Cera Care: Simplifying Carer Email Migration.
Every new carer at Cera was issued with a company Gmail account to access internal systems and communications. As the organisation grew, managing thousands of accounts became increasingly expensive and time-consuming.
Working with Product, Engineering and Operations, I designed a new migration experience that allowed carers to switch to their own personal email addresses without disrupting access to the Digital Care Platform or affecting payroll and day-to-day operations.
The project balanced a complex technical migration with a simple user experience, helping reduce costs while minimising disruption for carers and branch teams.
Company-managed email accounts created a growing operational burden.
Every account required provisioning, ongoing administration and support, while also increasing software licensing costs. Existing migration processes were largely manual, placing additional workload on branch teams and creating opportunities for errors.
The challenge was to migrate carers safely while ensuring they retained uninterrupted access to the systems they relied on every day.
As a result:
Company email accounts generated unnecessary licensing costs.
Branch teams spent significant time managing email changes.
Manual processes increased the risk of mistakes.
Carers needed a simple migration with minimal disruption.
The Problem
Discovery focused on understanding every touchpoint where a carer's email address was used.
Working closely with Product, Engineering, Payroll and Operations, I mapped the complete migration journey to identify dependencies across multiple internal systems.
The process needed to ensure that updating a carer's email address didn't interrupt access to the Digital Care Platform, payroll, scheduling or internal communications.
By understanding the end-to-end workflow, we were able to simplify what was technically a complex migration into a guided experience for branch staff.
Understanding the Problem
The goal was to make the migration feel straightforward despite the complexity behind the scenes.
I designed a guided workflow that allowed branch staff to update a carer's email address while clearly communicating each stage of the migration process.
The experience focused on:
Clear progress through each step.
Validation to reduce input errors.
Confirmation before changes were applied.
Reassurance that access to key systems would be maintained.
By reducing uncertainty and providing clear feedback throughout the journey, the interface helped branch teams complete migrations confidently.
Designing the Solution
Although the interface appeared simple, the migration involved multiple connected systems working together.
Changing a carer's email address affected authentication, platform access, payroll records and internal communications. The experience needed to coordinate these updates while preventing duplicate accounts or interrupted access.
Designing around these technical dependencies required close collaboration with engineers throughout the project, ensuring user needs remained central while accommodating backend constraints.
Managing a Complex Migration
Designs were reviewed with Product Managers, branch staff and engineers to ensure the migration process reflected real operational workflows.
Testing focused on:
Could users complete the migration without guidance?
Were validation messages clear?
Did users understand what would happen after confirming the migration?
Was the process quick enough to fit naturally into existing branch workflows?
Feedback helped simplify several screens, improve supporting copy and reduce unnecessary steps before development.
Testing
The completed migration flow enabled branch teams to update carers to personal email addresses through a simple guided process.
Key improvements included:
Guided migration workflow.
Clear validation and confirmation steps.
Reduced manual administration.
Integration with existing operational systems.
Minimal disruption for carers during migration.
The experience transformed a technically complex operational task into a straightforward workflow that could be completed confidently by branch teams.
Final Product
The migration successfully moved approximately 380 carers from company-managed Gmail accounts to their own personal email addresses.
The project delivered:
Migration of approximately 380 carers.
Annual operational savings of approximately £500,000.
Reduced software licensing costs.
Less administrative overhead for branch teams.
A smoother onboarding model for future carers.
The project demonstrated how thoughtful product design can create significant commercial value while improving operational efficiency.
Measuring Success
This project reminded me that not every product success is customer-facing.
Although the migration happened largely behind the scenes, it delivered meaningful value for both the business and the people using the system every day.
Designing the experience required understanding operational processes, technical dependencies and human behaviour equally. It reinforced the importance of simplifying complex workflows while ensuring users felt confident throughout critical administrative tasks.
Reflection
