Streamlining Award Management for Higher Education with Microsoft 365

At Vorsite, we pride ourselves on delivering modern SharePoint and Microsoft 365 services tailored to meet the unique needs of our clients. Recently, we had the privilege of partnering with a top-rated research university to automate their chemistry department's award management processes. This case study highlights the journey.

Background

The finance team for the chemistry department was looking for a system that would enable them to consistently track the financial lifecycle of award grants (data, documents, and assignments) while providing the desired level of transparency to their principal investigators. They assessed whether SharePoint and other Microsoft connected services (Lists, Pages, Power Automate Flows, Forms, etc.) could be used to centralize their financial processes and consolidate the team's various workflows. Vorsite worked with the group to map their business process and system requirements into a cohesive solution built on Microsoft 365. Through SharePoint, they hoped to streamline their processes, enhance collaboration between faculty and staff, and improve data management overall.

Objectives

The project’s primary goals were:

• Create a centralized, transparent, and scalable location for faculty, graduate students, and department members to:
• • Communicate key information
  • Share and manage files
  • Securely track tasks related to award management and notify principal investigators and staff members of key dates.
• Enable the group to securely store, easily find, and efficiently manage work files.
• Encourage ad-hoc collaboration and reduce duplication of effort.

Challenges

The project faced several hurdles, including the lack of a centralized system to track award management processes, notify staff and faculty, and manage relevant documents. The pre-award and post-award teams stored their data in disparate systems, leading to inefficiencies and reliance on tribal knowledge. Additionally, there was no agreed-upon governance policy for folder structures, tagging, file naming schema, or version control.

Implementation

The project involved several key steps:

• Assessment and Planning: Conducting a thorough assessment of existing systems and identifying the finance team's specific needs.
• Development: Developing modern SharePoint sites with enhanced functionality, including improved navigation, modern design, and a better user experience.
• Improving the Award Management Process: Implementing a structured award management process to track the progress of individual awards, automatically create files affiliated with each progress point, and provide automated notifications for upcoming or overdue tasks.
• Collaboration: Regularly meeting with various stakeholders to ensure the new system meets their unique needs and aligns with their vision.
• Training and Support: Providing comprehensive training sessions, documentation, and ongoing support to ensure all users are comfortable with SharePoint and can utilize its features effectively.

More Info

The technical implementation of the project included:

• Modern Site Structure: Standardized site types to meet file management and collaboration needs between the staff members and the PIs.
• Site and Content Taxonomy: Developing a taxonomy for use across SharePoint resources, lists, and libraries. Specifically for tagging documents to surface key files, lists, forms, and statuses to ensure consistent and efficient data management.
• Automated Notifications: Setting up automated notifications for upcoming tasks, overdue tasks, and periodic reminders based on due dates.
• File Structure Automation: Automatically creating and placing files within each award's associated file structure, ensuring all related documents are organized and easily accessible.
• Enhanced Security Measures: Implementing role-based access controls to ensure only authorized personnel can access the information needed.

Results

The project successfully addressed the initial challenges and achieved its objectives. The modern SharePoint sites solution provided a consolidated location for securely managing financial data, provided a platform for collaboration and a consistent award management process, and enabled transparency of the group's hard work to the PIs throughout the entire award lifecycle.

Conclusion

This case study is an example of how Microsoft 365 can drive digital transformation within an organization and centralize disparate applications under a product family. By addressing the specific needs of the chemistry finance group and leveraging modern technology, this custom SharePoint application delivered tangible benefits and set the stage for ongoing success.