Genesys Pulse
2018
Genesys Pulse — From Legacy to Web-First Dashboard
Project context
Two very different products — and why that matters
Understanding what I was replacing was as important as knowing what I was building. CCPulse+ and Genesys Pulse aren't just different versions of the same tool — they're different architectures, different paradigms, and different relationships with the people who use them.
Genesys Pulse (New)
A web-based, widget-driven application. Browser-accessible, no installation required. Modular dashboards, real-time threshold alerting, built-in wallboard mode. Genesys's official next-generation replacement — the product I was designing from the ground up.
Genesys officially sunset CCPulse+ and recommended all customers migrate to Genesys Pulse. This wasn't optional for enterprise customers — it was a platform-level migration. The design had to be compelling enough that supervisors who'd spent years in CCPulse+ would actually want to move, not just be forced to.
The stakes this created for design were specific: every CCPulse+ workflow that Pulse couldn't match was a reason for a customer to delay migration or push back on their Genesys contract. Every improvement over CCPulse+ was a reason to move faster. My job was to understand what supervisors actually needed — not just replicate what CCPulse+ already did.
Research
Understanding two problems at once: the old tool and the people who used it
Research for a migration product has a dual focus that a greenfield product doesn't: you need to understand what's broken about the existing tool, and you need to understand what muscle memory and mental models people have built around it — because you can't ignore either.
I ran shadow sessions with 11 contact center supervisors across three enterprise clients — watching them work through real shifts in CCPulse+, not staged demos. I audited four competing web tools (NICE CXone, Verint, Avaya Oceana, Cisco CUIC), analyzed six months of support tickets tagged to both CCPulse+ and early Pulse releases, and synthesized findings from a prior customer satisfaction study the product team had commissioned.
Brainstorming session with internal team
"We've been asking for a proper web version for years. But if it can't do what CCPulse+ does, my team won't use it — and I can't make them."
Problem area
What supervisors were actually working with every day
This is CCPulse+. The product I was replacing. Every structural problem Pulse needed to solve is visible in this single screenshot — which is exactly why I used it as the anchor for every design decision I made.
CCPulse+ — Agent States view (thick-client Windows app)
A fixed object tree on the left requiring an IT ticket and backend data model knowledge to change.
Every panel carried full Windows minimize/maximize/close chrome, consuming screen real estate on a surface already fighting for space.
Design goals
What Pulse needed to be to make migration worth it
Migration only succeeds if the new product is meaningfully better — not just different. These three goals were the design brief: solve the problems CCPulse+ couldn't solve, and be compelling enough that supervisors who'd spent years in the old tool would want to move.
Design decision 1
A modular widget system — replacing floating panels with one composable surface
The answer to CCPulse+'s floating-window architecture wasn't fewer panels — it was a completely different mental model. I moved from a floating-window paradigm to a composable widget system. Supervisors add, remove, resize, and rearrange widgets to match their actual span of control. Each widget renders one of five chart types: KPI counter, Donut, Data table, Time tracking or List.
To address the migration concern directly — rebuilding CCPulse+ custom reports from scratch — I designed a widget catalog with a "starter pack" template seeded with the most common supervisor configurations. The goal was to make rebuilding faster than maintaining the old CCPulse+ setup. Dashboards can be saved, cloned, published to a team, or exported as JSON.
One composable dashboard replacing CCPulse+ floating panels
Design exploration — directions considered before the widget system
Design decision 2
A real wallboard — built for the wall, not ported from the dashboard
The CCPulse+ wallboard was a PowerPoint screenshot refreshed once a shift. This wasn't a quirk of the tool — it was a fundamental limitation of a thick-client desktop application that had no concept of a display-only surface. Pulse had a chance to solve this properly.
I designed Wallboard Mode as a distinct layout system — a separate set of rules that activates when a supervisor clicks "Launch Wallboard." KPI values render at 52px minimum, widget density reduces to what's readable at 15 feet, the display cycles automatically on a configurable timer, and all editing chrome disappears entirely. Agents read data; they don't need a "More" menu. The three-state threshold system carries over directly — a red widget is as unmissable on a 15-foot TV as at a laptop screen.
Genesys Pulse — Wallboard · Global Operations
Constraints navigated
The friction that shaped every decision
Designing a migration replacement for an enterprise product has constraints a greenfield project doesn't. Beyond the usual technical and organizational friction, I had to account for what CCPulse+ had trained people to expect — and where that expectation was worth keeping versus where it needed to break.
Retrospective
Did migration actually happen — and what did the numbers say
A migration product's success isn't just measured by product metrics. It's measured by whether customers moved. Numbers from session replay analysis, support ticket tracking, in-app telemetry, and the post-launch NPS survey run three months after release.
Before and After redesign
Impact
63% Reduction in dashboard setup time
Average time to configure a working personal dashboard dropped from ~45 minutes (requiring IT in CCPulse+) to ~17 minutes (fully self-service in Pulse). Measured via in-product telemetry in the first 30 days post-launch. Directly addressed the migration reconstruction cost concern.
78% Wallboard adoption in 60 days
78% of enterprise customers launched at least one live wallboard within 60 days. Before the redesign, effectively zero were using a live wallboard feature — reverting instead to the manual CCPulse+ PowerPoint screenshot workflow. This was the clearest signal that migration was delivering on its promise.