Colorado Improves Access to Quality Early Care and Education With Scribe iPaaS

MANCHESTER, NH--(Marketwired - Apr 27, 2016) - The Colorado Department of Human Services Office of Early Childhood and Vertiba, a leading Salesforce consulting firm, today announced the selection of the Scribe Software integration platform as a service (iPaaS), Scribe Online, to help create a custom Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) around Salesforce. By using Scribe to integrate Salesforce with new and legacy systems, Colorado's Office of Early Childhood and Vertiba significantly improved data access and quality for the Colorado Shines program, reinvigorating the program for both consumers and early childhood educators.

Before the new QRIS initiative, Colorado Shines data was distributed across disconnected systems and databases, which made it difficult for the Colorado Office of Early Childhood staff to report on the quality of early childhood programs and to track the impact of quality investments to improve early childhood education. The Colorado Office of Early Childhood secured a four-year, $44.8 million grant to bring ratings processes, referral processes, licensing processes and quality improvement investments under one roof. As part of the grant, they were federally committed to improving access to quality early care and learning programs across the state.

"We needed to reengineer the Colorado Shines ratings process so we could more effectively improve the quality of childhood education programs," said Stacey Kennedy, director of child care quality initiatives at the Colorado Office of Early Childhood. "Scribe Online was critical to that reengineering, allowing us to transform Salesforce into the well-integrated Colorado Shines QRIS system we needed to better rate quality, distribute funds to improve quality and track results of our improvement programs. Scribe helped us get the new ratings system up and running in half the time it would have taken with other integration options."

The Colorado Office of Early Childhood decided to create a custom ratings system around Salesforce, which meant they needed to bring data from all legacy systems related to licensing and quality rating into Salesforce, along with integrating data from a new fund tracking system. The office partnered with Vertiba, a Gold-certified Salesforce consulting partner, and selected the Scribe Online iPaaS to complete a combination of bi-directional and one-way integrations to transform Salesforce into the central hub of the program, improving tracking of the results of improvement efforts and enabling rapid improvements to the program. The organizations selected Scribe due to its speed and ease of use, which allowed them to hit all key milestones mandated by the grant, while enabling the Office of Early Childhood to take ownership of the creation and ongoing maintenance for the system because it was easy enough for their business analysts to use to reach their integration goals.

"With Scribe, we were able to work with the Colorado Office of Early Childhood to implement the integration under a tight deadline, at the lowest cost and with the highest level of flexibility and agility for easy ongoing maintenance," noted Lynn Lannin, director of professional services for Vertiba. "As the office prepares to assume program costs that were previously covered by providers, the level of efficiency we achieved with Scribe is very important."

The Colorado Office of Early Childhood and Vertiba used the Scribe iPaaS to import licensing and ratings data from legacy Oracle databases into Salesforce, allowing them to add data onto those records based on ratings and referrals, and to share that data with Department of Education partners in the SimplyDigi professional development information system, a system used for credentialing, tracking and training early childhood professionals. Another bi-directional integration between Salesforce and the SugarCRM-based ECCLA grants management system helps local partners distribute funds to facilities to improve educational results.

"The Scribe iPaaS is so easy to use that I can remap fields in the interface, change or troubleshoot existing integrations and add new integrations -- all without any advanced Salesforce or database training," said Colin Tackett, business analyst at the Colorado Department of Human Services. "We're already expanding the use of Scribe to tackle new internal and partner needs, and I'm beginning to take over the task of building the new connectivity in Scribe myself, helping us remain responsive and cost-efficient."

The results of the new QRIS initiative include enhanced data quality thanks to consistent nightly syncing across all platforms, and the creation of a Salesforce-based central data hub with easy access, allowing Colorado Shines staff members to analyze ratings and early education funding to improve the program consistently. The new ratings system also led to double the number of participating childhood education programs across the state, and this higher participation and better ratings data allows Colorado to distribute funds more effectively.

"This project shows the power that iPaaS and cloud-based CRM systems have to increase the agility of an organization and to reengineer complicated business processes involving multiple systems and users with different roles," reported Lou Antonucci, VP of sales for Scribe Software. "Blurring the lines between CRM and other systems through integration can transform an entire business process or organization, and the Colorado Office of Early Childhood and Vertiba have reinvented this critical process with standard components such as Scribe Online and Salesforce."

Scribe Online serves as the embedded integration layer for major independent software vendors, software as a service (SaaS) providers, systems integrators, value added resellers and digital marketing agencies. Register for a free trial of Scribe Online to learn more about the connectivity Scribe Online provides to leading business applications including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SAP, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics AX, HubSpot, Marketo, Oracle Eloqua, ExactTarget, Intacct, ON24, Silverpop and dozens of other applications.

For more information on the Colorado Shines Quality Rating and Improvement System, visit: http://coloradoshines.com

For more information on the Scribe Online iPaaS, visit: http://www.scribesoft.com/products/scribe-online/

About The Colorado Office of Early Childhood
The Office of Early Childhood provides resources for children, families and early care professionals to best prepare Coloradans for future success through access to collaborative, coordinated, quality early childhood programs and supports. The Office's mission is to provide access to necessary supports to get all Colorado kids ready for Kindergarten and reading by 3rd grade; to provide community and family access to services for optimal early childhood development; to create a coordinated system of early identification and intervention; to increase access to quality early learning for all children; to collaborate with partners to create a coordinated system; and to support continuous quality improvement.

About Vertiba
As of March 1, 2016, Vertiba is part of Publicis.Sapient, the world's largest and most advanced digital transformation platform. Vertiba's Salesforce skills further strengthen Publicis.Sapient's ability to help clients transform and optimize the ways in which they engage their customers across all aspects of the customer journey, from marketing, to sales and service, leveraging the latest cloud-based technology. Founded in 2010 by Jim Hooton and Ted Battreall, Vertiba is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. It delivers a full range of services around the Salesforce platform and has completed more than 800 projects leveraging its skills in consulting, implementation and integration, as well as custom cloud application development and support. The common thread here is a relentless focus on doing great work and achieving high customer ratings. So far it's working.

About Scribe Software
Scribe is an established global provider of solutions that easily bring data anywhere it is needed -- regardless of IT infrastructure. Scribe's award-winning products help 12,000 customers and 1,200 partners use data -- cloud-based, on-premise or a mix -- to increase revenue, provide superior service, and create business value faster. Its easy-to-use, enterprise-ready solutions are backed by extensive support options and training, and service customers across a wide array of industries including financial services, life sciences, manufacturing, and media and entertainment companies.

Follow Scribe on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, SlideShare and Instagram.