Pipeline Database Project
UBS Financial Services
My Role: Product Manager, Product Designer, UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer, Developer
Project Duration: Approximately 1 year
What was the context?
While an investment banking analyst at UBS, I participated in a weekly all-hands meeting called the Weekly Pipeline Call. In this virtual meeting we discussed various items that were in the “pipeline” throughout our Department of about 90 bankers located across the U.S. Items for discussion included:
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Requests for Proposals (RFPs) that were in-house and being responded to
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Client meetings that were scheduled to occur
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PowerPoint decks or deliverables that were being sent to clients in coming weeks
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Noteworthy decks or deliverables that had gone out to clients recently
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Municipal deals that were in-process and their status
What was the problem?
The single PDF document we used to guide the weekly call was intended to help maintain visibility across the department so that everyone was on the same page, but it didn’t accomplish this at all.
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It was tedious to compile, as it had to be manually constructed and reformatted each week by an overwhelmed junior banker juggling many responsibilities
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The shared Excel file that was used to enter the data was rarely up-to-date, so the output was unreliable and largely unusable
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The 3 hours the original document took to construct was valuable time away from client-facing work
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Our department spanned each region of the country, so unique ideas and pitches that could be leveraged for similar clients were hard to find, resulting in duplicative work
Our existing method for tracking pipeline items was a complete mess and the source of major frustration for the department.
What was my approach?
With the idea for a central database where we could keep track of our client touchpoint data and easily generate reports in mind, I began my process and it went like this:
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Set up interviews with relevant stakeholders like junior bankers, senior bankers, regional heads, internal compliance groups, and the overall head of the department
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Created process diagrams from these discussions and developed a list of requirements to ensure all levels of the process were being considered and that all manual processes were being addressed
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Using the list of requirements, conducted research on the software and tools we already had at our disposal to select the best platform to build the product. Given very limited budget and resources, determined Microsoft Access to be our best solution and dubbed the product the Pipeline Database
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Refined the scope of the database and developed a product roadmap using a 4-phase approach with a concise list of features that were expected to be added in each phase; presented plan to the Department head
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Designed, coded, and built both the front and back ends of the database complete with full search functionality, sophisticated automatic email generation, and extensive reporting capabilities. I had no prior experience in building databases or using SQL/VBA, but was able to leverage 3rd party forums, blogs, and instructional material
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Worked with a smaller testing group of bankers to conduct thorough UAT testing before rolling the database out to the entire Department
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Created training materials for the formal rollout and conducted live demos of the Database functionality to train everyone in the Department on how to use it properly. Monitored and maintained data integrity of the database moving forward
PROJECT GALLERY*
*Please note, the Pipeline Database and associated work is property of UBS. I have recreated aspects from memory for illustration purposes
 An example of the process diagrams I created to outline the existing user journey for each core process |  The user interface for the Database, which featured sections that were intuitively grouped by function as well as an easily accessible button to quickly email the weekly pipeline report to everyone |  An example of the clean, organized report pages that could be generated with the click of button. |
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What was the outcome?
Drastically reduced time spent on formerly manual tasks. The database automated and considerably reduced time spent on previously manual activities like creating the weekly pipeline report and sending required compliance-related approvals and emails from hours to just seconds.
Increased knowledge share & visibility amongst the department. The database-generated reports included keywords and clickable hyperlinks to any file’s location on our departmental shared drive. This meant that anyone reading a report could easily find the materials. I received a lot of positive feedback on this being one of the best features of the Database.
Considerably improved strategic planning. Since the data in the database was now reliable and kept up to date, the generated reports could be used by regional heads to refine their strategic priorities. Leaders could download reports and closely monitor their client coverage to determine if there were clients they should allocate more resources to or instances where they should pull back.
Earned me a promotion to Director! My work and its impact garnered praise within our department for its value. As a result, I was promoted to Director and then asked to begin working with our company’s internal finance group to build an automated system for tracking and allocating revenues from our municipal deal activity. I was working on this project when UBS acquired Credit Suisse and subsequently laid off the entire Municipal Finance Banking division at the end of 2023.