The SHS team plan to increase the number of practitioners working in schools and to grow their overall reach, which in 2022-23 was about 14,000 individuals.

The interactions with those children and their families were being tracked through an ineffective case recording system and multiple inefficient spreadsheets!

Picture this: coordinating information for 14,000 individuals across the year and recording the daily interactions with those children and families with a tool that doesn’t catch typos, doesn’t match workflows and feels like a time-drain to staff? Data embedded in text rich case recording made it hard to analyse the success rates for different strategies to help improve attendance – was it the type of intervention, or the frequency of follow up or other support combination that helped the most.

To get the full picture of how the SHS operates, we’ve had several workshops with SHS’ various teams: their leaders, data experts and people who work directly with students and their families. We haven’t done this to achieve death by meetings. It’s been necessary to understand their processes and the specific challenges each team is facing. 

SHS wants to make sure that every young person, no matter where they come from, gets the same level of support. Without a clear view of all their work, this is a tough task.  

Here’s the crucial bit: to keep going, SHS needs backing from companies and other groups. But these stakeholders want to see that SHS is making a difference. Without a way to easily show this, it’s hard to get the support they need. 

Some backstory 

Before we engaged with the charity, SHS had been searching for the ideal case management tool. A platform where practitioners could log and view their interactions, cutting out the spreadsheet chaos.

They went through several case management tools in the past – but all ended up gathering dust in the cloud: they either stretched their budget, were too complex for users or didn’t address their unique challenges.

After listening to the team and assessing their systems and data collected it was clear to see where things needed to change.

The charity needed a system that was one thing: easy. It should be quick and straightforward, so workers would actually use it on a daily basis and only ask them to input data that was absolutely necessary.

Another challenge was effective permission management: making sure staff in different cities or schools couldn’t see notes from other groups. Yet, SHS leaders and line managers needed to see notes and case info from their respective groups.

Our tailored recommendation

We defined what was needed to make practitioners enjoy essential data recording and to satisfy stakeholder reports and analysis needs. Then we researched the case-management tools market.

A detailed data structure plan and workflow of the required processes formed the backbone of the decision making process.

We ruled out most platforms due to deal breaking limitations. We decided to build a paired down, simple custom interface based on a low-code platform. A system that’s easy to adapt to their changing needs without overwhelming the users.

The data collected via this platform then needed to be presented in flexible dashboards that were easy to manage and configurable to multiple permission levels.

We chose an open source reporting tool that ticked all the boxes. The preconfigured reporting dashboards now answer all of SHS’s usual questions. This will provide easy-to-read summaries of all service users interactions and support efforts.

Dashboards for various user groups and permissions can show big-picture overviews or detailed reports, depending on what SHS needs. So, they can easily spot trends or dive deep into the data, all in a format that’s straightforward to understand and share with others.

Low-code platforms come with their own drawbacks and limitations. We made sure that we kept the SHS team up to date on progress and any issues we came across.

The bespoke case management system went through a rigorous pilot testing phase prior to launch. We identified and fixed any issues, whilst gathering vital feedback from users to make necessary improvements to the system.

The system was rolled out to the complete team in early 2024.

Helping SHS adapt to the system

Once the system was ready to use, SHS experienced a big change. It’ll take some time for everyone to get used to it: digital transformation for non-profits is a big job for humans!

We’ll be right there with them, smoothing out any bumps in the road. We’ve already ensured the new tool easily integrates with existing charity tools for a smoother future transition. This includes the software Star Online, used for visualising journey of change, and Google Workspace.

The next step is going to be a potential link-up with Wonde, a secure system that connects to nationwide school databases. Integration with SHS’ platform would mean staffcould bypass manual data entry for information schools already possess. This means less duplicate work for SHS practitioners. Freeing up their time to reach more children needing targeted whole-family support to improve school attendance.

We’re sharing strategic tips with SHS for managing and showing off their data. Our ongoing digital transformation support helps them find fresh ways to spotlight their impact and create detailed reports. These aren’t your everyday reports – they’re a victory lap in paper form, celebrating every achievement and bringing the charity’s impact into the limelight.

Catrin Doe, Head of Impact and Digital Delivery, shares her thoughts on working with Telescopic as their digital transformation expert in the UK and the project’s outcome:

“Working with Telescopic has been a refreshing journey in understanding and implementing digital solutions, approached thoughtfully from a human perspective. Their team demonstrated not just technical expertise but a genuine understanding of our work environment and challenges.

They:

• took the time to comprehend our problem deeply
• engaged with various teams within our organisation
• posed critical questions to understand our processes and needs

The Telescopic team didn’t just meet our brief but went above and beyond to propose a solution that we are now actively implementing with their robust support. Their timely, collaborative, and innovative approach has been crucial in navigating our digital transformation effectively.”

We recently revamped TARKA’s booking system, allowing parents to schedule classes with ease and saving the team time on phone bookings. We enhanced TARKA’s brand and designed and build a new website for smooth integration with the new booking system.

TARKA is a premium exercise company for children, setting the bar high in fun and fitness. Their goal is to boost kids’ overall development. They teach military values in their classes, embedding essential life skills. No uniforms needed – unless, of course, it’s army party time. Then it’s ‘Ten-hut!’

We spent time understanding TARKA’s challenges, their needs for the new booking system and potential workflow improvements. Their existing site made booking classes overly complicated. Parents regularly phoned in for bookings because the system was too difficult to navigate. Staff members were spending too much time managing bookings manually.

TARKA’s brand needed a spruce-up too. The guidelines were, let’s say, ‘free-spirited’. We aimed for solid, consistent branding that not only meshed with the new booking system but also turned heads in TARKA’s crowd.

The workshop also served as a platform to talk about our collaborative process. We discussed weekly meetings with Leo, the Managing Director for regular feedback and project tracking. We also promised TARKA to be there to sort out any misunderstandings, making sure we understood each other clearly.

Plan

TARKA wanted a self-service booking system that worked hard for parents and integrated seamlessly with their website’s look and function. Our goal was to give parents a single account to book multiple classes for multiple kids.

Our top recommendation was an off-the-shelf-ish solution that offered a seamless integration via an API – a tool that lets different software systems talk to each other. It would deliver an effortless user experience for both TARKA’s team and their customers.

When we presented a couple of options, TARKA opted for the sensible budget option. The right move for them. Pembee stood out as an affordable booking system offering an integrated iFrame (a tool to display content from another site within your webpage). That meant no need for complex integration work – it just ‘works’!

Pembee fulfilled all our criteria and seamlessly matched TARKA’s website design. The only hint parents have that they’ve landed on Pembee’s platform when booking classes is the change in the web address (URL).

Implement

We gave TARKA a brand glow-up. Colour palette sorted, typography tightened, logo spruced up. And with fresh brand guidelines, the website design followed a simple and premium structure.

Tech-wise, we kept it simple with the Pembee integration. Imagine this: a gateway on TARKA’s site, guiding parents to a one-stop place to find and book classes. The design? It was so smooth, you couldn’t tell it was a portal to another site.

We also designed a custom campaign banner. TARKA could set the destination for when parents clicked on it, speeding up bookings for specific sessions, such as holiday classes.

We didn’t want TARKA to feel lost with their new content management system (CMS). So, we made an easy-to-understand CMS guide, showed them around the system, and supported them during the user acceptance testing (UAT) phase – a step where they could try out the system to make sure it met their needs and worked properly.

Maintain

Revealing TARKA’s updated site and the Pembee booking system integration was just the start. Instead of wrapping up, TARKA is continuing to refine their site, which we happily do in collaboration with their marketing agency.

We’re doing the heavy lifting as their personal tech consultants, translating all the jargon into actionable insights. For example, we introduced TARKA to A/B testing. We didn’t just mention it, we explained it thoroughly – like a wine tasting but for web pages. After outlining its benefits and how it can improve landing page results, we gave hands-on demos of the best tools for it, a practical lesson without any dull PowerPoint slides.

TARKA is already celebrating victories post-launch. With parents taking full advantage of the self-booking system, the phone lines are blissfully manageable.

The website is smoother and more welcoming too. We put the site through the digital equivalent of TARKA’s boot-camp workouts for kids and found that mobile performance sprinted ahead with a relative increase of 93.18%. Critical for the busy parents who book classes on-the-go. Meanwhile, the desktop experience increased by 18.53%, and accessibility leaped up by 48.08%.