CRM for Immigration Consultants

At first glance, administrative tasks may appear straightforward: gather documents and submit them to the relevant agencies. However, for a company handling over 500 applications each month, with each migrant service type demanding unique documentation, the system needed to be robust. With an anticipated annual client growth of approximately 25%, the requirements become even more critical.

To begin with, our business analysts undertook a preliminary analysis to identify and gather the essential requirements for an effective CRM immigration application that will fulfill customer’s needs. Here’s what have been decided together with the client regarding system’s functionality:

• Registration and Login System with incorporate two-factor authentication for user account protection.
• Reliable Data Encryption will ensure that even in the event of a leak, the data remains inaccessible.
• Centralized Storage and Document Management will help to store all immigrants data, track document status, control their expiration dates, and record every document, from visa applications to bank documents.
• Data Export in required formats will simplify the overall process.
• Scheduling and Task Management will grant the ability to book and manage appointments with immigrants and send them notifications, set reminders for follow-up tasks, and assign tasks to team members.
• Reporting and Analytics will provide an overview of business performance with specific KPIs.

Document Management

Dealing with all the documents, forms, and applications from both immigrants and emigrants requires a centralized document repository to ensure easy access and retrieval. That is why, together with the client, it was decided to implement DHTMLX File Manager. The component brought better document flow and data storage of the immigrants information, visa applications, supporting documents, and correspondence history. Besides that, it provided the CRM system with the following:

• Enhanced Document Management. Employees are now able to keep track of different versions of documents to (intake documents,
visa documentation, work permits, employment documentation, government correspondences, migrants emails, etc.) avoid confusion and ensure that the latest versions are always accessible. Also, by having folder structure, it became easier to organize documents into folders based on customer names, application types, or stages of the visa process.
• Automated Workflows. Repetitive tasks, such as sending reminders for document submissions, visa appointments, and follow-ups, have been automated, which added more smoothness to the agency processes. To reduce manual intervention and speed up the process, automated approval workflows for document reviews and visa application processing were implemented. Besides that, it became a lot easier to upload documents related to each individual case, upload and download CSV files, make checklists of mandatory documents, and use templates.

The integration of DHTMLX File Manager into the CRM system for immigrant consultants ensured that all interactions and documents were synchronized, which brought a holistic view of each client’s case. Thus, the component helped agency employees to make possible the main simple operations, such as collect, allocate, and process user data per needed criteria, rather than struggling with the operation processed via Microsoft Excel.

Calendar

Initially the system’s calendar should have displayed planned activities. Eventually, its functionality expanded into a combination of activities and data related to participants, including completeness of user profiles, data about activities location, etc. In order to cover all these requirements, it was decided to integrate DHTMLX Scheduler. This component granted a set of useful features for our client:

• Centralized Scheduling. Having a centralized calendar for all visa appointments, meetings, and important deadlines ensured that all team members are aware of key dates and can plan accordingly. Different calendar views (day, week, month) provided a comprehensive overview of schedules and deadlines. And, automated reminders and notifications for upcoming appointments, document submission deadlines, and visa expiry dates became good assistance for agency employees to help them and applicants to miss nothing.
• Color Coding for Events. To easily distinguish various types of scheduled events, specific colors were used. For example, travel agency employees are now able to assign a different color for calls with migrants to easily differentiate them from meetings and other events.
• User-Friendly Filters. Considering the volumes of data, it was decided to implement filters to allow employees to view the information only related to their tasks and/or view the information related to their responsibilities and other relevant employees in the organization.

Other Features

To ensure flawless user experience with the new visa management system, we also integrated the following features:

Role-Based Access Control. It ensured that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive immigrant information and documents. The system admin was able to set permissions based on roles to maintain data security as well as maintain audit logs to track who accessed or modified documents, enhancing accountability and security.

User-Friendly Interface. Simplifying document uploads and organization with an intuitive drag-and-drop functionality added a nice touch to the overall user experience. Moreover, allowing employees to preview and edit documents directly within the File Manager reduced the need to switch between different applications.

Reporting and Analytics. Generating reports on document status, such as pending approvals, missing documents, and upcoming expirations, was not less important for the visa agency. The employees preferred to track key performance indicators (KPIs) related to document processing times and workflow efficiency that improved business processes.

When selecting the technology stack, we focused on ensuring high performance and scalability. The projected annual data growth of 25% required the use of reliable and widely adopted technologies. The team initially considered React and DHTMLX for the front end. Once the desired features and customer deadlines were set, DHTMLX was chosen because of its pre-built components, which will streamline the project timelines.

Having experience from our side in implementing DHTMLX JavaScript UI Library helped our customer to see the potential for their new travel visa CRM system. In order to ensure faster development process and compliance with the set requirements, the following components were approved by the client for implementation:

• File manager;
• Scheduler;
• Charts;
• Data grid;
• Tree, etc.

Thus, DHTMLX was chosen for the front-end, while NodeJS handled the back-end, with server infrastructure hosted on AWS. This setup allowed us to create a four-tier infrastructure for production, staging, development, and a separate instance for the database.