Jaylene Rubio

My File NYC 2026

Enabling families to digitally confirm receipt of critical notices to help agencies reduce costs.

The product

My File NYC enables families in shelter to upload and share critical documents with city agencies. While the platform already supported document storage and sharing, one major gap was the inability for clients to electronically acknowledge receipt of critical notices—such as appointment slips and eligibility forms—required for compliance in the shelter process.

My File NYC enables families in shelters to upload and share critical documents with city agencies. While the platform already supported document storage and sharing, one major gap was the inability for clients to electronically acknowledge receipt of critical notices—such as appointment slips and eligibility forms—required for compliance in the shelter process.

The challenge

Staff relied on physically delivered documents to meet compliance requirements. This created two main problems:

For agencies: No reliable way to confirm that clients had received or read notices.

For clients: Lack of visibility into critical notices leaves them at risk of missing deadlines and jeopardizing housing eligibility.

Staff relied on physically delivered documents to meet compliance requirements. This created two main problems—agencies had no reliable way to confirm that clients had received or read notices and clients lacked visibility into critical notices leaving them at risk of missing deadlines and jeopardizing housing eligibility.

Project outcomes

74%

of physical delivers were replaced by this feature.

of required notices are delievered digitally versus physically

22%

decrease in staff shelter application processing time.

increase in staff shelter application processing times

100%

of the notices were able to be tracked.

My design process

Beyond solving for the users' problems, I had to ensure that this feature was scalable and did not disrupt the current established patterns on My File.

Translate DHS compliance requirements into a user-friendly acknowledgement flow.

Translate the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) compliance requirements into a user-friendly acknowledgement flow

Ensure both client and agency needs were addressed without overcomplicating the product.

Ensure both client and agency needs were addressed without overcomplicating the product

Collaborate with product and engineering to define the MVP scope and prioritize functionality.

Collaborate with product and engineering to define the MVP scope and prioritize functionality

Understanding constraints

I reviewed staff policy and operational workflows to translate legal requirements into clear UX interactions.

As an agent, I need to send clients a notice regarding their housing eligbility.

Constraint: If a client does not acknowledge, ideally, communications would stay within My File via a chat feature, but for this current iteration, the agent will have to email the client separately.

As a client, I need the ability to acknowledge I have recieved the notice to understand how to move forward on next steps.

As a client, I need the ability to acknowledge I have received the notice to understand how to move forward on next steps.

Constraint: Currently, we're only able to show notices at the client level due to how our APIs are structured, but ideally agents would be able to see all notices sent to various clients.

Designing the agents experience

Agents need a reliable way of sending notices to clients

High visibility for notices to be send to clients

High visibility for notices to be sent to clients

Clearly show notice statuses and timestamps for accurate records.

Clearly show notice statuses and timestamps for accurate records

A streamlined process for various staff members to send notices without fricition.

A streamlined process for various staff members to send notices without friction

My File NYC / An agent sends a notice to the client

Ability to scale the feature

By adding navigation items to surface key tools, expanding the client pages to provide richer context and history, and adding filters and sorting options to make the dashboard more flexible and efficient.

By adding navigation items to highlight key tools, expanding the client pages to provide richer context and history, and adding filters and sorting options to make the dashboard more flexible and efficient.

Designing the client experience

Clients need easy access to view and acknoweldge their notices

Clients need easy access to view and acknowledge their notices

Main challenge

Ensuring the acknowledgement feature fit seamlessly into the existing My File landscape, adapting strong design ideas to align with established patterns.

For example, using the activity log for acknowledgements was challenging because they required immediate visibility and action.

Main challenge

Ensuring the acknowledgement feature fits seamlessly into the existing My File landscape, in order to adapt strong design ideas to align with established patterns.

For example, using the activity log for acknowledgements was challenging because they required immediate visibility and action.

Solution

Differentiated notifications from the activity log, giving clients a dedicated place to see alerts that needed their attention while keeping the activity log for a full history of actions.

My File NYC / A client receives a notice