College of Surgeons and Physicians of Manitoba (CPSM)
Provincial Medical Regulatory body moves to paperless collaboration on SharePoint Online and Teams
About The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba (CPSM) regulates the medical profession in Manitoba by setting and enforcing mandatory standards for the safe and ethical delivery of quality medical care by physicians in Manitoba. CPSM has approximately forty employees, five departments and various working groups.
Technologies
SharePoint Online
Microsoft Teams
Power Apps and Power Automate
Business challenge
Due to the pandemic, CPSM made the fast transition to a paperless model of work by scanning and saving files to a shared file drive. This enabled departments to start the shift to working remotely.
After this initial remote work shift, concerns included struggling to find content within the shared file drive, inconsistencies in saving content, and inconsistent naming systems. Content was being saved in multiple places within the drive because users were unable to find where documents were previously saved, leading to multiple copies of the same file.
A few months later, CPSM engaged Gravity Union for help adding more structure and collaboration to the system. By moving to Microsoft 365 (previously known as Office 365), their goals are to: increase efficiency, save time, and enable work from anywhere.
Solution highlights
Making the move to Microsoft 365
Document collaboration with MS Teams with SharePoint Online
Using an approach where Gravity Union worked with each department and team, documents were shifted to SharePoint Online. Documents were moved into libraries that use metadata for easy finding and navigation. In addition, people can now work anywhere with an internet connection and use Sync to OneDrive to access files when offline.
Microsoft Teams is at the heart of collaboration in Microsoft 365. Gravity Union prepared CPSM to use Teams by designing everything in SharePoint to be accessible through Teams. All SharePoint libraries and sites and supporting applications such as Planner are available through Teams for ease-of-use.
Structured and organized content ready for records management
Documents are less buried with a SharePoint tagging system that uses metadata instead of nested folders on a file drive. With metadata, the files require fewer clicks to navigate, search is improved, and retention is more easily enabled for records management. Next up, CPSM will be refining the retention schedule and policy to ready the records management system.
Apps for Increased Efficiency
IT Assets Checkout Power App
Gravity Union built an IT Asset Checkout App to streamline the IT request process. This Power App eliminates the need for emails that are sent back and forth between the IT department and IT users. How it works:
Users submit requests for assets in the app. The request goes to the IT department, which can then approve or deny it and supply the assets accordingly.
Information about the approval or denial is sent to the requestor.
The data is saved in a SharePoint list for follow-up and tracking.
Planner boards for inspections
Facility inspections at CPSM used to be managed with Excel. Now, CPSM is using Planner to manage inspections of accredited facilities, which is a better visual experience, and next steps can be assigned for easier tracking and notifications. This has improved the process of inspections and provided more visibility on the process.
Benefits and Results
Easier, More Efficient Collaboration
With SharePoint and Teams, people have easy access to files and documents from any browser or computer, with no VPN required.
Even though departments work together, and files were shared between them, the need for increased communication between departments was crucial. SharePoint allows multiple people to edit a document at the same time, saving time and the hassle of sending each document separately. Document collaboration is now painless with access to document version history, a recycle bin for deleted documents, and a single source of truth for all materials.
Streamlined Business Processes Through Automation
Previously, the organization’s invoice approval process involved attaching each invoice manually to emails and sending it to various departments for approval. This process created many duplicate copies of the same document and it was time-consuming to wait for each department to send back their approval before moving on to the next department. In SharePoint, multiple users can access and edit a document at the same time, taking this process from several days to minutes.
Search and Findability
Gravity Union utilized their hands-on process with departments to create filing systems within SharePoint that resulted in better search and findability. The whole CPSM team was involved in this process, ensuring the system makes sense to everyone and can be used consistently moving forward. SharePoint introduced structure through security functions, access requirements, and the ability to tag documents using metadata. The CPSM iMIS member database seamlessly integrates with SharePoint to streamline their integration and automatic file creation solutions.
“We knew a digital transformation in our regulatory environment would be complex, but [Gravity Union] took the time to understand our business needs and utilized an excellent project management approach that was consistent across all departments. The training and support our staff received after the migration was critical; Gravity Union made taking this leap a success.”
— Dave Rubel COO, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba
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