- Platform
- iPad Apps and Web admin
- Duration
- 18 weeks
- Industry
- Healthcare
- Read time
- 5 min read
Eris Lifesciences has more than 5,000 frontline employees spread across India. Most of them are in the field, not at a desk. Getting consistent training to that workforce using classroom sessions and printed materials was expensive, hard to schedule, and easy to skip.
The company needed a training platform that field employees would actually open. Not because they had to. Because it was worth their time.
We built EMS Connect in 18 weeks: an iPad app for employees and a web admin portal for managers. It delivers personalized learning paths, gamified activities, video capture for field reporting, and offline access for teams working in low-connectivity areas. Within the platform's active use period, 3,500+ employees were logging in daily and averaging 30 minutes per session, in a workforce where getting anyone to engage voluntarily with training is considered a win.
RaftLabs helped us bring our vision of a dynamic and interactive training platform to life, driving unprecedented engagement across our teams.
before & after
What changed
- Classroom-based training disrupted field schedules and could not reach a dispersed workforce consistently
- Training materials were static and delivered unevenly across different regions and teams
- No way for managers to see which employees had completed which training or where skill gaps existed
- Field teams working in low-connectivity areas could not access digital training materials during their working day
- No engagement data to tell training managers whether the content was actually being used
- Employees access bite-sized modules, personalized learning paths, and gamified activities from their iPads during field time
- Training content is consistent across every region: one update in the admin panel reaches all 5,000+ employees immediately
- Managers track completion rates and engagement data from a central web admin portal without chasing individual teams
- Offline access with content caching lets field teams download materials before entering low-connectivity areas
- 3,500+ employees active daily, averaging 30 minutes per session, an engagement level that traditional training methods never produced
What we had to solve
- 01
Getting field employees to open the app voluntarily, not because they had to
A training app that employees open once and abandon is worse than no app: it proves the approach doesn't work. The platform had to make the learning experience worth returning to. That meant gamification that created actual competition, bite-sized modules that respected a field employee's limited free time between client visits, and personalized paths that made employees feel the content was relevant to their specific role. Getting the UX right for a non-technical audience who would judge the platform in its first 30 seconds was as important as any technical decision we made.
- 02
Keeping content synced across 5,000+ devices with inconsistent connectivity
Pharmaceutical field teams spend their working day in areas where mobile coverage is unreliable. A training platform that freezes or fails to load content mid-module teaches employees one thing: don't bother. We built an offline-first caching layer so employees could download their assigned modules when on Wi-Fi and access them throughout the day without a live connection. When they reconnected, progress synced automatically. The challenge was making that sync reliable enough that managers saw accurate completion data without employees having to think about when or whether their progress had been recorded.
outcomes
What we achieved
Traditional classroom training disrupted field schedules and failed to keep a geographically dispersed workforce consistently engaged.
Static training content and manual delivery resulted in poor knowledge retention and low engagement among field employees who were rarely at a desk.
Without personalized learning paths, all employees sat through the same material regardless of their role or existing knowledge, making training expensive and slow.
What clients say
Most clients stay.
Some say so on camera.
Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.
RaftLabs helped us bring our vision of a dynamic and interactive training platform to life, driving unprecedented engagement across our teams.
Your workforce is growing but your training program is not keeping up?
the build
What we built
EMS Connect has two sides: an iPad app for field employees and a web admin portal for training managers. Both had to work for non-technical users from day one.
Role-relevant training with visible competition — employees come back daily
Employees access bite-sized training modules matched to their specific role and the skills their manager has flagged as priorities. Points, badges, and leaderboards run alongside the content, creating visible competition within teams. The combination of relevance and competition drove the daily return rate that passive video libraries never achieved.
Field teams train between client visits — no live connection required
Employees download their assigned modules when on Wi-Fi and access them throughout the day without a live connection. Progress syncs automatically when they reconnect. Field teams in low-connectivity areas have no broken loading states or lost progress. The platform works the same way whether they are in a city office or a rural client visit.
Field intelligence that used to live in call notes now has a structured capture and review process
Employees record field observations, product demonstrations, and client interactions directly from the app. Recordings are submitted to managers for review or stored as learning references. Field intelligence that previously existed only in call notes now has a structured capture and review process.
Managers see which employees need follow-up without running a manual report
Training managers create and assign learning paths, track completion rates across teams, manage content, and review engagement data from one web portal. A dashboard shows which modules are performing and which employees need follow-up, without requiring the manager to run a manual report.
Engagement
How we worked together
- 01Weeks 1–2
Discovery and scoping
We map the problem before writing code. Two weeks of technical audit, stakeholder interviews, and prototype — so both teams align on scope and risk before sprint one.
- 02Ongoing
Two-week Agile sprints
Each sprint ends with working software, not a status update. You review a real build, request changes, and approve before we move forward. No surprises at handover.
- 03Ongoing
Daily async updates
Slack for daily progress, Asana for task visibility, weekly video calls for decisions. You have full visibility without needing to attend every meeting.
- 04Final
Handover and warranty
Full code handover with deployment runbooks and documentation. Thirty-day warranty period for production issues at no extra cost.
stack
Why we chose this stack
- 01Next.jsThe web admin portal needed server-rendered pages for fast load times and a clean architecture for the training content management tools that managers use daily without technical support.
- 02Node.jsThe backend handles concurrent activity from 5,000+ employees syncing progress, downloading modules, and submitting video captures simultaneously. Node's event-driven model handles that concurrent I/O without the complexity of a thread-based approach.
- 03PostgreSQLTraining completion records, employee progress, gamification scores, and content assignments all needed reliable structured storage with fast query performance to support the real-time admin dashboard.
- 04Ant DesignThe admin portal's core users are training managers, not developers. Ant Design's production-ready components for data tables, forms, and status indicators reduced build time on the management interface so more effort went into the employee-facing features.
Have further questions?
The design has to respect how field employees actually work: in short bursts between client visits, often without a desk, and with no patience for content that is not relevant to their role. EMS Connect addressed this with bite-sized modules under ten minutes, personalized paths so employees only see content relevant to their work, and gamification that created visible team competition. Getting the first-open experience right (fast load, immediately useful content, something worth coming back for) drove the 3,500+ daily active users within the active period.
Yes. Employees download assigned modules when they have Wi-Fi, then access them throughout the day without a live connection. Progress and completions sync automatically when connectivity returns. The offline-first architecture was a core requirement, not an afterthought. Pharmaceutical field teams work in areas with unreliable mobile coverage and needed a platform that did not treat connectivity as a given.
The web admin portal is designed for training managers, not developers. Managers create and assign learning paths using a structured content editor, track team completion rates on a real-time dashboard, review video submissions from field employees, and adjust training priorities without raising a ticket or asking for developer support. Every function the manager needs for their daily work is accessible from one screen.
Yes. If a company already has an LMS, the platform can be built to synchronize completion data with it so training records stay in one place. Our team has built integrations with major LMS platforms. The specific approach depends on which system you use and what data needs to flow between them. Contact us to confirm compatibility before you start.
We delivered EMS Connect (iPad app, web admin portal, personalized learning paths, gamification, offline caching, and video capture) in 18 weeks for a workforce of 5,000+. Timeline depends on the number of content types, third-party integrations, and how complex the role-based personalization needs to be. Platforms with LMS integration, multiple content formats, or advanced analytics typically run 20 to 24 weeks. Contact us to scope based on your workforce size and feature requirements.