Unveiling The NHS Pay Journey Tool
The background
Working on behalf of NHS Employers, Cite have developed a responsive web application to support the Agenda for Change pay reform initiative. The new Agenda For Change Pay Journey Tool enables NHS employees to track pay increases over a transitional 3 year period.
Employees and candidates are able to determine their basic pay structure, demonstrating the annual cost of living increase and their individual progression through the pay system. Beyond the 3 year transition, the tool uses a pre-set list of values to forecast a users possible pay journey for the subsequent years.
Rapid prototyping and turnaround
This project demanded a fast turnaround and was planned, designed, built and tested in only 4 weeks. Standard timings were reduced, which demanded flexible project management, open communication channels and quick decision making. Rapid prototyping was employed to facilitate a fast feedback loop and test the viability of ideas.
The tool met objectives with an easy to use, lightweight interface and a clean design. The user experience demanded a seamless journey, where users could quickly move from one step to another, entering details with minimal effort.
Technology and development
The Agenda for Change tool was built using Vue.js, a JavaScript framework. Although appearing to be one of our simpler projects at first glance, it was not without challenges. A lot of work was done to reverse complicated conditional calculations out an Excel file provided by the client. With NHS staff relying on this tool to provide a detailed insight in to future pay, the results presented needed to be extremely accurate and well tested.
Being built in Vue.js, the application has no reliance upon PHP or MySQL, making it extremely portable and easy to deploy. The application is shown on the NHS Employers website via a responsive iFrame. The Google Charts API was used to display the results on desktop devices, and leveraging it saved significant development time. As per typical NHS requirements, the app was built to work as far back as Internet Explorer 11.
The Results
- 251,995 uses since launch (02/07/18 – 07/08/18)
- Reaching over 2,000 uses in one hour at its peak
Feedback
‘We have a product that is even better than we envisaged. The Cite team has been responsive and kept us up-to-date with progress in a timely manner.’
Marita Bardino
Communications Manager
NHS Employers
This is the latest in a long line of successful web applications we have developed for this client. View our NHS digital projects portfolio.
