Santa Rosa County District Schools needed to find an effective and flexible facility management solution that could grow with its 36 properties and 20+ technicians. The Santa Rosa team identified key must-haves for the solution they were looking for. It needed to be scalable with new building construction and user-friendly for all staff, including school administrators, teachers, vendors, and maintenance technicians alike.
Key Challenges
- Newly hired Maintenance Secretary III, Katie Byrd, spent most of her workday managing work order requests manually, leaving little time for other important job tasks, like budgeting and secretarial duties.
- The new facility management software needed to be user-friendly for various employees, including technicians, teachers, external vendors, and district administrators.
- Optimizing budgeting for the public school district is highly important, and they needed a consistent facility management tool that would be dependable, affordable, and easily scalable as they grow.
Background
Santa Rosa County, Florida is located in the northwestern part of Florida, at the very western edge of the panhandle. The county is home to Santa Rosa County District Schools, a school district comprised of roughly 44,000 students and 36 properties–and growing! Because the county is so widely dispersed, there is a variety in the size of the schools. In rural areas, K-12 is located in one school, whereas near the beaches, schools can vary in size, with as many as 2,200 students in a 9th-12th grade high school alone.
Secretary Katie Byrd is responsible for many tasks at Santa Rosa County District Schools, including managing the facilities, facility technicians, and budgeting. Because of her extensive knowledge in facility workflow and budgeting, she identified a need to replace the county’s former facility management software to become more efficient, more productive, and cut costs.
Implementation
Santa Rosa County District Schools realized they needed a new facility management software system when they outgrew their former system. They used a competitor’s software that posed a challenge for the team’s goals, impeding on budget with growing add-on fees every time Santa Rosa County added a new location or a new user. The district employees were growing tired of the extra hidden costs associated with their previous facility management tool, and they began seeking out a system that was effective, flexible, and affordable, without having to sacrifice any of their current system functionalities.
Once Katie Byrd walked through a demo with the FlowPath team, she was hooked. She knew right away that her colleagues would enjoy FlowPath much more than their current system, and the other administrators were quick to get on board and agree. They were ready to roll!
FlowPath founders Brandon and Alex helped onboard Katie with personalized platform training sessions, starting with implementation at three different schools which all share the same parking lot and one brand-new school. After testing the platform in this small group for a short period of time, they seamlessly (and quickly!) onboarded all 36 locations to start the new year fresh.
When it came to internal staff training, Katie split her team into two training sessions with hands-on demos. The goal was to get her facility technicians quickly trained and comfortable with the new system. She was pleasantly surprised that each technician picked it up right away, stating:
“Our techs range in age from mid-20s to 68, so there’s a variety of computer skills, but they can all use it! I was nervous about making them move platforms, but they love the ease of it and how user-friendly it is.”
Katie was equally impressed with the FlowPath team’s responsiveness, adding that her technicians came to her with a suggestion for a new feature that would make their jobs easier. After sharing the request with Brandon, FlowPath quickly implemented the Quick View feature.
“Almost everything I’ve ever asked or requested of them has been implemented… I love that they are so open to suggestions.”
Results and Success
When Katie Byrd started in her role, she inherited an invoicing department roughly six months behind on payments. Now, thanks to the additional time she’s gained with FlowPath’s automated systems, the department is up-to-date on all current invoices–a dream come true! She has more time to allocate to essential tasks, like working with FEMA to help the entire district complete essential post-Hurricane Sally facility improvements.
Priority tags have allowed her facility technicians to focus on what’s important (such as high priority tasks like fall/trip hazards and plumbing issues) so that they can avoid expensive non-compliance fines from the inspectors at the Department of Education and, most importantly, keep students and staff safe. And, maintenance technicians have been more efficient with their time, no longer stressing about figuring out the best system for prioritizing their tasks.
One of the most time-saving features for Katie and her technicians has been the drag-and-drop file upload. With the previous competitor platform, technicians would send Katie images and videos directly, which she then uploaded to a USB drive for safekeeping. Now, Katie no longer has to manage the file-sharing process as technicians can upload their job site photos directly into the platform.
As a facility manager, she spends “all day, every day” with FlowPath, constantly refreshing the page on one of her dual monitors. She never misses a work order with email alerts turned on, and it has helped her manage her time better by reducing the amount of manual back-end task management. She estimates that FlowPath’s automated systems have helped her cut her administrative time in half each day, releasing valuable time to focus on other tasks like budgeting, invoicing, hurricane response management, and other secretary duties.
What’s Next?
With every school up and running on FlowPath, Katie and her team are looking forward to implementing the preventative maintenance program to assist technicians with important recurring maintenance tasks like HVAC filter replacement, mechanical room maintenance, and generator upkeep.
Administrators are satisfied and confident with FlowPath’s flexibility to manage the county’s growth with FlowPath. As the student population grows and the number of facilities increases, so do FlowPath’s services, but without the hidden fees. Now, Katie knows exactly how much of the budget to allocate towards the software, no matter how many new users or new locations are added. As the county moves forward with the construction of a brand-new, large three-story high school and a separate K-8 school, they have no doubt that FlowPath will be an integral part of their growth as they scale their operations.
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Takeaways
Thanks to FlowPath Facility Management software, Santa Rosa County District Schools can more efficiently maintain the 36+ school locations, prioritizing the critical tasks to keep their students and staff safe. Like secretary Katie Byrd, school administrators have been able to reduce the time spent on manual work order requests and reporting, effectively catching up on more essential tasks like invoicing and hurricane relief.
“FlowPath has been a significant change for our company. This software design is very user-friendly and very easy to learn. The conversion from our old software to FlowPath went seamlessly with their help. FlowPath's customer service is outstanding! Any questions or concerns that come up, they address quickly and follow up with me to make sure they answer all of my questions. I would highly recommend FlowPath software to anyone looking for a work order system!” - Katie Byrd, Santa Rosa County District Schools
