The Project
The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) is an international research institute based in Japan, focused on promoting sustainable development and environmental strategies through research, policy recommendations, and collaboration with global stakeholders. They needed help upgrading their Intranet to Drupal 9, while also ensuring their complex workflows ported well into their new site.
This website empowers IGES staff to complete a variety of internal administrative tasks. It is a Mission Request and Mission Reporting system in which staff can request approvals for international travel. This triggers an approval workflow, notifying their manager, who can approve or reject the request. Once the mission request is approved, reminders are scheduled to ensure that the staff member submits a report detailing their mission outcomes. The staff user list and details of their position in the organization are updated via a CSV export from the IGES HR system consumed by Drupal’s feeds system. Lists of funds and financial managers are maintained by authorized accounting staff, who also use the database to track whether expense claims have been submitted for each mission.
The Partnership
Whereas IGES is busy promoting research collaborations with international organizations, Kalamuna’s role is to ensure their approval workflows are seamless. An easy-to-use approval process and transparent history of request actions help IGES build trust amongst its internal staff. We modernized their approval workflows to provide a solid foundation for future enhancements and scalability, positioning IGES for continued success when pushing its mission further.
The Project
Goal #1: Approval Log Tracking in Drupal Workflows
We also augmented the workflow process for the site administrators by creating an approval log feature that also satisfied organizational record-keeping needs. Visibility into the progress of mission requests and actions taken during their approval process, such as business travel approvals, ensures the IGES team can easily trace exactly what actions were taken by whom at each stage of the complex approval processes.
Given the nonprofit organization's bilingual nature, it was crucial to design the website to handle requests in both English and Japanese. Multilingual website functionality in the backend and frontend ensured accessibility for users of all types.
This project succeeded due to our emphasis on the user. Notifications are very important in the approval process for IGES staff. Clear, on-screen alerts were implemented on the website, informing users of the result of their actions, who received a notification, and for what reason. Email notifications provide clear and actionable information to approvers and interested stakeholders ensuring that no one is left wondering about the status of their request. Approvers know immediately when they need to take action. To prioritize the user, we utilized the message stack of modules for push notifications. We know that one notification isn’t enough. The busier the users are, the more likely they will miss an approval. That’s why we send reminders if a request awaiting approval hasn’t seen action in the timeframe expected. This multi-channel, multi-modal approach increases the likelihood that notifications are seen and acted upon promptly, setting up IGES staff for success.
Kalamuna made what seemed like an impossible migration project manageable. Staff feedback is nearly entirely positive, which is rare for an intranet system
Bob McDonald
Director of Technology Solutions