Streamlining school onboarding with workflow branching

The onboarding process in any business is important, but when it comes to educational landscapes, it can be a whole other level. As educational settings usually have a leaner IT team, manually grappling with the complexities of onboarding new teachers, faculty, and students is tricky to say the least.

A midwestern school district faced this challenge head on. With a diverse set of users, each with unique needs based on their roles and the subjects they taught, proved to be a complex undertaking. This was particularly difficult as some students required specific actions and some had multiple subjects.

The district needed a solution that could automate the process, reducing manual effort and ensuring accuracy. 

Leveraging a SaaS management platform for efficiency

To address this challenge, the district turned to BetterCloud. By implementing granular, advanced workflow functionality within BetterCloud, they were able to streamline their onboarding process and achieve significant improvements.

The power of IT automation

The district created a single workflow with branches based on specific criteria to automate onboarding across different user types. The workflow was triggered whenever a new Google user was created, and it used the Cost Center field to determine the user’s role (Teacher, Faculty, or Student).

For teachers and faculty:

• Department-based grouping: The workflow used the Google Department field to identify the user’s subjects.
• Group assignments: Based on the identified subjects, the user was automatically added to the corresponding groups.
• Multiple subjects: For teachers with multiple subjects, the workflow used the “Department Contains” condition to ensure they were placed in all relevant groups.

For students:

• Grade level organization: Students were placed into specific OUs based on their grade levels.

Grade-specific actions: Once in their OUs, grade-specific actions were executed to provide appropriate resources and communications.

Here’s a snippet of the onboarding workflow:

The result? A smoother start for everyone

The implementation of BetterCloud’s workflow branching significantly improved the school district’s onboarding efficiency. Key benefits included:

• Reduced manual effort: Automation eliminated the need for manual intervention, saving time for IT staff.
• Improved accuracy: The automated process minimized errors in user categorization and group assignments.
• Enhanced user experience: Teachers, faculty, and students benefited from a smoother onboarding process.
• Increased productivity: By streamlining onboarding, IT staff could focus on other critical tasks.

BetterCloud proved to be a valuable tool for the school district. By automating their onboarding process, they were able to improve efficiency, accuracy, and the overall user experience for their unique user base.