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AUTOMATING A PATH THROUGH THE BUDGET CRUNCH

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LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Dalhousie University is located in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. We are all treaty people.

We recognize African Nova Scotians are a distinct people whose histories, legacies, and contributions have enriched Mi’kma’ki for over 400 years.

Kjipuktuk and We’kwampetitk are the ancestral Mi’kmaq territories known today as Halifax and Truro. 

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AGENDA

  1. Introduction
  2. Types of service requests and capabilities
  3. Payroll Services case study
  4. Demo
  5. Retrospective
  6. Roadmap

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SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

BURNABY, BC

  • 3 campuses
  • 8 Faculties
  • 30,000+ Undergrads
  • 6,000 Graduates
  • #1 Comprehensive university in Canada
  • Home to Cedar, academic supercomputer (HPC)

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STEVE WONG, MBA

TEAM LEAD, ADMIN SYSTEMS

  • Certified Scrum Master
  • Solutions partner
  • Software Developer
  • Salesforce Developer, Application Administrator

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ABOUT ME

  • Team Lead
  • Software Developer
  • Clients include:
    • Academic: Grad Studies, Student Services, Lifelong Learning
    • Admin: Finance, HR
    • Facilities, Ancillary Services, Research, Alumni and Advancement
  • Salesforce Developer, Application Administrator
  • Certified Scrum Master

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WHAT IS AUTOMATION SERVICES?

PROCESS RE-IMAGINING

  • Changing the way people think about doing their jobs
  • Finding the quickest / easiest / most beneficial path forward
  • Building on that foundation

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ORIGIN STORY

THE ACCIDENTAL HERO

  • Began with Hybrid Work Agreement form
  • Brainstorming other user cases
  • Grew organically

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GUIDING PRINCIPLES

  • Incremental or temporary improvements
    • Fast and responsive solutions
    • MVP – Most Viable Product
  • Value-driven
    • Accelerate time to value
  • Innovation and experimentation
    • Experiential learning

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TOOLSET

  • Microsoft Power Automate
    • AI Builder
    • Premium & custom connectors
  • Microsoft Teams & SharePoint
  • Microsoft Forms
  • Microsoft Office 365
  • UiPath

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AUTOMATION REQUESTS

  • Approvals
    • Hiring freeze exemption requests
  • Reduce or eliminate manual work
    • Provincial Attestation Letter
  • Process standardization
    • Lifelong Learning instructor pay

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CASE STUDY

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PAYROLL SERVICES

PAYROLL PROCESSING

  • Complex, multi-use fillable PDF
  • Manual processing and validation
  • High volume at certain periods of time (i.e. term start)
  • Time-sensitivity requires lots of overtime

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CURRENT COSTS

PER PAY PERIOD

Assuming:

  • Requests are complete
  • Requests are error free
  • Person is processing requests all day every day

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Process Type

Processing Time (hours)

Number of Requests

Total Hours

Manual

0.25

400

100

Description

Quantity

Total

Person

1

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Hours per week

36

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Weeks for pay period

2

​

Hours per pay period

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72

Number of requests

400

​

Total processing time

100

100

Overtime required

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GOALS

  • Cost reduction
    • Overtime
    • Adobe licensing
  • Enhance the SFU experience
    • Modern, more intuitive interface
    • Faster processing time
  • Build a foundation for future automations
    • Change management

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AUTOMATED INTAKE PROCESS

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PROTOTYPE DEMO

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EXPECTED BENEFITS

PER PAY PERIOD

Process Type

Processing Time (hours)

Number of Requests

Total Hours

Manual

0.25

400

100

Automated

0.02

400

8

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RETROSPECTIVE

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SAILBOAT RETROSPECTIVE

SCRUM EVENT

  1. What moves us forward?
  2. What holds us back?
  3. What risks lay ahead?

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1. WHAT MOVES US FORWARD?

  • Practice what we preach
    • Team’s processes are automated
    • Prototyping
    • Be adaptable
  • Preach what we practice
    • Self-promotion
  • Just do it
    • More showing, less telling

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2. WHAT HOLDS US BACK?

  • Cost savings > staff efficiency
    • Bring attention to the hidden costs
      • Staff burnout
      • Student experience
  • Overthinking
    • Better but not perfect?
  • Lack of data
    • Normalize data collection

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3. WHAT RISKS LAY AHEAD?

  • Change is a long and difficult process
    • Introduction to agile mindset
    • Demonstrate value generation
  • Funding may still be a challenge
    • Continue communicating benefits
    • Executive support
  • Solutions become difficult to maintain
    • Help me help you

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OTHER BENEFITS

  • Culture change
    • Agile mindset
    • Continuous growth – F.A.I.L.
    • Build a data-driven organization
  • Standardized processes across the university
  • Building and nurturing new relationships

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WHAT’S NEXT

  1. Leverage AI
    1. Invoice processing
    2. Document understanding
  2. Integrations with other systems
    • Automate the push to core systems
  3. Building the automation community
    • Teaching departments how to build their own automations
    • Internal user group

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CONNECT WITH ME

STEVE WONG, TEAM LEAD

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steve_wong_2@sfu.ca

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QUESTIONS?

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APPENDIX

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SAMPLE APPROVAL PROCESS

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