Background

For over 150 years, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) has stood as a pillar of Milwaukee's bustling business sector, representing a wide range of industries and businesses. Their philosophy is that a thriving business landscape is only one piece of the puzzle; equally important is showcasing Milwaukee as not just a hub for commerce but a vibrant, welcoming community ideal for living and raising a family.

In their comprehensive approach to nurturing Milwaukee's growth, the MMAC provides deep insights into the area's quality of life, with a special focus on the standard of local schools. Through their detailed reports on educational quality, the MMAC plays an instrumental role in supporting parents, budding entrepreneurs, and prospective business owners, offering them crucial information needed to make well-informed choices about relocating to and investing in Milwaukee. 

Challenges

Despite their rich history and multifaceted mission, the MMAC faced formidable challenges in effectively managing and presenting school quality data. Their journey with us began with the goal of creating a comprehensive school map, a tool intended to provide a visual display of intricate school data for expert analysis. However, this was only the first hurdle in a series of obstacles.

Once the school map was developed, the MMAC's task evolved into extracting and aggregating that data into detailed, user-friendly reports. This process proved to be far from straightforward: It involved manually downloading data from the map, and then tediously processing it into Excel spreadsheets. 

Interns and staff (who weren’t data specialists) were tasked with the chore of re-ranking, re-orienting, and adding extra details to this data. This manual handling was not only time-consuming but also prone to inaccuracies.

The next step was converting the sorted data into extensive PDF reports for public distribution on their website. Although functional, this method was notably labor-intensive and time-consuming. More importantly, the static nature of these PDF reports posed a significant limitation. They offered only a few predetermined viewing options, lacking the dynamism and searchability essential for practical use. That rigidity made the reports less helpful than intended for key audiences like parents and investors, who found it difficult to navigate and extract specific, relevant information. 

The MMAC's initial struggle to display information visually for experts thus evolved into a broader challenge: Making this data accessible and digestible for a wider audience. The time and effort invested in generating these reports failed to translate to ease of use and effectiveness, highlighting a critical gap in the MMAC's data presentation strategy.

Solution

To address these inefficiencies, we introduced an automated system designed to transform map data seamlessly into formats suitable for public presentation. This innovative solution eliminated the manual steps of downloading data, migrating it to Excel, and then converting it into PDFs. Instead, once the information was integrated into the map, it could automatically be processed and transformed into user-friendly formats like dynamic HTML tables or direct PDF outputs, ready for public access.

Results

• Increased Operational Efficiency: The new, automated data-to-PDF system eliminated the need for manual data handling, which significantly streamlined the MMAC's operations and led to a substantial reduction in time and effort for data processing.

• Improved Accuracy and Consistency: The automation process minimized human error, ensuring the data presented in public documents was both accurate and consistent, in turn maintaining the MMAC's data integrity and reliability.

• Enhanced Data Accessibility and Usability: The system facilitated the creation of dynamic HTML tables and PDFs, making the information more accessible and easier for the public to understand. That resulted in an improvement of the usability of the MMAC's public-facing documents.

• Cost-Effectiveness: This solution proved to be economical by reducing the man hours and manual labor previously required, saving resources, and maximizing the return on investment for their data management systems.

• Boosted Productivity: The automation allowed staff and interns to shift their focus to more strategic tasks, which increased overall productivity within the MMAC.

• Transformative Impact: This project showcased our expertise in delivering customized, innovative solutions that significantly enhance an organization's data management and presentation capabilities.