The Program
A large public-sector department administers a grant program focusing on education and outreach efforts throughout the state to educate individuals on eligibility of tax credits. The Grantees and Subgrantees that conduct outreach work for this program must submit their initial work plan and monthly program reports to the department, which formerly was through Excel spreadsheets and email. The use of a highly manual submission process required a large amount of oversight, slowing the department’s ability to serve its constituents.
The Challenge
The department relied on a submission process that presented significant challenges:
- Highly manual
- Required high level of oversight by Grantees, Subgrantees, and the department
- Utilized disconnected systems for submissions and sending reports
The department needed a system that reduced manual effort of Grantees, Subgrantees, and the department staff, which incorporated automation, and system checks and balances to ensure only accurate data would be submitted.
Propoint’s Approach
Propoint supported the department with a full Salesforce system implementation, focusing on reducing the manual effort of staff and allowing Community Partners – Grantees, and Subgrantees, to submit work plans and program reports through a Salesforce portal instead of via email. Various types of work plans and program report data are submitted by Grantees and Subgrantees, and Propoint took this into account during solution design. The types of services and education and outreach data collected are:
Key Capabilities Delivered
The system provides a greater degree of oversight when data is submitted and allows both Grantees and the department staff to review, approve, and/or reject work plans or program data submitted through the external portal. The system also includes the following features to improve data quality automatically:
- Input validation at time of entry – When data is submitted, it is validated, and duplicate records are not accepted
- Built-in multi-level approval workflow – The system allows for manual approval by Grantees and department staff and has built-in data validation to ensure only accurate data is uploaded
- Automatic notifications and emails – Grantees, Subgrantees and the department staff receive notifications on data submitted, as well as the status of approval or rejection of that data
- Reports and dashboards – Reports and dashboards are accessible to the department staff and executives, that can then be shared with the State Tax Board.
Business Impact
The department and the tax credit community outreach program saw important business benefits through Propoint’s automated Salesforce solution. Reporting against projection datasets became easier due to increased data validation and approval workflows implemented in the system. The department staff have increased confidence in the data being shared and executives are now able to review dashboards and reports.
Why It Matters
A streamlined and automated system has allowed Grantees and Subgrantees to confidently and efficiently continue their outreach efforts supporting Californians to take advantage of the program.
About Propoint Technology, Inc.
Propoint is proud to deliver a full suite of information technology (IT) and management consulting services to a wide array of State of California departments and programs. Propoint also stands out in being awarded several sought-after vendor pool contracts, including two CA Multiple Award Schedules (CMAS IT and non-IT), the CA TDDC Master Services Agreement (TDDC MSA, Tier 4), and vendor pools at various state Departments.
