Veterans’ Wellbeing Network helps more service members, faster with Power Apps solution

Members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) serve in countless ways. They take part in international conflicts, international peacekeeping missions, national humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief efforts. They collaborate with allies to strengthen international ties. And, of course, they train to keep Australia secure. In other words, they help their country and the wider world stay safe.

Sometimes serving and ex-serving veterans and their families need a little help, too. That’s where the Veterans’ Wellbeing Network Mid North Coast steps in. The Australian nonprofit’s 15 advocates support about 900 veterans of the ADF, helping them access benefits such as wellbeing support services, compensation, healthcare, employment services, and more. Yet their previous time-intensive internal systems required too much repetitive work and held too much potential for introducing mistakes. The nonprofit needed a more efficient solution.

The Veterans’ Wellbeing Network collaborated with ONGC Systems, a Microsoft partner that specializes in assisting small to medium nonprofits, to build a custom client management system called the Veterans’ Wellbeing Management System (VWMS). The solution, built on a combination of Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Pages, enables the organization’s advocates to more efficiently help veterans.

The VWMS recently won a CRN Impact Award in the Environmental, Social, and Governance category. The solution helps advocates focus on veterans’ wellbeing by reducing the time to submit a compensation claim by up to 40% and expanding the nonprofit’s mission to more service members.

"The VWMS enables a holistic approach to helping veterans, so we can look after their wellbeing,” explains Kellie Harrison, a Wellbeing Advocate of the Veterans’ Wellbeing Network. “One of the biggest impacts of the new system is that veterans now know they can get immediate help.”

Growing to serve more veterans

About 650,000 veterans live in Australia, more than half of whom do not receive benefits from the country’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs. That leaves a lot of veterans and their families who could potentially benefit “but who do not know they qualify or consider themselves veterans,” says Geoff Harrison, President and Senior Advocate of the Veterans’ Wellbeing Network.

"With all the time I save in this new system, I can help more people,” Kellie says. “I can get a faster response for them, too.” That can translate to life-changing impacts such as access to mental and physical health services, pensions for disabled veterans, or covered medical costs for a service-related injury.

Veterans seeking support fill out an online form built with Power Apps. The VWMS automatically evaluates their answers on a series of questions that assess wellbeing across finances, health, mental health, and other factors to assess the urgency of the case. The system then triages the case, alerting advocates to a new client.

The streamlined solution autofills information from the intake triage form throughout the system, reducing the potential for mistakes and leading to faster results for veterans. “Every day we use this solution we compress the time to get the ball rolling on behalf of veterans,” Geoff says.

The VWMS also automatically populates some documents, such as release of information forms needed to secure records from the Departments of Defence and Veterans’ Affairs. In addition, the one-stop-shop system eliminates the need for repetitive busywork. “We sometimes have to complete and submit up to 12 forms for a single client, and this solution means we don’t have to retype veterans’ details,” Geoff says.

Since the Veterans’ Wellbeing Network began using the Power Platform-based solution in 2023, they have reduced case processing time by 25-40%. This efficiency enables the nonprofit to expand its client list. Clients are also spreading the word about the exceptional help they receive, leading to an increasing number of referrals. The Veterans’ Wellbeing Network is now working with veterans across Australia and even internationally.

Importantly, the VWMS enables advocates to increase their caseload while reducing overtime. “I used to work six days a week,” Geoff says. “Having the VWMS allows me to work more quickly so I don’t work on weekends. It helped us separate work from home.”

Establishing trust with clients

Service members witness a lot, from the violence of war zones to the aftermath of tsunamis. “Veterans are trained to act and perform a certain way, to not show any weakness, and sometimes their work can be truly traumatic,” Kellie says. “Working in such an immediately responsive software environment helps break down that wall. It allows me to take action, so veterans understand they’re being cared for and listened to in a safe environment.”

Advocates record important notes directly into the VWMS during conversations, enabling active listening as well as compliance with Australian laws mandating a record of every interaction with veterans. "While in the system, I log exactly what they’re saying and feeling, then relate that back to them. They know we’ve got their back,” Kellie says.

Client data collected through the VWMS and stored in a SharePoint database also helps advocates review relevant information whenever a veteran follows up. Being able to quickly refresh their memories and respond to questions lends a personal touch that demonstrates how much advocates care. The VWMS collects data and automatically creates a measurement of how each veteran is doing over time. Six-month longitudinal reports show how a client’s wellbeing has shifted so advocates can continue positive momentum or change tactics when needed.

The security underlying the Microsoft-based VWMS also inspires confidence in the nonprofit’s clients. “Everyone has a heightened awareness about their privacy and the confidentiality of their data,” which includes personal details as well as medical records, Geoff says. “They want to know their data is secure.”

The VWMS is built upon the Microsoft Dataverse, which includes protections such as the identity management solution Entra ID and the ability for Veterans’ Wellbeing Network to limit who can see client details. Staff also sign confidentiality agreements. “Security ensures veterans that their information is safe with us,” Geoff adds.

Collaborating with colleagues

In the Veterans’ Wellbeing Network’s old system, advocates had to call or email a colleague if they had a question or needed input. Now they can collaborate simultaneously in the VWMS.

Staff can assign a task to a coworker, an electronic handoff that works well for the geographically dispersed team. This enables advocates who have specialized in one aspect of the work, such as compensation claims, to efficiently tackle related steps in the process. Detailed case notes bring them up to speed and enable them to begin work in minutes. And advocates can work on different aspects of a client’s case simultaneously, leading to faster help for veterans. The VWMS also enables advocates to leave some fields blank for colleagues to fill in later, making the process smoother and more efficient.

“The Veterans’ Wellbeing Network are using technology to advance their amazing work,” says Steve Dawson, CEO of ONGC Systems. “This solution makes their efforts quicker and more seamless, allowing their impact to be more widespread.”

ONGC focused on creating a simple, intuitive interface based on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s seven domains of wellbeing that enabled easy use for advocates with all levels of technology literacy. ONGC and the Veterans’ Wellbeing Network partnered to train advocates to increase adoption of the new solution.

“It’s a seamless process where we are able to learn from each other. We can collaboratively find solutions to veterans’ matters, more quickly,” Geoff says.

The VWMS was developed with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs funding, and the Veterans’ Wellbeing Network hopes to make it available to other service member-focused organizations. “This solution has already made a profound impact on veterans through the Veterans’ Wellbeing Network,” Steve says. “With the vision to put it in the hands of as many advocacy organizations as possible, its impact is just getting started.”