Learn how a construction management firm made its project management workflows more efficient with Cognito Forms, resulting in 90% faster form completion time. 

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When Megan Cordingly, Senior Business Analytics Manager for Hoar Program Management (HPM), joined the company she found disparate systems for managing the company’s data. She saw an opportunity to incorporate new solutions that would ensure the efficiency and data quality the company needed.

“When I started at HPM, we had a lot of one-off Excel sheets, fillable PDFs, and Word documents to gather data,” Cordingly explained. “We relied on these to report to leadership about our various programs and projects.”

Driven by the company’s core value – the relentless pursuit of improvement – Cordingly led a company-wide effort to streamline processes and gain clearer visibility into every program and project.

Their Initial Challenge

When Cordingly first joined HPM, one challenge stood out above the rest: project data spread across multiple Excel sheets and fillable PDFs.

• Why this matters: HPM identified the opportunity to improve how project-level data was tracked across programs. Their existing tools made it challenging to consolidate updates for leadership, which slowed down reporting and introduced occasional gaps in their data.

Their team needed a form builder to collect data in a structured, organized way, but they also needed a solution that could send data to their reporting dashboards and other systems. Whatever platform they chose would be critical in connecting all their systems and improving visibility across all projects and programs.

Why Cognito Forms?

Cordingly had used Cognito Forms in a previous role and knew it offered the features needed to transform their processes. After evaluating other tools, including Microsoft Power Apps, they chose to go with Cognito Forms because of three main reasons:

Flexibility and ease of use

HPM needed a form builder flexible enough to handle their complex and evolving project needs, without the burden of a steep learning curve. The ability to create customized forms while maintaining a simple user experience was a key factor in their decision. Cognito Forms enables them to:

• Create forms that closely match their business processes.
• Connect related forms and data using powerful Lookup fields.
• Use conditional logic to show or hide fields based on project requirements.
• Build sophisticated forms and Workflows – without added complexity.
• Seamlessly integrate with existing tools (like Power BI and Procore, their project management software) to keep data in sync across platforms.

Data cleanliness and control

Maintaining high-quality data was essential for HPM to make accurate decisions across its many projects. They needed a system that identified inconsistent or incomplete data to help enhance the accuracy and overall reporting experience for HPM teams. Data control quickly became one of Cordingly’s top priorities.

“The more I can control how people input data, the better,” shares Cordingly. Cognito Forms allows them to:

• Collect high-quality data in consistent formats from the moment it’s collected.
• Make critical fields required so key information is never left blank.
• Reference and manage frequently changing data across forms using powerful Lookup fields.

Continual feature development

HPM’s continuous process refinement played a key role in choosing what product to use. Cognito Forms’ steady stream of new features meant they could keep their processes up to date with modern technology. “Some features may seem small,” noted Cordingly, “but it’s the little points of friction getting solved along the way that keeps us evolving and improving.”

Streamlining Project Initiation Requests

Cordingly first used Cognito Forms to create a Project Initiation Request (PIR) form that brought together both project and program-level data. She describes the PIR form as their “Rosetta Stone” because it has become their central hub that links together all key project information.

“The PIR [form] is a central way of linking our projects to other data sources," Cordingly explains. "It gives us the information we need to create the Procore site, track budget risk, schedule risk, safety risk, and more.” Their PIR form quickly gave HPM a way to collect cleaner, more consistent data and connect that data directly to Power BI dashboards for better reporting and visibility.

However, they found that a few parts of their process were still manual and time-consuming for the team.

Their New Challenges

Digital forms provided much-needed structure and consistency to HPM’s previously scattered and sometimes paper-based processes. However, some challenges remained. They took a closer look at these pain points to understand exactly what was still slowing them down. The challenges they identified included:

Disconnected processes

Project managers previously manually created a new entry on the Marketing Quarterlies Checklist (MQC) form after every PIR form they submitted. “We would sometimes have multiple entries for the same project, and that caused inconsistencies in our data,” Cordingly explains. “We wanted to make sure there was just one MQC entry per PIR project and have the project manager return to that same entry each quarter to provide updates.”

• Why this matters: Duplicate or missing entries made it difficult to track project information accurately in their reporting dashboards. This led to gaps and inconsistencies in the data they share with leadership.

Tedious manual data entry

Project managers previously manually entered each team member’s information every time they added people to a project. Although the task wasn’t extremely time-consuming, it quickly became repetitive and frustrating, creating unnecessary friction in the process. “They’re having to put in their name, title, email, and department every time,” shares Cordingly. “They often have to look up all of this information every time to be sure it’s correct.”

• Why this matters: The repetitive task led to employee frustration, and project managers frequently asked Cordingly if there was a way to make it less manual. It also introduced inconsistencies – staff often entered names and role titles differently across multiple submissions. This made it harder for leadership to report on accurate team data.

Complex, time-consuming integration management

Connecting forms to other systems required a separate Power Automate flow for each action on every form – and each one had to be configured manually. “With Power Automate, we had to create two flows for each form,” shares Cordingly. “It was impossible to manage all of those flows because we have a lot of forms.”

• Why this matters: Setting up and maintaining each flow was time-consuming for Cordingly. Even small changes to a form could break the integration, forcing her to track down and repair the connection. “Power Automate was so touchy because there are so many points of failure in the setup,” she adds.

The Solution & Implementation

After identifying these additional challenges, Cordingly leveraged newly released features to enhance their forms and streamline their overall process. Cognito Forms’ continual development of new features enables HPM to keep up with evolving needs in complex business environments. These updates significantly improved several parts of their process to make it more efficient for their team.

Automated connection for consistent data

When a new project began, project managers were responsible for completing a Project Initiation Request (PIR) form. As part of the process, they were also expected to create an entry on the Marketing Quarterlies Checklist (MQC) form. They would then return to that same entry each quarter to provide updates to HPM’s marketing team throughout the project lifecycle.

However, this process often broke down. Project managers would either create a new MQC entry instead of updating the original or forget to create one altogether. Both issues led to inconsistent data and gaps in quarterly reporting.

To solve this, Cordingly used auto-create entries to automate the connection between the two forms:

• When a project manager submits a PIR form, an entry on the MQC form is automatically created.
• The update link for that entry is emailed directly to the project manager.
• The platform automatically pre-fills all program and project details from the PIR onto the MQC form.
• Project managers can no longer create new entries on the MQC form themselves.

This automation eliminated the risk of duplicate or missing entries and ensured a single, consistent record that could be updated reliably throughout the project lifecycle.

Simplifying team management

Managing project team information was another pain point Cordingly was eager to solve. Typing out each team member’s name, email, title, and other details was time consuming for project managers, and Cordingly aimed to save them time by decreasing this repetitive task in the process.

With the introduction of Person fields, they built a smarter, more efficient system:

• They created a Person Form to store all up-to-date information for every team member
• A bulk import populated the entries on this form using data from their Microsoft Active Directory
• Project managers now select team members from a drop-down menu
• Names, email addresses, titles, departments, and more are auto-filled with a single click

This change drastically reduced the time it takes project managers to complete the form, simplified the process, and helped ensure the data collected is complete and accurate. Cordingly reflects on the impact: "Being able to just select a person with a single click, instead of typing out all those fields, is huge because sometimes projects have 30 or more team members.”

Easily managing connected systems

HPM initially used Power Automate to connect Cognito Forms with other systems, but this approach came with major limitations. Each form required two separate flows (one for new submissions and another for updates), and even minor changes to their forms broke the connections.

Cordingly resolved these issues by switching to the Cognito Forms API. This change created a more stable integration that:

• Automatically updates employee information based on changes made in Microsoft Active Directory
• Sends PIR form data to the correct Power BI dashboards and reports
• Feeds project data directly into their construction management platform, Procore

With the Cognito Forms API in place, data now flows reliably between systems, even when changes are made to their forms. This eliminated broken connections and simplified the management of integrations connected to dozens of forms.

The Results & Impact

Elimination of duplicate entries

After implementing auto-create entries, Cordingly successfully eliminated duplicate entries on the MQC form. Project managers no longer wonder whether to fill out a new form or update an existing one.  The process is now automated and clearly defined.

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90% faster team member selection

With Person fields, project managers no longer have to search for or manually verify each person’s details to add them to a project. All relevant information is now automatically filled in with a single click. What once took several minutes now takes just 25 seconds – resulting in a 90% time savings for the task.

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Improved data quality

Their data is now more consistent, accurate, and reliable across all projects. Structured fields with validation, Lookup fields, Person fields, and more help ensure data quality before it’s even submitted. Because the data is clean and well-organized, Cordingly spends far less time transforming it for leadership reports. “Having clean and organized data is tremendously helpful for my work and our company’s reporting,” shares Cordingly.

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Reliable, easy-to-manage integrations

Since switching to the Cognito Forms API, managing the connection between forms and other systems has become significantly easier. Connections no longer break, and data flows reliably between systems – requiring far less maintenance from Cordingly. She summed it up plain and simple: “The API is so much smoother.”

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Best Practices Learned

Through their experience, Cordingly and the HPM team uncovered several best practices for getting the most out of Cognito Forms:

• Start with your most impactful process: Begin by creating a form and automating the Workflow of the process your team uses most often. This delivers immediate value and builds a strong foundation for future improvements.
• Prioritize data quality: Use controlled fields (like dropdowns, Lookup fields, or fields with validation) instead of open textboxes. This will dramatically improve the accuracy of your data and cut down on cleanup later.
• Continually iterate and improve: Use Cognito Forms features, new and existing, to address points of friction, simplify the form experience and explore ways you can automate manual steps.
• Digitizing alone isn’t enough: While digitizing your forms is a great start, using automation, integrations, and features like Lookup and Person fields is what truly reduces manual work, improves data quality, and drives efficiency.

Up Next: Transforming Vendor Management

HPM is excited to use Cognito Forms’ upcoming Guest Access feature to transform how they manage vendor relationships. They’ve already implemented a new user-friendly, digitized vendor pre-qualification form. Now, they’re preparing to go even further with a custom vendor portal.

Cordingly envisions a vendor portal that:

• Simplifies pre-qualification: Vendors could log in to access and update their pre-qualification applications without digging through emails or sending Word documents back and forth.
• Pre-fills project-specific applications: Once a vendor has a main application on file, they could apply for specific projects with just a few additional questions. Existing information would pre-fill automatically, reducing redundant work and ensuring accurate data.
• Streamlines ongoing updates: Vendors could easily keep their information (like certifications and insurance) up to date without starting a new application or reaching out to HPM’s team.

This upcoming functionality will enable HPM to extend their internal efficiency gains to external vendor processes – helping them continue evolving on their digital transformation journey.

Unlock Smarter Project Management Workflows

Are manual team assignments, duplicate entries, unclean data, or disconnected forms slowing down your projects? With Cognito Forms, you can automate workflows, connect sequential processes, and integrate seamlessly with your project management systems – without complex coding or expensive consultants.

Join HPM and hundreds of other project-focused teams that have streamlined operations, improved data quality, and accelerated project delivery. Your path to smarter, faster project management starts here with automatic form creation, one-click team assignments, and seamless system integrations. Create powerful, professional forms in minutes.