Drop-In Reporting | Naomi's Portfolio.

Streamlining Attendance & Billing for Childcare Directors

For this project, I designed a new feature that introduced an “Unscheduled” status and later evolved into the Drop-In Availability Report. The goal was to help directors and administrators accurately bill for unscheduled attendance and quickly assess classroom capacity for drop-in care. I worked as the lead UX designer in a cross-functional team over several months, delivering a Level 4 feature release that differentiated us from competitors and laid the foundation for future reporting tools.

Designing tools to track unscheduled attendance and forecast classroom capacity, enabling faster billing and smarter scheduling decisions.

Summary

Designed For:

Procare Clients- Enterprise and GA

Make of the Team

1 UX designer, Product Manager and Dev Lead

My Role

UX designer, UI designer, User Interviewer.

Collaborated with UX Researcher and UX Writer

High level Timeline

May 2025 to July 2025

Methods Used

Design Thinking model. User interviews, alignment diagrams, personas, scenarios, user flows, IA, sketches, wireframes, clickable mockups, prototyping, conceptual walkthroughs, usability tests, internal design reviews.

Prototyping and Research Tools

Figma, Microsoft Excel, Figjam, Great Question

TL;DR

The Challenge
Childcare directors had no easy way to identify unscheduled attendance. This caused billing delays and made it hard to decide if drop-in requests could be accommodated.

The Solution
I introduced an “Unscheduled” status in live room views and reports, and later designed the Drop-In Availability Report — a scannable tool that showed directors classroom capacity at a glance.

Impact at a Glance

Accurate, on-time billing
Faster drop-in decisions for families
Competitive differentiation (Level 4 feature release)

What I Learned
Even functional tools like spreadsheets require UX care. By advocating for hierarchy, readability, and iteration, I helped transform what some saw as “just a report” into a feature that drove revenue and set us apart from competitors.

BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS

Introduction

Childcare directors had no easy way to track when children attended on unscheduled days. This created billing delays, as staff had to manually comb through attendance records and compare them to schedules.

Problem Statement

Directors and administrators struggled to:

Identify children attending outside their scheduled days.
Bill families accurately and on time.
Quickly determine classroom availability for drop-in care.

Without an efficient system, centers lost revenue and staff wasted hours reconciling records.

Goals

Reduce manual effort for directors when tracking unscheduled attendance.
Ensure timely, accurate billing for families.
Provide directors with clear classroom availability to respond quickly to drop-in requests.
Lay groundwork for future features (e.g., absences, mobile integration).

RESEARCH & DISCOVERY

User Research

Conducted user interviews with 5 directors (8 scheduled, 5 participated).
Learned directors typically plan one week ahead but face the most pressure during holidays and summer programs.
Identified the critical need for reports that could be scanned instantly while directors were on the phone with parents.

Key Insights

Reports must require no “mental math.”
Unscheduled attendance was a blind spot in existing tools.
Competitors offered no equivalent to drop-in availability reporting — giving us a competitive advantage.

User Quote

“Usually I have an attendance listed printed out at the front desk and we pencil in absences, if a parent calls asking for care I have to do math to figure out if we can accept the child or not ” - Daycare Director

[Placeholder: Screenshot/mockup of early research notes]

PROBLEM DEFINITION

Findings

From research, the challenges were clear:

Attendance tools were not built with real-world billing and scheduling use cases in mind.
Missing functionality forced directors into time-consuming manual checks or pen-and-paper tracking.

IDEATION & STRATEGY

Proposed Solutions

Proposed adding a new “Unscheduled” status to the live room visualization and attendance reports.
Explored ways to extend this into drop-in capacity planning, giving directors forward-looking insight into availability.
Confirmed technical feasibility with dev leads to ensure reports could handle live and future data.

DESIGN PROCESS

Phase 1: Live Room Visualization Update

Added Unscheduled status with a distinct icon and ring.
Extended the status into attendance reports for billing clarity

Phase 2: Drop-In Availability Report

Designed a spreadsheet-style report showing classroom capacity for future dates.
Iterated for readability and clarity:
- Bolded key labels.
- Reorganized math columns.
- Clarified terminology.

USABILITY TESTING

Plan

Tested early report prototypes with directors.
Some participants initially struggled with the math, so I reorganized columns and bolded key values.
After iteration, all users found the report clear and immediately actionable.

Outcome: Report readability was described as a “no-brainer.”

COLLABORATION AND ADVOCACY

Actions

Some team members assumed a report was “just a spreadsheet.” I advocated for the UX value of hierarchy, labeling, and usability testing.

Callout: “Good UX isn’t just about visuals—it’s about reducing friction and making decisions effortless.”

OUTCOMES AND IMPACT

For Directors & Teachers

Less manual tracking.
Accurate billing.
Peace of mind.

For Families

Quicker responses to drop-in requests.

For the Business

Level 4 feature release highlighted in marketing.
Differentiated us from competitors.
Stronger, more consistent revenue for childcare centers.

For Other Teams

Provided a foundation for new attendance statuses and mobile app updates.

CHALLENGES AND LEARNINGS

Conclusions

Challenge: Overcoming perceptions that “anyone can design a report.”
Learning: Even functional tools benefit from deliberate UX design.
Growth: Built confidence in trusting my expertise while still collaborating across departments.

FINAL OUTCOME

The initiative evolved from a single status update into a feature set that transformed how directors manage attendance and billing.

Directors gained clarity and efficiency.
Families received quicker service.
The business gained a competitive differentiator.
Other teams extended the groundwork into mobile and future reporting features.

REFLECTION

Food for Thought

This project reinforced that small, thoughtful design changes can spark ripple effects across the product ecosystem. It taught me that UX isn’t just about visual polish — it’s about clarity, foresight, and enabling people to make decisions with confidence.