Someone had build this a operational report that listed people to contact—hundreds of them. Users would copy-paste the person ID and search for their phone number in another internal database. Then they would type that number. One of them had this hack where they typed it into a software phone that made the bulky physical phone attached ring. All that felt suboptimal to me.
That other database had standard URL structure so I knew that I could turn the id into a link by appending `https:\\admin.company.com\users?id=` That way, they could click and be in the right page without searching. But the reporting system had relevant personal information, so I could instead add a SQL JOIN and include the phone number right there. So I did, and I was showered with praises.
That’s when I thought: why not also have a link? There is this rarely used protocol `tel:`, the phone equivalent of `html:`. It never really made sense, until your phone turned into a computer… I had seen work a while ago. Lo-and-behold! It worked!
So I turned two painstainking ten-digit copying and look-ups into a single-click. I think that hack doubled that team’s productivity.