Supporting enterprising families.
Meaningful Outcomes
Easier and faster reporting increased credibility with funders
Streamlined team collaboration
300% reduction in processing time
Objective
Build a Stakeholder Management system that gives CIDANZ a holistic view of their families, while also facilitating internal users to streamline how they work.
Challenge
“What would usually take us a week to deliver - took us a matter of days.”
CIDANZ also known as Cook Islands Development Agency New Zealand, envisions a prosperous and united Cook Islands people.
With a very large Cook Islands population in the New Zealand, CIDANZ aims to create and facilitate opportunities for the Cook Islands people. They achieve that by supporting their people to start small enterprises and helping them to be self-determining through its Enterprising Families Team, led by Bianca Herman.
The most important part of the journey and the core challenge was to see a holistic view of the interactions they had with all of the people they served. This is a core value for the team called piri'anga, otherwise known as not only connection, but meaningful connection. They previously aimed to create this connection utilising their ICT system using Google Drive and Gmail which they found quite messy especially in terms of tracking changes and document versions. CIDANZ strongly desired to have an ICT that matches the process of the quality of service they deliver and holds them accountable not just to the families they are serving, but to their funders too.
Solution
CIDANZ started their journey with Magnetism to build a better ICT system for managing what they do. Sarah Coleman, a Functional Consultant at Magnetism engaged with their team not just to understand their requirements, but to know the agency’s purpose and value too. Through this, a prototype utilising Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform was built with their key areas included such as Community Connector service, e-family service, and the actual record for the people or community that they were supporting. Through a series of workshops, development iterations, internal testing and user acceptance testing, the CRM system called eke (aptly named after the ‘octopus’) was launched. Eke was chosen as the name as the octopus’ tentacles represented the CIDANZ services and programs, all reaching out into the community but with all the information coming back to one being. It was built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, a cloud-based platform that provides a comprehensive set of business applications for customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning.
The platform leverages Microsoft Power Apps, a low-code platform for building custom business applications, to provide CIDANZ with a custom solution that fits their specific needs. The solution also integrates with Microsoft Power Automate, a service that allows users to create automated workflows between their favorite apps and services to streamline processes. These technologies provide CIDANZ with a centralised system that captures information on people being supported and projects being worked on, and all information flows to one central point for easy access.
After the system went live, Magnetism’s ongoing support and wider team training with CIDANZ gave them the confidence to use the CRM system to its full potential.
Results
CIDANZ new CRM system enabled them to centralise the information of the people they are supporting and to have a clear view of their operations. This CRM system gave immediate access to CIDANZ staff based in different parts of New Zealand allowing them to work anytime, anywhere. Documents can now be shared and edited through SharePoint so team collaborations can be streamlined.
With eke, their reporting process was made easier which helped them establish more credibility to their funders. This was made evident with the new ease of complex data extraction, which would initially take over a week to complete, now taking a matter of days. And other reporting would take days to complete, were now available instantly.
“In Enterprising Families, we live and breathe eke [their CRM]. We are in that space everyday. We’ve record not just people’s information, but a record of the connection we’ve made with them.”
eke is ever evolving, so the inclusion of Power BI in the future will empower CIDANZ to have better insights into what impact they are creating for individuals, families, and communities they serve and make data-driven decisions that matter.
The combined expertise of Magnetism with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and Power Automate has helped CIDANZ achieve their goal of a centralised, efficient, and effective system for managing their ICT operations. The solution not only saves time and resources but also helps CIDANZ to better serve their community and achieve their vision of a prosperous and united Cook Islands people in New Zealand.
