What Can You Do with Microsoft Power Apps?

USE CASE: PTO Request Process Streamlined and Improved

SITUATION:

To request time off, staff at a small company of 30 employees would email the General Manager with the dates that they needed to be away. To approve the request, the manager would reply to the employee’s email and put the dates on the company intranet calendar.

PROBLEM:

Because the General Manager didn’t always see the employee email come through, the employee would have to follow up with the manager to make sure that they got the time off. Other times, even if the manager approved the request, he occasionally forgot to put it on the calendar.

Sometimes employees assumed that their request was approved when it really wasn’t, so the employee’s absence would be a surprise. Other times, there were too many people off at the same time, or last-minute requests were pushed through and operations would be understaffed.

Documenting time off requests was slow and employees had to wait until the end of each month to see how much PTO they had available. Because there was limited visibility into the process, the only way that HR would know that an employee was using PTO was to look at the calendar.

SOLUTION:

Microsoft Power Apps was used to build a custom process that makes sure that all the steps in the time off request process are completed. Here’s how it works.

Employees download the PTO app to their phone or go a web page where they can log in with their Microsoft account. They input their request and it goes to the General Manager. If it’s approved, it goes to the Operations Manager so that he can monitor staffing needs.

Employees can always see the status of their requests, and they get a notification telling them the outcome, yes or no. If yes, the dates automatically populate on the company calendar.

The data also flows in and out of the HR system so that employees can see how much PTO they’ve used and how much they’ve accrued in the year.

OUTCOME:

The new process has increased visibility for both management and employees. Bottlenecks and surprises are eliminated because the process doesn’t rely on memory and manual tasks. Because they’re spending less time managing the PTO process, everyone has more time to serve customers.

Related: Still Using Paper, Spreadsheets and Manual Processes? Time for a Power Apps Intervention

Process Improvement with Power Apps is a Win-Win-Win

When you improve your processes with Microsoft Power Apps and XPERTECHS, what you’re really doing is improving your whole business. When you improve your business, you enable employee success, customer satisfaction and overall business success.

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