Non-Profit
Automating COVID-Era Housing Assistance at Scale
Primary Area
Infrastructure & Cloud
Service Area
Housing Application Assistance Program (CRM)
Products Used
Dynamics 365 for Sales Enterprise, Power Platform, JotForms
Roles Impacted
Counselors, CEO
Impact Highlight
80% reduced processing time per case
Opportunity
A regional Housing Services Non-Profit faced an unprecedented surge of over 7,000 COVID-related housing assistance applications that its 11-person staff was processing manually across email, spreadsheets, shared drives, and paper signatures—delays put vulnerable residents at risk. What appeared as chaotic overload was also an opportunity to modernize intake, standardize approvals, and build a repeatable grants-management capability for future programs.
Pain Points
Fragmented intake via PDF/email/phone created duplicate and incomplete records; staff re-keyed data multiple times.
Multi-step eligibility rules (income thresholds, documentation checks, landlord verification, board approval) lacked workflow control or audit trail.
Limited visibility into application status drove high call volume from anxious applicants and partner agencies.
Manual document collection (IDs, leases, arrears statements) slowed decisions and increased data privacy exposure.
Reporting to funders required days of spreadsheet consolidation and error-prone manual counts.
Legacy mix of Excel couldn’t scale or integrate cleanly.
Solution
We partnered with program leadership to map required data, decision points, and compliance checkpoints, then aligned stakeholders on a single, auditable workflow that reflected both emergency relief needs and longer-term housing services strategy. The team delivered a Microsoft Power Platform solution centered on Dynamics 365 Sales, extended to the public via secure, mobile-friendly intake forms and automated multi-approval routing.
Our Expertise – People, Process, Technology
People: Facilitated rapid process discovery workshops; created role-based training for intake clerks, eligibility reviewers, finance, and executive reporting users; established governance champions inside the nonprofit.
Process: Modeled end-to-end application lifecycle as configurable stages with escalation rules.
Technology Core: Customized Dynamics 365 Sales entities (Applicant, Household Member, Property, Assistance Request, Funding Source) stored in Microsoft Dataverse; related records track documents, notes, and decisions.
Public-Facing Forms: Implemented Power Pages (formerly Power Apps Portals) to capture applications, upload supporting docs, and let applicants track status; integrated identity via Azure AD B2C guest access for secure external submission.
Automation: Used Power Automate cloud flows to validate data, trigger document requests, route approvals by dollar threshold, and post tasks/alerts to Microsoft Teams channels.
Document Management: Centralized files in SharePoint Online with metadata tied back to Dataverse; auto-PDF bundling for case packets.
Reporting & Oversight: Delivered interactive Power BI dashboards embedded in Teams and surfaced in Dynamics workspaces.
Impact
The end-to-end housing application system now processes high-volume relief requests in days instead of weeks, enabling the 11-person team to manage 7,000+ submissions without additional headcount. Automated validations and guided stages cut average processing time by ~80%, improved data accuracy, and gave leadership real-time insight into funds distribution and compliance metrics.
Measured Outcomes
Application triage time reduced to auto-categorization.
End-to-end decision cycle shrank from median 10 days to ~4 days for complete submissions.
Eliminated manual data re-entry through portal capture and Dataverse relationships; error corrections fell sharply.
Staff productivity: caseload per reviewer increased ~4x while sustaining audit readiness.
Applicant transparency: status portal reduced inbound status calls/email inquiries.
Reporting sources generated in minutes via Power BI instead of multi-day spreadsheet merges.
Architecture now reusable for other assistance programs with minimal configuration.