Automating DfE’s “Get into Teaching” candidate journey with Microsoft Dynamics 365

Customer Engagement module: Automating data visualisation

Our team used the Dynamics Customer Engagement module to improve how DfE processes and gets value from its GIT candidate data. To let DfE visualise and utlise the data its CRM holds about candidates, Tecknuovo created a data reporting function with Power BI.

It hinges on an integration that exports data from Dynamics to BigQuery in real time, skipping over the staging database layer that existed in GIT’s previous infrastructure. BigQuery builds data visualisation reports in Looker Studio, creating easily digestible insights on how much money and effort is being spent on which marketing activities, and how this affects candidate enrolment, onboarding and success. DfE can use this data to easily determine where to keep, shift, or remove priorities.

Customer Insights module: Automating email marketing and events

Tecknuovo used Power Apps to build a series of canvas apps that help DfE’s Marketing team speed up and improve how they set up events, build customer journeys, and collect information about candidates.

Building candidate journeys

The Marketing teams were building candidate journeys manually. This is the flow of emails that invites candidates to events, sends reminders about them, onboards new candidates, and shares other information about the GIT process.

Our team built a canvas app that sets this all up automatically. It draws on data like candidates’ geographical location to send them invites to events near them, and sends a customised flow of emails to each candidate according to known information about their journey so far.

Automating event generation

DfE’s Marketing teams run 35 events per year, setting these up by manually feeding data into spreadsheets which a CRM team would then process to create each event. The canvas app lets Marketing team members easily select the information they need to create an event within the app. It then pulls together the information and specifications from the CRM data to create the event.

Real-time data synchronisation on events

At the events, DfE teams were registering candidates’ attendance by checking them off in spreadsheets, which would then get sent for processing and uploading by the CRM team. To save time and effort, Tecknuovo’s team built a canvas app that synchronises event attendance data into the CRM in real-time.

Integrations with external services

Our team worked with Power Automate to build two other integrations with the Dynamics CRM: GOV.UK Notify and GIT advisory services.

GOV.UK Notify

The GOV.UK Notify service lets public sector organisations send emails, text messages, and letters to users. Our team built an integration that lets Marketing team members send SMSs to GIT candidates directly through the Dynamics CRM.

GIT advisory services

GIT offers candidates an advisory phoneline service that’s sub-contracted to an external supplier. We built an integration between this platform and GIT’s CRM. It tracks and records each time a candidate makes an inbound call, and it shares information about scheduled outbound calls that an advisor needs to have with a candidate.