfolios or strategies. Job status is not stated inside logs with no context or information.
Overwhelming Data View
Users are shown extensive portfolios and measures without filters or sorting options.There is no “quick action” path for common solutions (e.g., disabling broken measures, editing expressions).
Before & After
Element
Error Message
Navigation
Visual Hierarchy
Control
Before
Generic & cryptic
Deep nested logs
Equal weight to all items
No immediate actions
After (Redesign)
Specific with field names + suggested fix
Side-by-side error preview + edit link
Highlighted errors with colored priority tags
Buttons to retry, disable, or edit broken jobs
After the research I was able to make Design Goals to update the tab to be more intuitive.
Design Goals
Increase catergorization and clarity of jobs
Increase transparency of errors
Centralize debugging within the same screen
Improve hierarchy and filtering for large portfolios
Offer proactive suggestions and shortcuts for resolution
Proposed Solutions
1. Contextual Error Resolution Panel
Embed an expandable panel next to each error that:
Displays the full formula or logic used
Highlights which part of the expression failed
Offers a direct "Edit Measure" button
2. Visual Error Summary Dashboard
Introduce a summary banner at the top showing:
Total measures failed
Most common error type
A “Retry Failed Jobs” button with validation check
3. Filtering & Sorting Enhancements
Add options to:
Filter by Status (Success, Skipped, Failed)
Sort by Portfolio, Strategy, or Error Severity
4. Improved Language & Tooltips
Translate system messages
e.g., instead of “Invalid Expression - Field not found”, say:
“Field ‘Project_itemCode’ does not exist. Check your expression in Measure: RT_WS.”
5. Inline Formula Tester
Allow users to test logic inside the Measures tab before saving, similar to debugging functions in Excel or Power BI.
