Sunderland & Looply Customer Story
Transforming internal communications
Customer Story | Sunderland City Council
delivering notifications in Teams for Time Related payments.
Opportunity
Transforming internal communications
Sunderland City Council (SCC) delivers around 600 services including Housing Support, Waste Management and Social Care to the city’s 277,000 residents.
In 2021, the Council implemented SAP-standard Fiori Time Related Payments, Leave Requests and Expenses. Over 3,000 employees currently use self-service. These apps play a major role in managing day-to-day interactions between employees and their managers with over 100,000 submissions each year.
With such high numbers of submissions, the Council has looked for ways to improve convenience and access for managers to review and approve requests.
In 2023, the Council embarked on a new program of improvement to deliver efficiencies through technology. It focused on giving managers more options to process workflows, by rethinking their internal employee communication using technology. The aim: to help deliver better, more effective ways of working, giving managers more time to concentrate on their daily tasks.
The Looply collaboration was an opportunity to build on the success of previous projects with Arch, and to utilise the Microsoft Teams platform to channel approvals into one convenient place.
Solution
Implementing Looply
Objectives
- Rethink and improve internal communications
- Make internal operations more dynamic
- Use Looply technology for higher efficiency
Choosing to work with Arch again was a natural progression and SCC were keen to gain the benefits of implementing Looply.
“The Arch team we worked with on the design and implementation was spot on and really knowledgeable. Nothing was ever an issue, we worked as an extended team. Working with them as a third party was a breath of fresh air and the documentation provided as a starting point was brilliant”.
CTO Sunderland City Council
The Time Related Payments process was selected for the initial design proof of concept using Looply, Arch’s platform for process integration with Microsoft Teams. The Looply workflow engine was used to mirror the existing Fiori app workflow.
The cards managers receive in their Teams chat are designed to include all relevant information so an immediate decision to approve or reject a request can be made. Notification cards are sent to the employee raising the request, keeping them informed of any action taken by the manager. The app allows for both a group approval process and approvals in either Teams or Fiori.
Sunderland and Arch have worked together to embed Looply into the SCC SAP infrastructure, with all security protocols respected.
“I can really see the benefits for line managers for approvals coming via one central console. Five years ago we looked at integration capabilities and could see that that’s where the market was heading. We have now realised our digital transition with Looply, where notifications and approvals just appear in one app.”
CTO Sunderland City Council
Impact
Faster and more efficient decision-making
There is a real excitement within the Council for using Looply, with many areas of the authority recognising the potential benefits of implementing Looply for notifications and decision capture, identifying the efficiencies gained from how quick and easy decision making can be in Teams. With less time spent chasing or following up on requests front-line staff are able to focus on the important work of delivering services for residents.
Through 2024, the Council rolled out self-service on mobiles for all employees. With Teams already installed on devices, the transition will be much easier using Looply apps on mobiles to help deliver on the potential of truly mobile working.
The collaboration between Sunderland City Council and Arch to innovate together and deliver a digital transformation, leading with technology, will make a real difference. It will ensure an enduring transformation and deliver the striking efficiencies needed to meet increasing demand in a highly pressurised environment.
“Looply will change the way we work. You can have any business process flowing into Teams allowing us to stay within one communication channel, saving managers time and effort in their working life. Whether we are working from home or from the office, MS Teams is our collaboration platform.”
IT Solutions Manager Sunderland City Council
