Optimum standardizes, simplifies, and automates a State Agriculture Agency’s Contract Management and Renewal Forms and Workflows, enabling greater efficiency and improved visibility of measurable KPI’s.
About the Client
Client is a diversified state agency that provides value-added services through regulatory and marketing and initiatives. The agency’s key objectives are to promote production agriculture, consumer protection, economic development and healthy living.
Business Challenge and Project Background
Prior to Optimum’s involvement, the Agency’s different teams and departments used Microsoft’s Outlook to organize and coordinate their contract submission and renewal forms and workflows. The Agency had an informal process where external clients were asked to fill out paperwork and submit via email. The forms underwent extensive back and forth communication due to errors, corrections, and approvals. Not only had this become overwhelmingly time consuming, but there was a lack of consistency making it difficult to track, manage, and report on external submissions. This created a challenge when it came to submission management and status updates on external submissions and did not allow for measurable KPI’s. The Agency needed to align on the current state, define standard processes and procedures, and a way to automate and report on their processes.
Optimum’s Involvement
Optimum began the engagement by leading the Agency’s team through a series of in-depth scoping definition and process mapping workshops, to understand the current state and then fully define and document the requirements and user stories of a new holistic and robust automated solution. Optimum then began development in a series of sprints, meeting regularly with the Agency’s teams for input and feedback. We utilized the core functionality of the Smartsheet platform, to design and develop an integrated and modern automation solution providing a public facing landing page with 3 sub options for external form submission. The sub options on the new public facing page allowed the submission and renewal of contracts to be routed based on the following: “New Submission”, “Renewal Option 1” and “Renewal Option 2”. Our team designed and implemented three core Smartsheet buildouts; one for the New Contract/Rebid RFP, one for the Renewal: Cost Reimbursable and one for the Renewal: Fixed Rate. Each buildout contained a list of PDF’s and Word Documents that external users could download, fill out and submit using Smartsheet’s native integration with DocuSign. Once submitted each form and/or document was routed internally to an appropriate Agency staff member. Allowing a clear and structured workflow that could be tracked and measured. By utilizing Smartsheet’s core and Document Generation capabilities (using DocuSign integration) we were able to organize, streamline and automate the Agency’s workflow surrounding the external submissions process providing internal Agency staff clear, consistent, and formatted submissions. We utilized Smartsheet’s “Request for update” automation to allow internal Agency staff to communicate both internally and externally along the submission workflow, completely alleviating the need for Microsoft Outlook as a resource in the submissions process. We also developed a portfolio dashboard for each sub option providing insight and measurability for workflow management. This allowed internal Agency management the opportunity to effectively assess and manage the workload of internal staff. Something Agency management had not had prior to the Smartsheet implementation.
Project Outcomes
Optimum successfully completed Agency’s business requirements and objectives of the project, fully meeting the Agency’s process optimization and work automation goals and timelines. The outcome of this project was a scalable core Smartsheet-based solution that allowed the Agency’s external parties the ability and simplicity of online form submission. Using the “Document Generation” functionality enabled the ability to manage internal staff workload more effectively and efficiently. The Client was most excited about the Smartsheet dashboards that were developed as part of this engagement, as visibility of their key performance indicators was critical to the management of the Agency staff workload. We worked closely with the Agency to understand, document, and calculate their KPIs, and then had multiple meetings to work with them on the dashboard interface and user experience. This new reporting structure allowed their leadership team to easily get the information they needed to understand the departmental goals and measure the departmental performance.
About Optimum
Optimum is a national Software Consulting firm, and a Smartsheet Platinum Partner, helping organizations accelerate efficiency and solve business challenges. We deliver robust software solutions and amazing client experiences! As a Platinum, Certified Smartsheet Partner, our consultants define, automate, and optimize processes and implement advanced Smartsheet solutions to help clients achieve work efficiency and productivity. From development of customized templates and advanced dashboards and workflows to the full implementation and support of Smartsheet Control Center and other accelerators, our team helps clients maximize their ROI in Smartsheet and increase user adoption and productivity of their teams. Contact us for a free discovery session to identify and discuss the best solution option for your work automation and project management needs.
More information: Smartsheet Consulting Services
Contact us: info@optimumcs.com | (713) 505 0300