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Time Tracking Insights Tool

Professional Development Opportunities Insights Tool

Communication Between Systems

A new and improved process for managing student admissions to program

The organization was using a platform made for time-tracking, but it did not have available the kinds of reports within the system to cover all their needs to see information and make insights. They were particularly interested in understanding how different categories of staff members were using Paid Time Off and if it was being utilized equitably across the categories. There was also a need to see how newly enacted COVID-related PTO opportunities were being used by staff.

Process: We collaborated to create a tool in Google Sheets (client preference) which has a few sheets that contain the raw data either from other systems (via copy & paste) or manually entered once and updated rarely. It has a few sheets that transform and rearrange the data into formats we can use for the final and most used/important sheet - where we display the results in a dashboard designed together with the client. They can see all different types of breakdown of staff member categories that were important to them, calculations that give them insights into the how equitable the use of Paid Time Off was across the different staff categories, and we tell a story with our data at the top of each of our graphs that draws on the data from the calculations and does not need to be manually updated (though we do revisit it in conversation often to make sure it is serving us with the right information for helping us make data-driven decisions). 

Results: 

• The client has been using the data from these sheets in several different ways, but most impactfully to have conversations about how to make use of Paid Time Off as equitable as possible. 

• They were also able to review how COVID-related PTO opportunities were being utilized and used this to inform decisions on the structure of those opportunities going forward. 

• We continue to collaborate on making improvements and enhancements as new needs arise and when we think of cool new things we want it to do for us. 

• The client also found through the review of the data that staff members were sometimes or oftentimes not coding their Paid Time Off correctly, and was able to manage to that issue with team members and help improve accuracy of the information being entered.

The client need was to track and analyze how Professional Development funds were being utilized by staff. Operationally the client wants to keep an eye on the Professional Development budgets, as well as wanting to compare numbers across key categories of staff members (such as gender identity and race identity). One additional need was for one team member to have access to all of the information across all teams, but for individual team leaders and staff members to be able to access the information about their team. 

Process: The client had a basic tracker in a Google Sheet already that was also serving as a kind of “checklist” for the main staff member managing the Professional Development funds to keep track of their tasks around categorizing and reviewing accuracy of information that was being gathered through a Google Form. We collaborated to update the Google Form to collect data in a way that would better serve our needs for information and insights and we created a tool in Google Sheets that automatically brings in the data from the Google Form. The tool also is where the main staff member managing the Professional Development funds can categorize and review all responses to the form and keep track of her own work processes around Professional Development funds. This staff member also has tabs in the sheet to summarize data for all teams in one place, while the individual team leaders view only the information for their own team (in individual Google Sheets that are all formatted consistently and are only for viewing - the data is all managed in the central Sheet). We also put together a pretty nice cover page with images, instructions, and explanations for the individual teams accessing their own information. 

Results: 

• The client is able to track the use of Professional Development Funds across teams and different categorizations of staff members, both to manage budgets and to review how equitably funds are being utilized across different categories of staff members. 

• After review of the information after the first few months of use, the client was able to make decisions about how to change the distribution of Professional Development Funds to create better opportunities for staff to use these funds.

The client need was to track, manage, and analyze the schedules of 20+ trainers who present hundreds of trainings throughout a single year, as well as view key metrics for each trainer and aggregated as a whole. 

Process: The client was using a complex Google Sheet for about a year already when I came to the work, and it was a well-regarded tool on staff already, even if there were some things it left to be desired. In fact, it also created some additional work because similar data was being recorded in Salesforce and another vendor system, and the client had a need to reconcile the information across those systems. Over the course of managing this tool for the client for more than a year, we enhanced the structure of the sheet to ease data entry, to require fewer manual updates throughout the year, and to adapt through a drastic change to reporting timeframes based on responses to how COVID impacted the work at the organization. Most recently we went through a really fun process of developing, testing, and rolling out two major enhancements that were the number one priorities for the end users and for the Data team at the organization:

1. The number one priority for the training team (end users of the Google Sheet) was for it to sync up with Google Calendar. They were currently manually changing calendar events based on changes to the Google Sheet. It was very difficult and time-consuming to keep these systems synced, and not all data was being synced to due time and capacity limitations. I made a few behind-the-scenes updates in the sheet and the minimal amount of changes to how users were currently updating the sheet, and used Zapier to control the processes that automatically create and update Google Calendar events based on what is entered in the Google Sheet. The end user has control over when the updates are made, and the updates sync within 2 minutes. 

2. The number one priority for the data team was to spend less time and have more accuracy when reconciling data across systems, including the Google Sheet. We set up a Zapier process that can search Salesforce for the ID of training records created in that system and attempt to match them to rows in the Google Sheet containing the same information. The Salesforce ID is then added to the Google Sheet row.

Results: 

We have just begun to see the results of these enhancements, but so far we are starting to realize time and capacity savings from this work. 

• The team is able to put more events on the calendar than they had previously had capacity to do. 

• We’ve built excitement about improving this tool - staff members have expressed more trust and belief in the Data/Tech team’s ability to respond to user needs and requests in big ways. This is particularly important for the long-term goals we have of cutting the Google Sheet out of the process completely and just using Salesforce to power this work, and possibly invest in a platform built for scheduling needs.

The client need was to update, modernize, and add automation to the Admissions process for the client’s programming from beginning to end. Prior years saw the team scanning paper documents, searching for information in many different places, missing applications that were lost in inboxes or never made it through to inboxes at all, disparate processes for the application, recommendation, and interview part of the admissions journey, and general confusion and frustration at how much time was needed for just organizing and finding information about student applications. Additionally, the main team member who has been managing the Admissions process has felt that they had little time to review and make improvements to the strategy and approaches for the Admissions process (instead spending all their time on managing the operational tasks needed to keep the process running). And all of this in the middle of everything changing with the pandemic. 

Process: This has been a long-running project that was created in steps that built upon each other. Our major pieces of work on this project have been:

1. Going through requirements gathering, a vendor search, and investing in a 3rd-party form-building platform. 

2. Building the application in the new platform, mapping and creating the integrations to Salesforce, embedding the application on the client’s website, and launching the application to students in just about 3 months (in English and Spanish).

3. Post-launch, we developed separate parts of the application process to use the 3rd-party platform and integrate with Salesforce, including:

   1. Gathering recommendations for students in multiple ways, including automated email actions to recommenders named by students and providing students with messaging and links to send to recommenders they did not initially name in the application.

   2. Providing staff and volunteers with an easy-to-use Interview form to facilitate the student interview process.

4. Salesforce development to best bring in and display data back to staff members. This included custom object development, updates to existing objects, processes to automate actions in Salesforce based on updates to Admissions information, and creating reports & dashboards.

Results: The Admissions process has been completely revolutionized. The feedback from team members involved has been extremely positive. The client has expressed the relief of having information all in one place, linked to other information about their students (in Salesforce). There were very few hiccups/errors to address throughout the process and we actually had fun doing this work together. The team working most closely on this project has been able to shift the way they are spending their time away from wrangling data & information to using that data & information to develop insights and for data-driven decision making. This one has been a huge success.