Developing Custom Workflows for Project Portfolio Management

Industry

Education

Service

Custom Software Development

Technologies We Use

Microsoft SharePoint, SQL, .NET

Client History

The client is a higher learning and doctoral university. This client provide programs in science, engineering, technology, and management.  The university also manages undergraduate colleges. These include disciplines such as electrical, mechanical, industrial management, and computer engineering. The university increased its academic programs, research projects, and cooperative projects. This rise resulted in the number of active projects increasing. This growth placed pressure on the university’s existing ICT processes, which were not designed to manage projects at this scale. The university decided to implement an integrated project and portfolio management solution. This solution helped in supporting long term planning and governance.

Challenges

The projects are running across departments, colleges, and external partners. These projects resulted in managing demand and approvals complex.

Key challenges included:

  • Rapid growth in the number of projects across departments
  • Multiple internal and external stakeholders involved in each project
  • Limited support for custom demand management workflows
  • No single view of document approvals, change requests, project closures, risks, and issues
  • Dependency on visiting individual project sites to track status
  • Lack of support for person type fields in out of the box functionality
  • Inability to display document approval status alongside risks and issues

The standard features of the platform did not fully match the university’s operational and governance needs.

Goals & Objective

The university wanted stronger control, clear visibility, and consistent management across all its projects. Their goal was to set up one central system for project and portfolio management that could handle complex request workflows, show real-time approval status, and reduce manual work when tracking documents and decisions. They also wanted portfolio managers to quickly spot delays and ensure workflows matched the university’s approval process.

Solutions
  • ACME One implemented a mix of standard and custom workflows within the project management platform. While out of the box workflows were used where possible, key gaps were addressed through custom development. One major enhancement was the creation of a custom People Picker control. The main purpose is for assigning project sponsors, since person type fields were not supported natively. The People Picker made it easier to assign tasks,  especially in a large organization. This alignment can be done where multiple people share similar names. Context based search ensured that tasks were routed to the correct individuals.

business workflow automation

Implementation

The project involved extensive customization of workflows, forms, and views. Custom components were developed to provide a consolidated portfolio level view, including:

  • Document approval control
  • Change request approval control
  • Project closure approval control
  • Enhanced issues and risks view

A central set of libraries was also created to collect and display information from all project sites. These libraries provided a single place to track:

  • Document approvals
  • Change requests
  •  Project closures
  • Risks and issues

Instead of navigating multiple project sites, portfolio managers could now view the complete status of their portfolio from one screen.

Result

Real-time Visibility

Centralized Approvals

Faster Issue Detection

Improved Demand Planning

Less Manual Tracking

Stronger Governance

Outcomes

Real-time Visibility

Centralized Approvals

Faster Issue Detection

Improved Demand Planning

Less Manual Tracking

Stronger Governance

What Our Client Says

Don’t just take our word for it. Hear what our satisfied clients have to say about their experience partnering with ACME ONE

“The custom workflows gave us a clear and consolidated view of our entire project portfolio. It significantly improved how we manage approvals, risks, and demand across the university.”

Client Team

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Contact Info

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Our Location

Meydan – Nad Al Sheba – Dubai – United Arab Emirates

Phone Number

+971 50 952 6681

Email Address

info@acme-one.com

Working Hours

Monday - Friday: 9.00 - 6.00
Saturday & Sunday (Closed)

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