Innovative ideas

Hi all !

I work for a company who have tasked me with developing a simple website that will be used by some of our employees for requesting holiday and shift swaps. The way it’ll work is:

  • User logs into site using their unique username/password.
  • Presented with 2 or 3 basic forms for different request types.
  • Form is filled in and submitted.
  • Manager at the other end approves/declines this, which runs a simple query to add request into existing employee database.
  • Email is sent back to employee with decision.

I’m having a difficult time selling the use of this system to the managers who are meant to use it, so was told to come up with an innovative idea to win them over. As this is just automating a simple task they already do manually, its been suggested that I do something ‘clever’ which they can’t currently do to give them more of a reason to use it.

So far, I’ve come up with:

  • Provide scheduled email reports to line managers with granular request statistics.
  • Do a mobile version for iPhone and Android users so requests can be created/approved on the go.
  • Sends email alerts to colleagues with details of a person who wants to swap their shift.

I realise that this is just tarting up a pretty basic system, so was wondering whether any of you bright sparks might be able to shine some creative light on my dull project and help me come up with an innovative idea that will a) make this a system people want to use and b) make it a bit more enjoyable for me to develop.

Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas - no matter how dull, strange or outlandish - would be very much welcome !

Cheers

Andy