Dialog Insight Planned Deployment Calendar

At Dialog Insight, the core use case of the platform is planning and sending customer communications. Over time, this workflow had become misaligned with how users actually worked. While the product required users to first create content, then select an audience, and only plan the deployment afterward, user and market research revealed that most marketers naturally plan first, then create content, and finally choose their audience.

In parallel, we observed a growing pain point around channel silos. Communications sent via Email, SMS, Mobile Push, or Web Push were managed independently, making it difficult for users to understand and coordinate their overall communication strategy. These insights highlighted the need for a centralized, omni-channel deployment workflow that better reflected real user behavior.

Working closely with product designers, we defined what an ideal planning-first, omni-channel experience would look like. During this process, I identified that parts of the foundation already existed but were either underused or poorly adapted. For example, the planning calendar saw little adoption because it required workarounds, and the planned deployment page was primarily used only to cancel communications.

Rather than building a new system from scratch, I decided to repurpose the planned deployment interface as the foundation for the new workflow. This decision significantly reduced development time by reusing existing backend infrastructure. Once the interface reached a usable state, I guided the team toward adding a calendar view of planned deployments and redesigning the campaign flow to allow users to plan future communications even when content was not yet ready.

Working on such a core, long-standing part of the product introduced structural and change-management challenges. We lacked native support for saving draft dates or audiences, and changes to deployment mechanisms carried risk. Additionally, many users had built established processes around the legacy workflow, requiring a progressive rollout strategy to introduce the new experience without disrupting existing habits.

After launch, we saw a more than doubling of traffic on the planned deployment page and adoption by nearly 20% of all monthly users. Qualitatively, we received strong feedback that it significantly improved their planning workflow—particularly from users who were previously relying on Excel to coordinate their communications across channels.

This centralized deployment experience not only improved how users plan communications today, but also created a scalable foundation for intelligent, AI-driven planning in the future. Features such as recommended send days, visibility into upcoming holidays, and future ambitions around AI-driven assistance to help marketers balance communication frequency over time.