As a Support Technician at IC Thrive, I have the pleasure of working with the wonderful and creative individuals that make up the Thrivers family of customers. I am blown away by the unique ideas implemented in our intranet software by our outstanding clients. One client that continues to revolutionize the way they use their intranet software for education is Rio Ranch Public Schools and their intranet champion, Peter Barron. Rio Rancho Public Schools (RRPS) is a public school district run in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. At the center of this school district is an incredibly passionate and enthusiastic Intranet Services Manager, Peter Barron. Peter Barron and the Rio Rancho Public School District joined the IC Thrive family in 2001. One would think when you have had an intranet in place for over 13 years this intranet site may grow stale and stagnant, but not with Barron’s endless enthusiasm to make their intranet, named RioNet, better and better every year. Barron’s energy and creativity for RioNet is contagious. He is always coming up new ideas on how to streamline tasks and processes better on the intranet. Even I, someone who views and interacts with hundreds of different intranets consistently, am taken back by all the unique ways Barron has integrated and centralized RioNet to become the go-to resource for the Rio Rancho Public Schools.

Track New Hires Progress with Online Forms

Recently, chatting with Barron about one of his latest ideas, he came up with an impressive way to onboard and track new hires with our Online Forms application. Walking Barron through some of the intricate functionality available our Online Forms application, he was kind enough to share a couple examples of how he is leveraging the Online Forms application within the Source Intranet Software. An impressive example of the robust functionality available in Online Forms was how Barron created an Online Form to that allows Senior Teaching Staff to track the mentoring of new teachers. These Senior Teachers or Mentors are able to track the individual progress of the New/Junior Teachers, giving the Mentors the opportunities to leave evaluative comments along the way, within the confines of RioNet. This single form took another entirely paper-based process online to eliminate paper waste. Given the ability to set security permissioning to access Online Forms and online form responses, the privacy of these New Teacher Progress Evaluation Forms can be set to individuals and can be accessed and updated easily throughout the year. With the ability to save and review Historical Online Form Responses, the mentors can also go back through the form history to review previous progress. In the true, positive Peter Barron spirit, he had this to say about working with IC Thrive and our Source intranet software over 14 years:

“This is truly an elegant solution that is SUPER easy to create and maintain, and the ROI is significant as previous methods involved time-wasting communications and tons of paperwork that was difficult to track and preserve were eliminated.”

Since activating this New Teacher Progress Evaluation Form at Rio Rancho Pubic Schools, teachers have had extremely positive feedback from their mentors, with Barron summarizing their reviews as:

“The teachers are GAGA about the New Teacher Progress Evaluation Form and the versatility it provides them. The Mentors LOVE being able to quickly capture their evaluations and updates each month!”

Improve the Hiring Process with Online Forms

Another interesting example of how Rio Ranch Public Schools has leveraged Online Forms, with the wizardry of Mr. Peter Barron, is to improve the hiring process. With the robust workflow system available in Source, Barron was able to simplify what would be an extremely difficult process due to the high volume of users. Because so many schools use RioNet, Barron did not want to complicate things by having multiple workflows. He instead created one large Dynamic Form with over 40 sections, and based on what section the user fills out, specific triggered workflows are initiated when the form is submitted. For example, if a user selected “Rio Rancho High School” in the Online Onboarding Form, the form would dynamically only display the fields that were required completion at that specific school.
Utilizing Dynamic Forms streamlines the approval process for staff, saving managers time with automatic e-mails for submissions that need to be approved.   As onboarding new employees can require efforts from multiple departments, Barron took it a step further to create a workflow within an Online Onboarding Form that would notify individual stakeholders from different departments when it was his/her turn to facilitate an onboarding activity within the onboarding process, as well as which activity they were accountable to complete. This minor enhancement to Rio Rancho Public Schools’ onboarding process with Automated Workflows provided immediate time-cost savings, only engaging accountable parties at the stage in the onboarding process they were needed at the right time, also eliminating the need for someone track and manage the onboarding process manually. Barron also showcased how this also allowed Rio Rancho Public Schools to hold each party accountable for their engagement in the onboarding process and leveraging the Workflow Approval History to review and track each individually submitted form response.

Share Your Intranet Ideas

Peter Barron and RioNet is just one of the very inspiring and creative clients I get to interact with at IC Thrive. But I know that there are many more ways our incredible customers are utilizing Source Intranet Software in unique and unconventional ways. I’d love to learn about how you use Source to help your organization better connect, collaborate and create. Please share them by commenting.

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