Transforming Decision-Making at Places for People

In an ambitious project to address these issues, PfP embarked on a transformative journey to enhance their decision-making processes through a modern data platform called the Insight Hub, including the implementation and transition to a modern enterprise BI solution, Looker.The High Value Use Cases workstream was initiated to develop a series of reports in an interim reporting solution, Looker Studio, with incumbent databases, until the new platform and BI solution was ready to be used in earnest.The initiative focused on improving existing reports anddeveloping insightful reporting to deliver effortless repairs and upskill their teams. 

Another critical part of this effort involved addressing the root causes of data issues in the interim while the Insight Hub was being developed. By improving the underlying tables and stored procedures that fed into the existing reporting platform, the interim fixes resolved key data quality problems, eliminatedinconsistencies and established a more trusted data source. Thisapproach allowed the team to deliver immediate improvements and build confidence in their reporting, all while a more permanent and robust solution was being formulated.

The project was further complicated by a concurrent migration from a legacy case management system to Salesforce, significantly increasing the complexity as interim reporting battled to stitch data together to be able to report on both source systems harmoniously.

During a six-month engagement, The Dot Collective embedded into PfPs data team to accelerate the development of High Value Use Case dashboards and collaborate with the operational data team toenhance their skills.

Due to the positive impact delivered in this initial engagement, it wasimmediately followed by a three month extension which focused on developing a bespoke training syllabus for Big Query SQL and Looker.Training contents ranged from novice SQL to expert LookMLdevelopmentas well as visualisation best practices in Looker Studio,each topicwasdelivered across a range of mediums, including 1-to-1 sessions, group workshops and recorded tutorials. As part of the upskilling process, the dashboards initially created by The Dot Collective were transitioned to PfP, with their analysts adding further value to the dashboard with the guidance and support of The Dot Collective’s analysts.

The dashboards created by the Dot Collective provided the business with quickand easy access to trusted data and delivered insights the business had never seen before, empowering them with the knowledge to be able to optimise their workforce capacity. The Utilisation dashboard is designed to investigate utilisation measures down to the individual engineer level. It analyses data from bothLegacy and Salesforce systems to build a comprehensive picture of activity over the selected time frame, which had not been available previously.Subsequentdashboards can be used to examine a variety of different metrics as selected by the end user, such as utilisation, attendances, and completions across various dimensions, including ONS region, trade, and engineer, in order for the business to build a picture of how and why specific trends occurred.Additionalanalysis highlights year-on-year changes and as well as anomalous appointments (less than 5 minutes or greater than a day), which can help identifydata quality issues in the source systemwhich need to be resolved. 

Business Impact

The implementation of High Value Use Case Dashboards has had a profound impact on PfP:

• Informed Decision-Making: Data insights have influenced a higher percentage of strategic decisions, leading to cash savings through better, faster decision-making with trusted data.
• Performance Tracking: With improved data quality and more reliable KPIs,performancetracking has become more efficient, offering clear visibility into key metrics and outcomes. 
• Identifying Trends and Patterns: The ability to analyse trends and patterns has improved, providing deeper insights that support proactive strategies and improved forecasting.
• Operational Efficiency: Data-driven optimisations have enhanced the visibility of KPIs related tooperational efficiency, allowing for the opportunity to target improvements to engineer or trade utilisationrates, and reduce the time it takes for a repair tobe completed.
• Risk Management: Improved data quality and reporting provides clearer visibility into potential risks, enabling earlier identification and mitigation of issues e.g. operational delays.
• Time Savings: 15% of data office time has been saved by automating engineer/maintenance issues.
• Analyst Efficiency: By automating engineer and maintenance issues15% of the data office time has been saved. This automation has also allowed analysts to shift from manual BAU processes to automated reporting. As a result, analysts can now focus on upskilling and supporting the evolution of more complex business queries and insight generation..

Conclusion

Through their commitment to upskilling, improving reports, and building insightful dashboards, Places for People has transformed their decision-making processes. The High Value Use Case Dashboards have empowered them to make data-driven decisions, optimise workforce utilisation, and achieve greater operational efficiency.