Evangelical Alliance improves system reliability and member support with Dynamics 365
Pragmatiq partnered with Evangelical Alliance to optimise their existing Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform following a system audit. The project focused on resolving deployment challenges, improving visibility across memberships, and introducing structured customer service processes to better support their growing community.
Background & Challenges
Background
Evangelical Alliance is a UK-based membership organisation that connects and supports churches, organisations, and individuals across the country. Their work involves managing complex membership structures, including multi-site churches, alongside ongoing engagement and support for members.
The organisation was already using Microsoft Dynamics 365, implemented by a previous partner, but engaged Pragmatiq to conduct a system audit and identify areas for improvement.
Challenges
- Deployment and environment issues: Unmanaged layers within the system meant that changes made in development environments were not reliably deployed to production, leading to inconsistencies and failed updates.
- Limited visibility of multi-site memberships: The existing system did not fully support the structure of multi-site churches, making it difficult to track and report on memberships spanning multiple locations.
- Manual handling of member enquiries: Customer queries, such as membership updates and payment changes, were received via email with no structured way to track or manage them, creating inefficiencies and risk of missed responses.
- Inefficient user experience: Some system elements, including forms and configurations created by a previous partner, were not aligned with current processes, resulting in unnecessary complexity for users.
The Solution & Implementation
Pragmatiq conducted a detailed system audit and delivered targeted improvements to optimise Evangelical Alliance’s existing Dynamics 365 environment. The focus was on improving system reliability, enhancing membership visibility, and introducing structured customer service capabilities.
Key elements of the solution included:
- Environment and deployment alignment: Resolved unmanaged layer issues and aligned environments to ensure system changes can be deployed reliably, reducing errors and improving stability.
- Enhanced membership structure for multi-site churches: Extended the data model to support multi-site memberships, enabling a single church to manage multiple locations and improving visibility through calculated fields and reporting.
- Implementation of Dynamics 365 Customer Service: Introduced a structured case management process where incoming emails are automatically converted into cases, allowing teams to track, assign, and manage member enquiries efficiently.
- Improved email and case handling processes: Configured shared mailboxes, automatic email association, and defaulting rules to streamline communication and ensure queries are handled consistently.
- User experience improvements: Addressed smaller usability issues identified during the audit, including simplifying forms and refining system configurations to better align with day-to-day processes.
The Outcomes
- Improved system reliability: Aligned environments and removal of unmanaged layers have reduced deployment issues and improved the consistency of system updates.
- Greater visibility of membership structures: Enhanced support for multi-site churches provides clearer insight into complex memberships and associated locations.
- More efficient enquiry management: Structured case management enables teams to track and respond to member queries more effectively, reducing reliance on manual email handling.
- Enhanced user experience: System refinements and process improvements have made Dynamics 365 easier to use and better aligned to organisational needs.
