REAL Solutions for Reducing the Paper-Shuffling on Projects
We’ve been promised since the 1980’s that businesses would eliminate paper-based sources of recording and sharing information. While massive progress has been made on this front, a failure mode we still see in nearly every company we encounter is: A paper form or document was replaced by a digital version, but that’s as far as it went. The data and the insights are still siloed and not leveraged to benefit customers or the business.
Several key problems stem from this:
Someone, somewhere else on the team (or worse, the customer’s team) will be re-entering or re-sharing this data once again
Team members who need the data might not know it exists, where it is, how to get at it, or they find it too late to use it properly
The customer experience gets muddled - from their point of view it doesn’t look like the team is on the same page or they get little reward for using a digital tool and then find ways around it
There are plenty of great tools for data collection on the market: Typeform, Jotform, embedded forms on a web page, and even Smartsheet. Don’t misunderstand - these tools can be very valuable for the right use case - but they are rarely a complete solution for data handling. The reason why? They are largely a one-way transfer of specific information and need plenty of extra integration to do much more than send a confirmation email saying, “Thanks for filling out the form.”
Why we use the Power Platform
We’ve become big fans of Microsoft’s Power Platform for doing far more than a form-building app can do, for several key reasons:
The platform handles the bulk of the security, database, authentication, and integration infrastructure for us, so we can more quickly resolve customer problems than spend time building
The entire platform is dozens of highly-linked tools, which play well with the email/calendar, Word, Excel, and PDF apps most customers are already using
It is highly extendable, so we can build on specialized, customer-desired functionality as needed
As part of Microsoft’s overall trajectory of technology investment, the platform is outfitted with impressive additional tools such as AI copilots
But you came here for solutions
So, let’s talk about a few problems we’ve solved using the platform, particularly by integrating it with other tools to make the data-sharing come to life and eliminate barriers
solution 1 - Make crm and erp talk to one another
One customer uses HubSpot, a very capable CRM package, and an industry-specific ERP package as key parts of their overall sales, marketing, and operations functions. While HubSpot offers ways to share its data with some other apps, this customer’s ERP was not on the list. As a result, they were doubly entering information and getting the problems you would expect: misspellings, forgotten records, and taking up team members’ time doing the same thing twice.
We leveraged webhook technology and Power Automate to sync key records. As frequently happens, the data structure between the two systems was very different, but we could manipulate the records to fulfill the needs of each system. Now, it doesn’t matter if Sales or Operations is gathering the info for a new customer - everyone on the team sees the same version of the information.
solution 2 - growing firm needed everyone on the same page
We’ve all done a project or two using only an Excel spreadsheet, but this customer’s business was growing rapidly beyond that. They have a distributed team and multiple projects on the go at the same time, with a need for adaptable checklists and document generation built into the solution. While an app like Asana or Monday is great for sharing a task list with distributed team members, this customer was quickly headed toward specialized functionality that required a custom solution.
To deliver on the growing levels of functionality this customer desired, we built a complete solution with a Power App at its center. The app adapts to the different flavors and processes associated with different projects coming in. Customized alerts go to Teams when a project hits a key milestone, so everyone knows the instant it happens. Necessary documents are generated on-demand using the platform’s Microsoft Word connector and then made readily available for the team on SharePoint. Customer meetings are arranged through Calendly, which communicates appointment info and changes back to the team. Finally, when a team member needs to send an email, a draft is pre-generated with branded key info so they can send it from Outlook with a couple of clicks, saving precious time. The result: a team working together on projects like never before and accomplishing more than they thought possible.
solution 3: connecting the field and the office
One of the most frustrating factors of working on remote sites in the field is the extra effort required to communicate information back to the office where others need it. Field workers end up spending precious field time on phone calls and sending emails with attachments, rather than doing the things that they need to get done out there.
One customer was struggling with keeping their quality program functioning and responsive to the dynamic field environment of the large project they were working on. Spreadsheets were going missing, searching through forms was a time-wasting hole, and quality problems were not getting the instant attention that they deserved.
A tablet-based Power App made a huge difference for this customer. Now, quality inspectors have a daily “to-do” list of inspections and tests for the day, complete with the applicable checklist for each. Through a relational database, the inspection could be linked to the applicable task, project requirement, specification, and (if required) non-conformance or issues log item. They collect pictures and signatures too when required. The results are transmitted instantly by the inspector in the field, and if an item meets certain criteria and needs attention then alerts are driven off that event. The inspection result submission triggers the generation of PDF reports and handover documentation, making the project closeout process substantially easier. Oh, and it saved bogging down their team with collecting and organizing all this information - they could focus on more important things.