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Challenge

Our technology enterprise client is one of the world’s largest software companies. They work with education institutions and communities on an innovative education program. This program connects educators worldwide to advance technology for better learning and student outcomes. Lacking a reporting tool to help them see the big picture, the program faced challenges as it scaled across regions.

To join the program, educators must be nominated and reviewed. The original nomination process required field agents from each country to review each nominee’s application manually through redundant processes. Due to the large number of applications, this process was slow and time-consuming. It took multiple weeks to review and approve nominees. Further effort was required to identify nominations from statistically underrepresented groups. Field agents needed a way to check the qualifications of each applicant quickly, and to easily categorize them for further review or rejection.

The program’s leadership team lacked in-depth reporting and had limited overview on the success of the program. They were unaware of where their applicants were coming from, where to focus for improvements, and how to express the program’s value to peers.

Solution

Wimmer Solutions deployed a small project team to automate the existing nomination process. The team consisted of a technical project manager, a data engineer, and a dashboard specialist.

Wimmer Solutions built a scoring tool using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power Platform. This tool reviewed thousands of applications and scored them based on specific criteria. The model was then used by the field agent to determine qualified candidates who are aligned to the program requirements.

The information collected from each applicant was stored in a Microsoft Azure SQL database. Using this database, Wimmer Solutions successfully built various new Power BI reports for leadership and field agents globally. The leadership team was able to review the program’s overall health due to new insights, delivered through their own set of reporting suites.

In addition to enabling leadership insights, Wimmer Solutions created a reporting suite for the field agents. This report provided field agents several ways to quickly review each application and the program status.

Innovation & Impact

Wimmer Solutions focused on three main goals to guide solution development. First, the team reduced the workload on the client’s existing staff by automating the existing nomination process. Second, the team ensured that the automated process allowed the client to identify nominations from statistically underrepresented groups quickly. Third, the team designed reporting into its solution to enable the client to easily present program status, volume, and value to peers.

Our team’s experience and knowledge led to high-impact results for our client. The pivotal steps from the Wimmer Solutions team included the following:

• The technical project manager worked with client stakeholders to prioritize immediate project goals and then create a product backlog to help structure longer-term solution objectives. ​
• The development team evaluated different technologies, such as machine learning, to automate nomination scoring before implementing a custom algorithm to meet the client’s needs. ​
• The team built configurable workflows into the solution to ensure it would surface nominations from emergent countries underrepresented in the data.​
• The team’s dashboard specialist developed PowerBI dashboards that made it easy for reviewers to see all the pertinent aspects of a nomination under review. ​
• The team developed dashboards that allowed stakeholders to copy program metrics into Microsoft PowerPoint for internal presentations easily.​
• The team worked with stakeholders to create a process allowing staff members to ensure the database powering the reports complied with data governance requirements such as GDPR.​ 

Wimmer Solutions especially focused on adding value with automation to achieve the following outcomes:

• Automated Nomination Process: Wimmer Solutions streamlined the nomination process, automating the review and scoring of thousands of applications, reducing manual work and processing time.
• Improved Reporting for Leadership: Custom Power BI reports provided leadership with insights into program health, success, and areas for improvement.
• Increased Efficiency for Field Agents: Field agents gained tools for quickly reviewing applications, categorizing them for further action or rejection.
• Enhanced Applicant Experience: Automated communications were sent to non-qualifying applicants, improving their experience and providing a point-of-contact.