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Thirteen Group - Microsoft SharePoint and Power Automate

 

Customer Sharepoint environment and automated workflows using Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

|   THE CLIENT

Thirteen Group

 
Thirteen Group is a landlord and housing developer that provide homes for rent and sale. They manage 34,000 properties for more than 70,000 customers across Teesside, North Yorkshire, County Durham, and Tyne and Wear.  

We are thrilled to have been Thirteen's chosen technology partner for several digital transformation projects over the years, helping them find more efficient, modern and less expensive ways of working.

"Working with boxxe has been a fantastic experience, they saw my vision and brought it to life, adding their own innovative and forward-thinking ideas.  It’s paved the way to Thirteen Group being Microsoft-first in our future developments."

Jayne Allport , Head of Service, Systems & Application Improvement, Thirteen Group

 |   THE CHALLENGE

Analogue working


Every one of Thirteen's properties has a substantial amount of associated documents. 
Thirteen's agents need fast access to these documents to deliver an outstanding customer experience, so they must be stored and managed efficiently.  But that wasn't happening consistently.

Thirteen's property management process was mostly analogue, relying on agents manually processing paper documents and individually importing them into an SQL database.  This caused two problems:

Time

Having to scan, save and label each document individually was a 6-step process that took Thirteen's agents a long time, giving them less time to focus on customer care.

Errors

Importing stacks of documents each day was forcing Thirteen's agents to do something that people are proven to be bad at; staying alert while performing a tedious, repetitive task. This caused 'human error' mistakes while importing documents, making it difficult for other agents to find customer information quickly.


With their legacy document management system reaching end-of-life support, Thirteen recognised an opportunity to save time and costs by working more efficiently. 
As digital transformation specialists and a trusted technology partner to Thirteen Group for years, we were thrilled to help them with this project.

|   THE SOLUTION

Microsoft SharePoint and Power Automate


To support Thirteen's new, modern approaches to work, we proposed the development of a robust digital workplace to simplify the access and storage of essential documents.

 

As a Gold Microsoft Partner, we know how powerful Microsoft SharePoint and Power Automate are and how perfect a solution they could be for Thirteen's challenges.

 

Once we'd presented these benefits, Thirteen signed off on our solution and the project started.

The benefits of our solution:

Use Power Automate and optical character recognition (OCR) technology to shorten a 6-step document import process down to a single action.
Access relevant records on Microsoft SharePoint from any location or device.
Reduce any risk of import errors with managed metadata and make GDPR compliance simple with powerful document retention controls.
Find relevant documents much faster, freeing agents to focus more time on customer service

|   THE DELIVERY

Automation


After our Workplace Technology Specialist finished building the custom SharePoint environment, Thirteen’s focus was to export the hundreds of thousands of documents from their legacy database and import them into SharePoint.

 

After starting, Thirteen quickly found that 75,000 documents had been mislabelled in the legacy database.  Missing essential information, they couldn't transfer these documents into the new SharePoint system.  The only solution was to update each document manually.  Although it would only take 2 minutes to update each record with a correct label, this would add up to 300+ full working days of effort to fix completely.


To solve the issue, our Workplace Solutions Expert built a custom automation workflow.  Through Robotic Process Automation, this bot pulls every item of information needed to correctly label each document and places it next to each record to speed up the process.

 

https://boxxe.com/robotic-process-automation-rpa-explained

 

Using this tool, Thirteen's agents were able to correctly label each document in 20 seconds instead of 2 minutes, saving Thirteen roughly 250 working days.

With the documents currently being updated, Thirteen will soon complete their migration to Microsoft SharePoint and be set to deliver an even more outstanding service for their customers!

Power Automate:  What is it?

 

Power Automate is a Microsoft service which can be purchased as part of a Microsoft 365 or Dynamics 365 plan.  With it, you can create automated workflows using prebuilt templates or by recording your own actions.

Why choose boxxe?

With 25+ years of commercial Microsoft experience, we offer industry-leading support at every stage of the Microsoft lifecycle.

We've partnered with Microsoft and Automation Anywhere to make RPA solutions like Power Automate easier than ever to adopt.


Get started with a free Workplace Assessment

Get started with a free Workplace Assessment

Using the information gathered in the Workshop, we'll build a bespoke report with our findings and recommendations.  Once you have it, it's your choice whether we help you with the next steps or you start the work yourself.  Either way, the report is yours to keep.  No hard selling.  That's a promise!

Contact us below for details or read more about our award-winning services in Modern Workplace
.

Thirteen Group - Microsoft Sharepoint and Power Automate

Find out how we supported the Thirteen Group and start your own digital transformation with a free Workplace Assessment.  Call us on the number below or fill in the form and one of our Microsoft and Automation Experts will be in touch.

0330 236 9429

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RPA for Corporate Services

Learn how to create an impactful Robotic Process Automation strategy, including:

  • Building an RPA strategy that works
  • Measuring your automation strategy
  • Winning stakeholder buy-in and creating an automation-friendly workplace