How to get our employees back to the office safely? We built a dedicated app!

The past months have been challenging for all of us. COVID-19 has brought many things to our global landscape and much uncertainty.

Many companies had to adapt and adjust almost overnight and eventually revise their way of working.

We at Axway weren’t much different as we, and many other companies:

1. were forced to virtualize in record time,
2. were forced into digitalization to meet new dynamics in serving customers.

For Axway, the use of our technology accompanied the forced digitalization and the gradual return to the office. Some call this drinking our own champagne. We call it being digital.

We are a global organization with 2,000 plus employees and 29 offices in 17 countries. To return to the office — in each of our countries and locations — our teams had to follow different requirements.

From governing authorities, requirements by building landlords, different requirements for using public transportations, and other unique dynamics, all coordinated by our local HRBPs (Human Resources Business Partners) and facility representatives.

At that time, and until now, the return to the office remained on a voluntary basis to allow for many the option to utilize offices and Axway has looked to create the safest and most compliant route to do so.

This includes different dates for return to the office and different allowed capacities for each office, creating a very staggered return for Axway.

The question on the table was — how do you coordinate this? Going into COVID there was no infrastructure at Axway to track office attendance.

There were no dashboards to give visibility to utilization and no way to share office capacities and active utilization so staff can choose to come in or not.

We looked for an answer and the answer is the Amplify API Management Platform

Our Griffin Innovation Lab in partnership with the CTIO office came together and in two weeks. A full backend infrastructure was established to record office utilization.

And I can’t say how grateful and happy this collaboration makes me. A #bettertogether moment in full force.

APIs were built and secured for executive dashboards and a mobile app was delivered into all Griffins’ hands, available on iOS and Android.

Meet the Griffin App

This is our app, and it is ALL Amplify, front-end to back-end. For more on how the Griffin App was built, check out this blog post by our lead Developer Evangelists.

With varying data privacy requirements in our different locations, the app was built to help Griffins organize themselves for safe utilization of the offices while respecting regional constraints.

The app allows employees to schedule their presence in the office and their utilization of the app was anonymized.

This supports data privacy requirements in various regions and gives assurance to employees that Axway does not track office attendance.

Through the app, all Griffins can see office utilization and capacities and they can make their own choice whether to come to the office a certain day.

The use of the app is completely voluntary but is in everyone’s best interest to use it. All Griffins are invited to upload the App and can choose to let their peers know when and if they will be in the office. This allows for communication and planning by region based on local dynamics.

The results have been fantastic!

Employees are logging over 800 sessions per week scheduling use of the offices and capacity consistently is safely within levels set by regions.

All this was built in two weeks. Powered by the Amplify platform. Amplified by Griffins.

Now that we have seen the first outcome and the potential of such an app for our Griffins, we are making the app available to others.