Rock2Recovery streamlines processes with Fujitsu and OutSystems
November 25, 2020
Specialist mental health not for profit company Rock2Recovery can now more easily manage its interaction with clients and drive efficiencies in its back-office, with a new management platform developed by Fujitsu using OutSystems, a modern application platform for building applications fast, right and for the future.
Rock2Recovery provides rapid preventative interventions, specific coaching and assistance to veterans and emergency services personnel with mental health issues attributed to their period of service, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Community Interest Company (CIC) was founded by former Royal Marines Commandos Jamie Sanderson and Jason Fox.
Growing at a rapid rate, Rock2Recovery was looking for a way to improve its processes, which were mostly paper-based – with everything entered manually into Microsoft Excel – in order to ensure the team could continue to focus on its core activities of working with those people who needed their help. In addition, it also needed to streamline its interaction with coaches and ensure it was able to provide accurate reporting information in order to qualify for funding from the armed forces and other public bodies.
Following two half-day workshops using Fujitsu’s Digital Transformation Centre and Virtual Co-creation Experience, where the Rock2Recovery team discussed its existing processes and infrastructure, the Fujitsu team created a three-phase approach.
The approach included building a mobile app for Rock2Recovery’s coaches and admin team and optimising its back-office, by migrating Excel data into a proper database and introducing management reporting. In addition, the Fujitsu team also delivered robotic process automation, implementing three robots to automate various tasks and processes so that key information is available to members of the Rock2Recovery team first thing every morning.
In providing its Multi-Experiential Development (MXD) Services to Rock2Recovery, Fujitsu used the OutSystems high-speed application development platform to rapidly create the mobile app. Designed to help members of the Rock2Recovery team manage all of their caseloads and reduce the administrative burden, while providing better information on which to make decisions, a first iteration of the app was created in less than five days. This was then refined over the following three weeks, based on feedback from the Rock2Recovery team.
The app, which is hosted and operated by Fujitsu, enables coaches to manage their clients more effectively, and includes session management and scheduling. It also enables them to collect clinical risk score survey data and calculations, as well as the client commitment agreement and the automation of client feedback requests. An automatic invoicing feature, along with invoice approval and reconciliation, helps streamline the payment process for coaches, ten of whom are self-employed.
“As an organisation, we are client focused, rather than admin-focused – as it really can be a matter of life and death,” said Charlie Hobson, Company Secretary at Rock2Recovery. “As a result, we were constantly trying to do admin in the ‘silent hours’, and everything was either in paper form or Excel spreadsheets, which wasn’t sustainable. What we have now has changed the way we do things completely and means data on clients collected by coaches is automatically uploaded and stored in our secure database, which can be searched quickly, and has already helped us save lives.”
“Law & Order is a fundamental part of Fujitsu’s UK Public Sector business, supporting critical systems for the Home Office and the Police,” said Katie Mulligan, Client Executive for Law and Order at Fujitsu UK & Ireland. “Alongside the many other not for profit companies and organisations that Fujitsu supports, we – as a Law & Order team – wanted to support an organisation that provides help and support directly to our clients. Rock2Recovery is a truly inspirational organisation providing support to a wide range of people suffering from the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Stress Disorders and their families; as well as supporting veterans, they also support 999 communities.
“Our aim was to help Rock2Recovery to support more people and we did this by developing an application that enables a seamless and automated process for case management and back office processing,” said Mulligan. “The great thing about this is the fact that we utilised OutSystems and built the whole app in only five days, using a team of just four people. We achieved this by using Fujitsu’s Multi-Experiential Development (MXD) Service, which streamlined the process and enabled an agile, iterative approach utilising real-time feedback directly from Rock2Recovery. It was truly fantastic to receive the feedback from Rock2Recovery that the application has already made a fundamental difference and, as a result of the easy access to information, a life has been saved.”
“The expectation that it will take months to develop an app is no longer the norm in the new age of ‘digital urgency’,” said Mike Hughes, Product Evangelist at OutSystems. “Our platform has allowed a small number of developers to build a fully functioning app in a matter of days and has allowed the team at Rock2Recovery to overhaul its processes and remove much of its administrative burden, so that it can focus on working with its clients, rather than inputting data by hand.”
Having rolled out the system across the organisation at the beginning of September, coaches and other members of the team are now actively using the app and will review requirements at the end of the year, in order to see how it can expand its capabilities to other areas of Rock2Recovery’s work.