Case Study: Galvin Develops a Grant Management System 75% Faster Using Salesforce

All businesses and organizations are unique, and not all technology products solve the company’s exact needs out of the box. For years, companies have turned to custom developing applications for their scope of work. This process is long and drawn out because of the core foundational and functional work that developers have to do.  Ultimately, the final solution involves features that are no longer valid and intense technology support.

Organizations are now turning cloud platforms to get custom app development done quicker, with more features and less development cost. Salesforce, the number one enterprise cloud platform, helps companies get their applications developed 50 percent faster than custom application development. Here’s our story about how Galvin helped Christian Theological Seminary (CTS) get their grant management system developed 75 percent faster then when it was previously developed with .NET and SQL Server.

Over 600 organizations apply to CTS for grants each year. The applications require a lot of information to complete and are intensive. In addition to the Salesforce Sales Cloud Galvin utilized the Salesforce Community Cloud to design a gorgeous online user interface that allows applicants to log in and work on their grant application.

Since it takes weeks to complete this process, users could log back in later on to continue filling out the information. They could then review the grant and submit it to CTS. The system automatically sends status updates on the application, so they stay up to date. This feature improved applicant satisfaction and saved CTS countless hours. In the past, CTS personnel would spend countless hours replying to phone calls and emails about grant statuses, and now the applicants have a self-service option eliminating the hours for grant support.

The grant management system also needed to accommodate for various users who had different roles and responsibilities within the system.  These included readers who are responsible for reviewing the grants, applicants and administrators. As a result the application included automation, workflows and triggers that moved each grant seamlessly through the process ensuring that every grant was accurately moved through the process

Other technical features incorporated into this application include PDF generation, Apex development in communities and navigation with jQuery versus VisualForce Components.

Now that the grant management application resides on the Salesforce platform CTS has an enterprise foundation to build onto as they continue to grow and expand their business processes.