How Abingdon & Witney College saved time and money with process automation

Niamh Lordan00:00

Hello and welcome to our webinar, How Abingdon & Witney College Saved Time and Money With Process Automation. I'm Niamh Lordan from FlowForma, your host for this webinar. Please note it's being recorded. Your lines will be muted, but you can use the Q&A function to ask questions, which we'll answer at the end, and afterwards we'll share a copy of the recording with all registrants.

Niamh Lordan00:50

Knowing that our audience loves to hear real-world customer insights, I'm delighted to be joined by two FlowForma customers: Lucy Wheatcroft, business analyst, and Mark Lay, finance director, both from Abingdon & Witney College. Mark and Lucy, thank you for joining us today.

Mark Lay01:11

Thank you. It's nice to be here.

Niamh Lordan01:16

I'm also joined by Shay O'Connor, head of solutions here at FlowForma. The highlight of today is a live interview with Abingdon & Witney College, followed by a short demonstration of FlowForma, and then a Q&A with your questions. Over to you, Shay.

Shay O'Connor01:43

Thanks, Niamh. We're delighted to have Lucy and Mark here for this case study spotlight. It's exciting from our point of view, because they've become really innovative in how they bring efficiency to their college. It was Mark's brainchild when we talked a few years ago, and with Lucy's help they've brought processes live. We want to hear how they got up and running, and the impact.

Shay O'Connor02:45

To kick off, can you tell us about Abingdon & Witney College and your roles there?

Mark Lay02:57

Abingdon & Witney College is a further education college in Oxfordshire, England. Each year we train about 14,000 full-time and part-time students, on a variety of accredited and non-accredited courses. We have about 700 full-time and part-time staff across three campuses and three satellite centers around Oxfordshire.

Mark Lay03:30

I'm part of a five-member senior management team, with oversight of finance, IT, estates and procurement. I joined the college coming up to five years ago; it was my first role in education, and one of my key roles is improving internal processes.

Lucy Wheatcroft03:51

I'm Lucy, the college's business analyst. I've worked at the college for about four years, and in this role for about two and a half. Before that I worked in the central administration team, so I had a good understanding of all the college's internal processes.

Shay O'Connor04:10

From our point of view, having a sponsor in the organization like Mark, and an implementer like Lucy who gets to know the nuts and bolts, is a perfect setup.

Shay O'Connor04:57

What were the pain points that made you look for a process automation tool?

Mark Lay05:04

Coming from commerce and industry, I was used to one ERP system managing the processes in an organization. When I joined the college, I realized we had various standalone systems for student management, finance, HR and payroll, and none of them talked to each other. And because of the nature of education, we had a lot of processes, like health and safety management and risk assessments, completely outside those systems.

Lucy Wheatcroft05:40

We also had lots of paper-based processes. Forms would get lost or misplaced being transported between sites, and passed back and forward if there were errors or missing information. On paper it was really hard to keep track of where a request had got to, and who was responsible for passing it on or holding it up. And we couldn't report accurately on these processes, or produce much data about them at all.

Shay O'Connor06:27

You're covering the core areas for any organization considering digitizing. You have core systems, and to fill the gaps between them you usually fall back on manual forms. Having FlowForma fill those gaps and give you data integrity is a big change in the way of operating.

Mark Lay07:37

Very much so. In the old world of paper-based processing, you have lots of administrators keying information into spreadsheets, which are passed on so someone else can try to turn that data into information. If you're not careful, you breed a culture of not right first time: an acceptance that the form is probably filled out wrong, because someone was in a hurry signing it and passing it on. Digitizing takes a lot of that away.

Shay O'Connor08:20

Many organizations concentrate on the workflow, but nobody focuses on the information being passed. If you don't focus on its integrity, you get forms going back and forth, because it's difficult to validate manual forms.

Shay O'Connor09:14

What were your requirements when you looked for an automation tool?

Mark Lay09:31

Some of what we process I'd never seen in any other business, so I'd never seen a system that could cope with everything we wanted. And anyone listening who works in further education will know we've had quite a few funding cuts. Even if an SAP version of what we needed was out there, I wasn't in a position to buy it.

Mark Lay10:11

I joined in 2015, and in 2016 we realized there was work to be done. I cajoled 20 of our business support staff into taking an NVQ in business improvement techniques, which took about six months. As well as learning to be leaner and more efficient, we found that a lot of our cross-college processes were broken and hard to follow, and needed re-engineering, not just a fix. Spending a couple of hours a week as a group, we weren't going to fix them all, so in early 2017 I was given the OK to appoint Lucy as business analyst to lead the initiative.

Mark Lay11:14

The college uses Office 365 as its main platform, so it was really important that the product worked with Office, not just technically, but to keep things familiar for staff and students.

Lucy Wheatcroft11:30

The last thing we wanted was to introduce another piece of software for staff. Low code was also a requirement, as we wanted a solution that would be quick to implement with the resources we had.

Shay O'Connor11:52

You hear that time equals money, but there's another side to it. You were trying to get more from your current workforce, and you can't output more unless you become more efficient.

Mark Lay12:20

Completely. Our task was to automate processes so staff could do more analytical work, rather than pushing bits of paper around.

Shay O'Connor12:40

And because FlowForma sits on top of your existing Office 365 environment, you didn't have to worry about installs.

Lucy Wheatcroft13:03

Yes, it was really easy for us to get up and running quickly.

Shay O'Connor13:12

How confident are you, as a business analyst, getting stuck into the product without code?

Lucy Wheatcroft13:30

Really confident. A colleague in our IT services team helps me build processes, but I can still build them myself. I don't rely on somebody with technical knowledge.

Shay O'Connor13:47

Many organizations haven't had exposure to platforms that don't require coding. It's refreshing, especially when you want to change a process that's been running for six months, not to have to sift through code.

Mark Lay14:19

A key part of Lucy's role is the design stage: really understanding the process we're trying to create, getting buy-in from the business that we've mapped the right process, and taking out the non-value steps, so we only create what the business really needs.

Shay O'Connor14:49

Having an analyst who knows the best way a process should work makes it a lot easier to implement changes or new processes.

Mark Lay15:09

And because Lucy came into the role from central administration, she really understood how the college works. Someone from outside would have taken a lot longer to get up to speed.

Shay O'Connor15:30

Can you tell us about some of the processes you've automated?

Mark Lay15:55

One of the biggest challenges at the start was deciding which ones to attack, because there were so many. The group that took the business improvement NVQ had a great big list. So we looked at which processes had the highest volumes, and would make the biggest difference once automated. Some were horrible paper processes, but if you're only transacting one or two a month, you can park them and concentrate on the bigger ones.

Mark Lay16:38

Because it was all new to us, we started with what we thought were relatively easy processes, without complicated approval flows. The first ones were in health and safety, where someone fills in a form and sends it to the health and safety team. From there we moved on to accident reporting and risk assessments, which were quite similar.

Lucy Wheatcroft17:13

We didn't want to just recreate our existing paper forms. We used the implementation of FlowForma as an opportunity to evaluate all our processes. I worked with process owners to streamline each process as much as possible and improve data flows, so we'd idealized the process before we started building it.

Lucy Wheatcroft17:42

As we go live with each new process, we communicate the change to the business and train key users. Then we hold project reviews to make sure the process meets business needs, and we continually review what we've got out there.

Shay O'Connor18:03

The analysts will tell you that processes are fluid. A process that works one way this year may need to change as people use it, so having a business analyst who reviews them regularly makes for an even more efficient process.

Mark Lay18:45

Definitely. And in education, a lot of our curriculum staff aren't particularly process-driven, so they don't fully understand how the back-office functions operate. I'd be lying if I said we got every process spot-on first time. There's always some tinkering after go-live, when someone pops up and says they need to be involved, and you adapt the flow.

Shay O'Connor19:21

Would you say education on the process itself was a nice by-product? People who used to just submit a form now know it has five steps and goes to different people for sign-off.

Lucy Wheatcroft19:58

Absolutely. It's really helped get our staff on board and understand what actually happens with the information they fill in. It helps with relationships between departments as well.

Shay O'Connor20:16

I was really knocked out by some of your implementations, like the trips and visits process. From a simple form, you present all that information to users and business owners. Can you talk us through it?

Lucy Wheatcroft20:46

We connected our FlowForma output to Power BI and built dashboards around it. Management can see the total number of trips, whether short, long or overseas, broken down by department. And there's a live calendar, so managers can see which students and staff are away on any given day.

Shay O'Connor21:22

Mark, you said that if something happens somewhere in the world, you used to have to look up forms and ask people whether any students were there. Now you can just check.

Mark Lay21:45

Exactly. Luckily we haven't had any issues with students on trips, but there's always the risk. In the old days, I'd probably first hear about it from a parent phoning up, or from social media. Now, if we hear anything is happening, I can straight away check Power BI. Pretty much every staff member can access those dashboards, so it makes everything much more real-time.

Mark Lay22:26

Of all the flows we've done, trips and visits was easily the most complicated, because there's such a raft of different authorizations. Sitting in my glass house, all I see is some pretty graphs at the end, but a lot of work went into it.

Lucy Wheatcroft23:19

It does take a lot of hard work to make something look straightforward, but it's absolutely worth it. All of the staff have really good buy-in, and they see the benefit. It's been really rewarding to get it this far.

Shay O'Connor23:39

Another process you've implemented is the student update form. Can you tell us what it does?

Mark Lay23:56

When a student enrolls, they're signed up to a course and learning aims, and their personal details are recorded. During the year that changes: they move house or change their mobile number, or they change course. In the old days, lots of bits of paper flew into our student management team with changes to make on the system. This takes that away, and it's taken away a lot of problems we had in the past.

Lucy Wheatcroft24:53

There's a lot of validation in the form, so the information is accurate before it goes to the next step. Student data is pre-populated for staff: they just enter the student ID number and it fills in the rest. The authorization flow is known and visible to everyone, so forms don't get lost, the process is far quicker and more accurate, and we have a better audit trail to support compliance.

Shay O'Connor26:46

You've also got dynamic features, where steps only kick in under certain criteria, so people aren't bombarded with information.

Lucy Wheatcroft27:04

Yes, we have a couple of hidden steps. If a student's English or maths aim changes, the head of English and maths also has to approve it. It keeps the form as simple as possible, with the flexibility to respond to the answers given.

Shay O'Connor27:41

What results have you seen from the processes you've automated so far?

Mark Lay28:17

The slide is pretty self-evident: it shows the hours we've saved in these processes. As finance director, reducing costs and improving efficiency is key to my role, but the quality of the data and information we're now getting out of these processes is just as important. If you add it up, we've saved over 5,000 hours.

Mark Lay28:43

A lot of that is bits of different people's roles, like managers approving things quicker, so it isn't that I've taken 5,000 hours out of the business. There have been reductions in business support staffing in some areas because of this, but the clever thing is turning that time into doing more value-added work instead.

Shay O'Connor29:13

Some organizations measure a return on investment in money, and some in a percentage efficiency gain. To actually measure the benefit per process gives real tangibility. And it shows that not every process has the same impact.

Mark Lay31:22

For something like risk assessments, the health and safety team is very small, so that saving makes a big difference to them. Trips and visits touches so many departments that it may only be a few hundred hours in each, but across the whole college it adds up. Lucy has completely revolutionized the way health and safety administer the whole process.

Shay O'Connor32:05

Our last question, as a summary: why FlowForma, and why is it a fit for education?

Mark Lay32:24

Further education isn't in a great place financially at the moment; funding is very tight. So we had to find a low-cost solution. And a lot of our processes don't fit normal business processes, so there's no off-the-shelf package we could just plug in. Even if I could afford it, it probably doesn't exist.

Mark Lay33:47

The no-code element means we can do it ourselves, which comes back to cost as well. I can't afford to employ expensive architects, so being able to do this pretty much with our existing staff is fantastic.

Lucy Wheatcroft34:07

And as you said earlier, things change over time. The business is continually developing, and we need to amend those flows, so being able to do that easily is really important.

Shay O'Connor35:13

Thanks a million for giving us your time, knowledge and experiences. Please stay on, as people have already submitted questions.

Shay O'Connor35:53

For anyone not familiar with FlowForma, I'll show you how easy it is to amend an existing process. This is a trial environment with templates, and I'll open a simple purchase requisition. There's a header area for information like dates and reference numbers, and across the top are the steps. As Lucy said about educating people, you can see this process potentially has seven steps, which change depending on criteria.

Shay O'Connor37:15

Within each step are the questions. They can pull in information from other databases, and here a repeating table calculates a total. When I submit, the step goes to the next person in the process. Behind the scenes, the system knows from the amount that this only needs level one approval, and it has generated a document automatically, attached to the process, which could also be emailed or filed. You should never have to enter information more than once.

Shay O'Connor38:54

Now I'll show you how easy it is to amend this. Lucy isn't a programmer, and the people building processes shouldn't need to be. In the Flow Designer you have everything in one place: forms, workflow and document generation. The steps are on the left, and the rules applied to the process are on the right. The workflow graphic is generated automatically, so you can document a process as you create it.

Shay O'Connor40:43

I'll add a new step and move it to the top. Every component in FlowForma is reusable. Then I add questions, which you can think of as fields. There's a whole suite of question types, including signatures, voting and location services. I'll add the current user, a required yes-or-no question, and a required wet signature, which I'll hide for now, because screens should only show what people need to see.

Shay O'Connor43:26

Then a simple rule, which is where no code kicks in. There are rules for everything you need in a workflow: movement, rights, communications, escalations. Each rule has a description, a condition and an action. If the answer to proceed equals yes, show the signature. It takes moments, and when I run the process again, the new step is there: it won't let me proceed without an answer, and when I say yes, it asks me to sign.

Shay O'Connor46:14

I could also add an electronic signature that re-validates the user's credentials for compliance. And there are built-in functions at the bottom of the screen, like delegating to someone else, or passing the request back with comments if I'm not happy. Every form gets a consistent layout automatically, so users have a familiar structure each time a new process goes live.

Shay O'Connor47:57

To recap why FlowForma makes a difference: no code; you already have the infrastructure in Office 365, because it's an app that sits on top; and rapid time to value, turning processes around faster and more cost-effectively. We have over 120 customers worldwide, from New Zealand to the west coast of the US, and it's great to see somebody in education like Abingdon & Witney embrace this.

Niamh Lordan49:29

We have a few minutes left for questions. Mark and Lucy, Becky asks: how do you get your staff and students to complete the trips and visits forms?

Lucy Wheatcroft49:56

The forms all sit on our SharePoint platform, which staff and students use for everyday work, so we made them as easy and recognizable as possible. There are validation rules, and some time rules: if they don't complete the form by a certain time, it can't progress, and staff are very aware of that. It took some encouraging to start with, but through training, drop-in sessions and tutorials, we got really good buy-in.

Niamh Lordan50:51

Simon asks: how did you go about prioritizing processes for automation?

Mark Lay51:10

Look at which ones make the biggest difference to your organization: the paper-based processes used most across the college. Pick a couple of relatively easy ones to start with and get the hang of it. Choosing ones a lot of staff use also gets buy-in, so when you bring in a process like trips, which has deadlines, you're halfway to getting people on board, because they've seen it gives a better outcome.

Niamh Lordan52:03

Shay, Cameron asks: can suppliers or customers input to some of these processes?

Shay O'Connor52:17

That comes up more and more. Yes, with FlowForma Engage you can include external third parties in a process. They don't become part of your tenancy: the external environment resides in Microsoft Azure, so everything remains secure. Third parties can kick off a process, or you can include them in your own internal process.

Niamh Lordan53:20

Michael asks: how did you train key users, and was it quick?

Lucy Wheatcroft53:33

We had quite a few methods, because of the different departments and making sure teachers had time for training. There's written documentation on SharePoint, tutorial videos with voiceover on how to complete the process, and drop-in sessions for a few weeks after go-live. Having those options meant people could attend when they could, rather than making it compulsory.

Mark Lay54:30

One key point for me is that Lucy has been fantastic at being available to the business. You can't go live with a form and not be available when people have issues. Lucy gets out and about and sees a lot of staff, so we identify any problems really early on.

Niamh Lordan54:55

We're nearly at the end of our hour. Thank you all for attending. If you'd like to discuss any of today's challenges, contact us at info@flowforma.com, or book a one-to-one demo with one of our process experts on our website. A short survey will pop up at the end, and I'd really appreciate a minute of your time on it. A special thanks to Lucy and Mark for sharing their journey and the results they've achieved.