Robert Buchanan

Additional Capability

Sometimes the Process Is the Problem

Purpose-built browser tools for the moments when the real problem is not another campaign or webpage — it is the way the work itself is being tracked, handed off, reported, or understood.

RoleWorkflow design, UX/UI, PHP and JavaScript development, data structure, integrations, reporting, and ongoing system refinement
FocusCustom business tools, workflow automation, dashboards, accountability systems, data visualization, and AI-assisted decision support
ApproachStart with the actual process. Build only what needs to exist. Keep the authoritative systems authoritative.

How these usually start

Nobody wakes up hoping for another internal system.

Usually it starts with something less exciting: information living in three places, reporting assembled by hand, follow-up depending on somebody remembering it, or a simple question that somehow requires asking four people.

That is when I start looking at the workflow itself.

I design and build lightweight browser-based tools around the way the business actually needs to operate — dashboards, CRMs, marketing systems, resource managers, document interfaces, reporting tools, and other purpose-built applications that make information easier to capture, surface, understand, and act on.

I am not trying to replace every platform the company already owns. Often the smarter answer is to connect to those systems, organize what matters, and build a more useful management layer around them.

I do not build software because I particularly want to be a software developer. I build it because sometimes the easiest way to fix the workflow is to stop complaining about the workflow and make a better one.

Selected systems

Different departments. Same basic question: what would make this easier to run?

The tools below were designed around specific operational problems rather than around a generic software feature list. The interfaces, data, reporting, permissions, and integrations change because the people using them need different things.

Custom CRM dashboard showing sales pipeline, reporting, and customer-management tools

Customer & Sales Management

CRM

A customer and opportunity system designed around how the team actually works: contacts, pipeline, tasks, activity, reporting, role-based views, and an integrated AI advisor that can analyze the underlying data and surface useful patterns instead of merely storing them.

  • Contacts & opportunities
  • Pipeline visibility
  • Tasks & follow-up
  • Dashboards & reporting
  • Role-based access
  • Integrated AI advisor
Marketing Resource Manager dashboard with campaigns, attribution, analytics, and reporting

Marketing Operations

MRM

A centralized marketing system for planning work, tracking campaigns, connecting activity to attribution, surfacing website and lead data, and turning the ordinary use of the system into reporting rather than treating reporting as a separate monthly archaeology project.

  • Campaign planning
  • Task management
  • UTM attribution
  • Lead tracking
  • Analytics dashboards
  • Executive reporting
Legal Resource Manager interface organizing agreements, intellectual property, and SharePoint-linked documents

Legal & Resource Management

LRM

A management layer for legal resources that organizes agreements, intellectual property, licensing information, document metadata, and other working information while linking back to SharePoint as the authoritative document source rather than creating another place for files to get lost.

  • SharePoint integration
  • Agreement tracking
  • IP organization
  • Document metadata
  • Microsoft authentication
  • Role-based access
People Operations system showing employee requirements, deadlines, document links, and reporting

People Operations

HRM

A people-operations and accountability layer for requirements, deadlines, completion status, document organization, and reporting. The system surfaces what needs attention while keeping sensitive payroll, medical, and authoritative HR information in the systems where it belongs.

  • Requirements & deadlines
  • Completion tracking
  • Document organization
  • SharePoint integration
  • Microsoft authentication
  • Operational reporting

What tends to connect them

The interface is only the visible part.

Across systems, the useful work often happens in the connective tissue: deciding what should be stored, what should remain somewhere else, who should see what, what can be automated, what deserves a dashboard, and where analysis can remove another manual step.

  • Data visualization
  • Automated reporting
  • Workflow & status logic
  • AI-assisted analysis
  • Microsoft OAuth
  • Microsoft Graph / SharePoint
  • Role-based access
  • Analytics & attribution
  • Responsive browser interfaces

What this capability really adds

I can move past documenting the problem and build something that changes it.

Not every process deserves custom software. But when the friction is specific, repetitive, and important enough, being able to move from observation to workflow to interface to working system gives me another way to solve the business problem instead of merely describing it.

Sometimes the deliverable is the campaign. Sometimes it is the thing that makes the campaign, the reporting, or the department easier to run.