Transforming & Optimising Project Delivery for a leading UKSPF project
Who we worked with
Women Breaking Barriers, a UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) project focused on addressing economic inactivity through tailored education, training, and employment support for women in Northern Ireland.
How we helped
We partnered with Women Breaking Barriers to address their data and workflow challenges by focusing on smart technology choices and process optimisation.
Our Work Involved
Guiding the selection of a more suitable platform, aligned with learning and training program delivery.
Implementing automation in key workflows, such as data collection and transfer to reduce manual data handling.
Establishing improved data flow and centralisation methods to consolidate information from various sources.
Tailoring the solution to segregate data between delivery partners.
The Challenge - Navigating complexity in a multi-partner, outcomes-driven environment.
Our first step was to thoroughly assess their main challenges. Here's what we found:
No single source of truth:
Critical data was scattered across disconnected systems and manual spreadsheets at each of the 9 Delivery Partners, meaning it was difficult to get a clear view of a participant's journey.Current System Limitations:
The current system being used was not robust enough for unique participant tracking across the full programme lifecycle or complex government reporting.Lack of Real-time Oversight:
Relying on manually updated partner spreadsheets meant the project team lacked real-time access to validated participant data, hindering accuracy and oversight.Manual Data Manipulation & Reporting:
Compiling accurate government reports was a highly stressful, time-consuming process, involving manual collation of inconsistent data, which greatly increased the risk of errors.
Our Solution - Connecting systems and automating workflows for enhanced visibility and reporting.
We deliberately chose a system with robust existing functionality to ensure fast and cost-effective delivery.
We chose a privately hosted instance of Moodle, an open-source LMS, for its strong core features and the adaptability to be tailored with custom development and plugins for the project's unique learning and training requirements.
We integrated Google Workplace for efficient data collection and storage, with custom connections, automating the transfer of this data into Moodle.
This integration streamlined participant management workflows, enabling efficient status updates and automated email notifications upon reaching key milestones like course completion and end of programme.
Our custom solution included:
Custom Integrations
Customised integrations between Moodle & Google Forms, to transfer data submitted, updating the participants’ profile in Moodle.
Automated Workflows
Repetitive actions were automated, triggering automatically based on specific events, such as participant data being updated or transferred.
Centralised Data & Segregation :
All project data is now consolidated into a central location with built-in validation, segregated for each delivery partner.Real-time visibility:
Women Breaking Barriers have full visibility across all delivery partner data in real time.Participant Tracking
Enhanced capabilities for uniquely tracking participant journeys throughout the programme.
Enhanced Government Reporting
Enables accurate and streamlined reporting directly on government outcomes and outputs.
BDS Compliance
BDS-compliant tools are used, meeting the requirements for a government-funded initiative.
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Impact - Dramatic reduction in reporting burden, enhanced data accuracy, and improved programme oversight.
The implementation of the new platform, optimised and automated workflows delivered transformative results for the Women Breaking Barriers project, directly impacting their operational efficiency and reporting capabilities:
Government Reporting Transformed:
The process shifted from a dreaded, error-prone manual collation to a more streamlined, accurate, and faster procedure.Enhanced Data Integrity and Accessibility:
Centralising data from disparate sources and implementing validation rules drastically improved data consistency and accuracy.Improved Participant Tracking:
The ability to uniquely track a participant's full journey within the program lifecycle became feasible, providing invaluable insights into engagement and progression.Increased Operational Efficiency:
Automating manual tasks, such as data transfer and consolidation, freed up significant staff time.Empowered Partnership:
Establishing clearer data flow and reporting processes facilitated smoother collaboration with delivery centres.
Key Stats:
100% real-time visibility into participant progress across all centres
100% elimination of manual partner data submissions
100% decrease in data validation errors
93% reduction in time for government reporting
10+ hours per week saved on manual data handling for the central project team
8 business processes automated
