Workflow and Automation Competency Centre

What is the Workflow and Automation Competency Centre?

Do you wish there was an easier way to input data, manage processes, or automatically provide updates to staff or external reporting bodies? Do you want to know more about the uses of tools like Microsoft Power Platform, or the transformative potential of AI?

The Workflow and Automation Competency Centre can help. We provide a team of friendly business technologists and technical experts to help analyse your needs and provide practical solutions. We can offer free consultation, staff training, and technical support to transform the way that your department, centre or project works. Automating elements of your workflow means freeing up staff time and replacing manual, potentially error-prone processes with simple but powerful software solutions.

We’re not wedded to technological answers. We work closely with Focus, Oxford’s change and continuous improvement initiative, to identify cases where changes in working practices, and staff skills and empowerment, can complement our technical offer. We can provide a single point of contact for your team, facilitating links with other IT or training providers at the University, to enable your digital transformation.

How we're supporting you to optimise your workflows with automation

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Apply for a Power Automate licence

You need to apply for Power Automate licence using Microsoft Power Automate Licencing Request form. At present the licence is only for ITSS and UAS, however the ITSS staff in your department/college can request it for other staff members using the same form.

Sign up to Power Automate training

Running twice a month, this course is a combination of the application demo and hands on practice. The training is suitable for beginners. Sign up to free, in person Power Automate training, available to all colleagues within the University and colleges. 

Explore our self paced learning resources

View available resources on our Sharepoint page.

What can the Workflow and Automation Competency Centre do for you?

The new Workflow and Automation Competency Centre is available to all staff as a part of Oxford’s Digital Transformation programme. To find out more about the Centre and how it can help you, read this explainer.

Send us an expression of interest

Complete the expression of interest form to contact us with your enquiry.

Workflow and Automation Competency Centre streamlines VC Awards entry process

This year the Vice-Chancellor's Awards moved from five separate sets of awards to a single celebration of the University’s people. This meant the awards teams needed to develop a single way of managing nominations across the 11 combined categories.  

This involved automating the storage of entries into SharePoint for judges' review and sending over 1,500 personalised emails to nominees, enhancing efficiency and reducing the likelihood of human error. The Centre's business technologists and technical experts provided crucial expertise, offering consultation, training, and ongoing support to ensure the awards team could use these new systems effectively. This initiative not only saved time but also ensured a more organised and secure handling of the vast data involved in the awards process.

Read Workflow and Automation Competency Centre streamlines VC Awards entry process

How the Student Fees and Funding team saved hours of manual work

The collaboration between the Student Fees and Funding team and the Workflow and Automation Competency Centre at the University of Oxford, led to significant improvements in managing the financial assistance process. By automating tasks with Power Automate, the team achieved a 55% reduction in manual steps for each application, saving many hours of work. This automation allows a more efficient service to students and staff, enhancing response times and capacity for financial assistance casework. The Competency Centre provided essential training and support, enabling the team to maintain and refine the automation flows.

Read about the way the centre helped the Student Fees and Funding team.

Workflow Solutions Project Launch

We've launched a project to create a catalogue of workflow solutions in place across the University of Oxford. By identifying and publicising the tools we already use, we can share expertise across the University and learn what's working well for other staff. We'll share and update this catalogue as soon as our first draft is complete, and will use it to identify opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and where we might be able to save money and effort by pooling our resources.

Taking the leap into automation could save you days of manual work

Imagine saving a month’s worth of manual work – what would you do with that time now you’re free from repetitive tedious tasks? Tracey Fernandez-Jones, a Coursework Submissions & Higher Doctorates Supervisor with the Student Assessments team, doesn’t need to imagine this anymore after taking steps to streamline and simplify daily tasks using Microsoft Power Automate, saving the team an estimated 29 days of work annually. 

Find out how the centre helped the Student Assessments team. 

How Oxford staff are working with the Workflow and Automation Competency Centre to simplify their work

If a part of your work involves handling data or manual or repetitive tasks, the team may be able to help you via targeted consultancy for specific questions, projects for larger pieces of work and training. All staff at the University can work with the Centre, for free.  

These tools can be implemented in many different ways. Read about some of the ways the Competency Centre team have been helping colleagues this year.  

Power Automate training

Sign up to free, in person Power Automate training, available to all colleagues within the University and colleges. 

Contact us

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Access further resources

Workflow and Automation Competency Centre SharePoint

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Power Automate training

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