Big Picture Hub

Objective

To consolidate multiple fragmented applications into a single, unified portal serving a globally distributed contractor base — establishing consistent design standards, region-specific data controls, and a shared database architecture to remove operational bottlenecks and licensing constraints.

Audience

The Big Picture head-office team and global contractors hired to manage the Dell portfolio, distributed across multiple macro-regions with different operational requirements, data visibility rules, and form structures.

Design & Development Process

The project began as a response to a structural problem that had compounded over time. The agency's tools had grown organically inside the Microsoft ecosystem — a collection of PowerApps and SharePoint applications with no shared database, inconsistent design standards, and per-seat licensing that made scaling for a global contractor base financially unviable.

The first architectural decision was to move away from Microsoft entirely and build around a shared SQL database as the central data layer. This gave us the control we needed to enforce strict regional data segregation — ensuring contractors in each macro-region could only access their own data — while keeping everything connected at the infrastructure level.

The portal interface was built directly in JetAdmin's no-code environment, which meant solving for complexity without the flexibility of custom code. The forms were particularly challenging: contractors across different regions had different requirements, with varying field names, structures, and validation rules depending on their location. I designed a system of hierarchical and grouped form layouts with region-dependent fields that adapted to the user's context without requiring separate builds per region.

Beyond the forms, I used JetAdmin's internal automation tools to build notification workflows that kept the head-office team and contractors in sync throughout submission and review cycles.

What started as a reporting tool evolved considerably over its lifetime. As trust in the platform grew, it absorbed the agency's invoicing workflow, contractor evaluations, and eventually became the home for a centralised support ticket system for the head-office team. The Finance Automation Portal — originally a standalone Power Apps build — was migrated into the Hub, and the Events Calendar App, still running on Power Apps within the Dell environment, was embedded directly into it. The Hub became the single place where contractors and the head-office team went for everything.

Outcomes & Achievements

• Eliminated per-seat licensing costs, giving the agency the flexibility to onboard contractors globally without financial constraints tied to software seats.
• Enforced regional data segregation across a globally distributed contractor base, ensuring compliance with data visibility requirements without separate builds per region.
• Unified the contractor experience across reporting, invoicing, evaluations, and support — reducing time spent navigating disparate systems and improving submission accuracy.
• Improved data analysis capabilities for the head-office team through a standardised data structure and centralised reporting layer.
• Simplified long-term maintenance by moving to a single technology stack and a shared architectural standard across all tools.
• Evolved into a product platform, absorbing previously standalone tools and becoming the operational hub for the agency's global contractor network.