Blog
Mobile App for Santa: Case Study
December 28, 2021
Just imagine that you should work only a few months per year being your own boss with all the people waiting for you every year, and moreover, providing you with cookies and milk. That’s how Santa’s job looks for many of us. It even sounds like a dream job, isn’t it? Unfortunately, we are going to disappoint you (and to be honest ourselves, as who of us has ever dreamed of being Santa). Firstly, as you know this position is closed. Secondly, it only looks like a dream job at first sight. In fact, behind Santa’s job lies the incredible responsibility and so much work that it’s hard to imagine how he copes with it every year.
Besides an enormous number of his winter responsibilities, he should monitor children’s behavior during other seasons and prepare presents in advance. Even though Santa’s job seems to be seasonal, it looks like this guy works harder than each of us all year long. That’s why we decided to help him and create a mobile app that will optimize some aspects of his work.
We analyzed Santa’s business problems and tried to figure out what solutions we can provide to make his workflow easier. Since the bulk of Santa’s job is to deliver gifts, we decided to develop a mobile app that helps to automate this process. We picked the following features:
Even though this mobile app should be used only by Santa, we decided to secure him and add multi-factor authentication. Because, who knows, what if the Grinch will decide to steal Christmas again and leave all children without presents. We can’t let this happen in any way.
To make the process of Christmas gifts list creation easier we decided to plug a database about all children from a CRM system. Thanks to this, Santa doesn’t need to waste time monitoring the behavior of each child. All the data enrolls into the CRM system and is filtered there. So Santa gets only the gift list for obedient children on his mobile app and gets the possibility to spread gifts faster.
As Santa needs to go a long way and drop gifts for an enormous number of houses, we integrated a GPS navigation system with the mobile app. Santa can create the most optimal route based on children’s addresses from the CRM and weather forecast. Besides, we added the possibility to plan his route according to time zones and ETA (estimated time of arrival) so children from all over the world can get their presents strictly on Christmas eve.
Сonsidering how many things Santa manages in just one night, he is a real hero. But all heroes need some rest. To provide him with the ability to make at least five-minute stops, we added the option to track the number of deliveries. When Santa drops the gift it’s marked as a completed order on the screen. Thus, he can track how many gifts are left and whether he can take a little break.
As we all know, Santa frequently drops gifts through the chimney. But not all houses have fireplaces so Santa needs to figure out other ways to deliver gifts. To fasten this process we added the prediction of delivery complexity with the help of map integration. If there is no chimney in the house, such an order is marked as 2x complexity and Santa can find the appropriate solution in advance.
To cheer Santa, all children leave him cookies and milk. Of course, it sounds great, as who would refuse such a treat. But taking into account how many cookies Santa can eat overnight, he should stay fit to crawl through the chimney. We took care of that too by adding the calories tracker.
Of course, we couldn’t ignore Santa’s assistants because what a hero without faithful helpers. We know that his reindeers and sleighs are magical. However, we considered all the possible troubles and added the option to track deers’ mileage. As they have a hard night ahead, they will also need to take some rest, eat, and refresh themselves to stay energetic. With this feature, Santa will be able to monitor deers’ mileage and understand when to fill up their batteries.
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