Columbia County School District (CCSD), located in Georgia, has 31 campuses, ranging from elementary to high school. The district’s mission is to engage, enrich, and inspire its nearly 30,000 students. To support that mission, staff at CCSD rely on a wide range of forms. Not long ago, many of those forms were on paper.
Approval workflows were nearly impossible to track and took too long to complete. Educators had to sift through email and find lengthy threads just to stay informed.
“Paper forms are always a time drain,” says Joahn Sperry, business systems analyst at CCSD. “You submit it by sending it through interoffice mail or by handing it off — it just seems antique now.”
We deal with software that makes you want to stab your eyeball out because its functionality is so far behind,” she says. “Jotform has done a good job keeping up with the times.
Joahn Sperry, Business Systems Analyst, CCSD
CCSD administrators looked for a better solution and found Jotform Enterprise. Now, online forms are easy to build and share. They’re also easier to complete. Submission data is organized and sortable. Because workflows are automated, they’re completed more quickly. Administrative teams have clear visibility into approval statuses, and lengthy email threads have become obsolete.
“Is life easier with Jotform? Yeah, 100 percent,” says Sperry.
Case study results at a glance
Collaboration at 31 campuses
3,600 employees, including 1,800 classroom teachers, benefit from moving beyond paper forms.
45,000 submissions and counting
Thanks to streamlined workflows, nearly 30,000 students have more quality time with educators.
From 15-message email threads to one source of truth
Jotform makes data tracking simple, eliminating unnecessary emails from each workflow.
The Wild West
The district already had a digital system in place for HR, payroll, and compliance documentation. But as Sperry explains, school districts run on far more than those specific workflows.
“There are a thousand different general business forms you need just to run the show,” she says, mentioning parking pass applications for high school students and field trip permission forms.
With so many forms in use, submissions were nearly impossible to track. This was especially problematic for software approval workflows. “It had become the Wild, Wild West. Schools were requesting or even implementing software applications without a formal vetting process,” Sperry says.
Sperry and Karin Edwards, executive secretary, say that it took 15 or more email exchanges to complete a single approval request. “We were doing things through email exchanges, but we didn’t have a trail of the actual process,” Sperry says. “We can save the emails, but that doesn’t really help us track [the process].”
Without an audit trail, there was no way for stakeholders to see whether a request was approved or denied. For a district with 3,600 employees, including 1,800 classroom teachers, these unwieldy workflows added up — and left educators with far too much busywork.
The district needed to regain control and prevent software from being used without official approval. Sperry got started by creating a software approval process workflow with Jotform Enterprise.
Balancing tech: Jotform’s Google and Microsoft integrations prepare students for versatile post-grad environments
We have many choices when it comes to the technology we use every day. The same is true for educational institutions. While some of them work within Google, others use Microsoft.
Jotform integrations align with CCSD’s strategy to prepare students to use both operating systems. When needed, administrators can automatically transfer submission data to either Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel using Jotform’s Google and Microsoft integrations.
“K–5 uses Google Classroom,” Sperry says. “But from sixth grade on up, we are weaving in Microsoft. This way, when students leave, they’re more balanced learners.”
Jotform has hundreds of integrations. And with Jotform webhooks, there’s virtually no limit to the range of external applications that can connect to Jotform.
Simple digital solutions
When Sperry began creating workflows, Jotform’s no-code Workflow Builder made the process easy. She could build workflows herself without adding to her IT team’s plate.
Her software request workflow starts with a form that collects the information she needs, such as which department is making the request. Conditional logic routes submissions to the appropriate stakeholders and departments, keeping everyone informed.
“Now users are directed to provide specific information in the form. That request comes to me for vetting,” Sperry says. “I contact the software company, evaluate [the software], and then [the request] moves through the approval process to different approvers.”
Edwards, who helps manage the software request workflow, appreciates the newfound visibility into approvals. “Before, someone might not respond to the most recent email,” she explains. “You didn’t have the whole flow in one place. Now, everything’s right there.”
Because the workflow is easy to track, Sperry can confirm past decisions. “This has probably saved my tail a time or two when I’ve been able to say, ‘Nope, we did do this, and here’s the evidence,’ ” she says.
Is life easier with Jotform? Yeah, 100 percent.
Joahn Sperry, Business Systems Analyst, CCSD
The district also improved its professional leave request process with Jotform. This workflow had previously been paper-based. Sperry says converting paper forms to online workflows with Jotform was easier than using other software the district relies on.
“We deal with software that makes you want to stab your eyeball out because its functionality is so far behind,” she says. “Jotform has done a good job keeping up with the times.”
Jotform Enterprise helps Sperry and her team create complex workflows that are surprisingly simple to manage. “If I can hop in there and, within a couple of hours, build something and be able to look at the history, that’s huge.”
Less busywork, more meaningful work
By digitizing its “Wild, Wild West” of paper trails and email threads, Columbia County School District has replaced fragmented processes with streamlined, transparent workflows. Jotform Enterprise has made long email chains a thing of the past, and centralized audit trails ensure accountability across all 31 campuses.
More than 45,000 submissions later, the district continues to move away from inefficient paper forms and manual follow-ups in favor of agile, no-code solutions. The result? Educators spend less time tracking approvals and chasing paperwork — and more time engaging, enriching, and inspiring their 30,000 students.
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