Transforming how Cornwall Council uses data and business intelligence

CHALLENGE

Disparate datasets and highly complicated spreadsheet-based reporting

SOLUTION

Custom-built workflows in Microsoft Power Platform for easy access to data

RESULT

Simple, easily customisable reports that quickly deliver the right insights

Everything from how data is managed to the way its presented can make all the difference to the insights it can deliver. Our work with several departments within Cornwall Council involved unifying multiple datasets and presenting insights in digestible formats for both internal and external stakeholders. 

Commercial and property services

With no single database of its property portfolio income and spend, Cornwall Council needed a way to access accurate financial information to make better budgetary decisions and optimise its maintenance schedule. 

Using database workflows in Microsoft Power BI, we built a unified data repository that allows users to easily create sophisticated reports, showing detailed financial information and highlighting key trends. 

Workforce management

Cornwall Council needed a centralised solution to better manage its staff sickness, wellbeing, and annual leave requests – especially important with many of its employees work from home. The solution also needed to help the council move to cross-functional working. 

We built a single portal for all the council’s HR processes, providing a single management solution to help improve efficiency and better coordinate staff availability between departments. What’s more, the portal is accessible to employees, empowering them to quickly manage their requests wherever and whenever they want. 

Service, performance, and risk reporting 

With reporting becoming increasingly important for decision making, we helped the council wrangle sophisticated data sets into simplified and user-friendly reports. This also included creating public-facing documents that needed to be intuitive and digestible.

Using Microsoft Power Platform, we’ve designed a solution that allows council teams to access and export specific datasets into engaging reports that are highly scannable and easy-to-use. 

During the process, it became apparent that some departments’ data was incomplete. So, we made changes that ensure incomplete data is now filtered out automatically, helping deliver greater accuracy and reducing the need for time-consuming, manual data hygiene. 

Get in touch

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