State employees facing workplace disputes deserve a resolution process that's fair, timely, and transparent. For one state agency, the gap between that goal and their operational reality was costing them time, capacity, and the ability to serve employees well.

The Problem: Bottlenecks Everywhere

The agency managed employee grievances and appeals across multiple state departments. Their process depended on email inboxes, spreadsheets, and manual coordination at every step.

When an employee submitted a grievance, they emailed a form to the agency. An intake specialist opened the email, downloaded the attachment, and manually typed the information into a tracking spreadsheet. Name, contact information, agency, grievance details—all entered by hand. If something was missing or illegible, they chased down the employee for clarification.

Scheduling a settlement conference was worse. The scheduler checked the settlement officer's calendar. Then the union representative's availability. Then management's availability. Then conference room availability. Emails went back and forth. Phone calls. Calendar holds that fell through. Once a conference was finally scheduled, someone had to manually send notifications to all parties, then remember to send reminders as the date approached.

They needed a system built around how their process actually worked, not a generic tool they'd have to force-fit. As we've written before, understanding workflows before automating them is essential to getting technology implementations right.

What We Built

F&T Labs partnered with the agency to design and build a custom solution on Salesforce. We chose Salesforce for its security credentials, flexibility, and long-term sustainability. The agency would own a system on a widely-supported platform, not a proprietary black box only we could maintain.

We spent significant time upfront understanding their specific case types, business rules, and role structures. Then we built iteratively, demonstrating working functionality every two weeks so the agency could validate we were on the right track.

The visual scheduling interface replaced hours of back-and-forth coordination

The final system addressed each bottleneck directly.

Before	After
Emailed documents manually re-typed into spreadsheets	Employee self-service portal with data flowing directly into the system
Hours of back-and-forth emails to schedule one conference	Visual drag-and-drop scheduling with automatic calendar invites
Manual notifications composed and sent one at a time	Automated confirmations, scheduling notices, and reminders
Digging through spreadsheets for status updates	Real-time dashboards with case volumes and workload at a glance

We also tackled one of the most time-consuming parts of case review: getting up to speed on complex grievances.

The Impact

The difference showed up immediately.

Role-based dashboards give supervisors and staff instant visibility into case status and workload

During go-live, the team scheduled more settlement conferences than they previously could. The old process was so slow that it capped how many conferences they could coordinate in a day. With visual scheduling, that constraint disappeared. Staff processed more cases in the same amount of time, which meant employees with pending grievances got their conferences scheduled faster.

Intake specialists stopped being data entry clerks. With employees entering their own information through the web form, intake staff redirected hours of their week toward reviewing cases, identifying issues, and routing work appropriately. Their expertise went toward the parts of the job that actually required it.

Built to Last

Many technology projects end at go-live. The vendor moves on, and the agency is left maintaining something they don't fully understand.

We took a different approach. From the start, we planned for the agency to own this system independently. This reflects our core belief in capacity building through consulting: our job is to make ourselves unnecessary, not to create long-term dependency.

During go-live, our team provided direct phone support so questions got answered immediately. We stayed engaged through the transition until the agency was confident operating on their own. By the end, the team felt ready to run the system themselves—which was exactly the point.

The agency now owns a system they can sustain, extend, and evolve as their needs change. That independence was always the goal.

Our Approach

F&T Labs uses our THRIVE methodology to guide engagements like this one: understanding challenges before proposing solutions, building iteratively with continuous client input, validating thoroughly before launch, and ensuring sustainable handoff so agencies aren't dependent on us forever.

We're former government employees ourselves. We understand the constraints: tight budgets, complex procurement, multiple stakeholders, and the weight of serving the public. We build solutions that work within government reality, not despite it.

Want to see more examples of our work? Check out our case studies or read about how we helped automate a manual workflow for another local government.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why choose custom development over off-the-shelf software?

Off-the-shelf software forces you to adapt your workflows to the tool. Custom development does the opposite—it's built around how your team actually works. For government agencies with specific compliance requirements, unique business rules, and established processes, custom solutions eliminate the workarounds and manual steps that generic software requires.

Why did you build this on Salesforce?

Salesforce offers enterprise-grade security credentials that government agencies require, plus it's a widely-supported platform with a large ecosystem of developers and partners. This means the agency isn't locked into a single vendor—they can engage any Salesforce partner for future development or build internal capacity to maintain the system themselves.

How does AI help with government case management?

AI can handle time-consuming tasks like summarizing complex case files, freeing staff to focus on judgment calls and decision-making. In this system, AI analyzes case details and generates concise summaries highlighting key issues and requested remedies. Staff review and edit the output before saving—keeping humans in control while reducing the time needed to get up to speed on each case.

How long does a custom development project like this take?

Timeline depends on complexity, but we build iteratively—demonstrating working functionality every two weeks so you can validate we're on the right track. This approach reduces risk and ensures the final system actually meets your needs, rather than discovering misalignments at the end of a long build cycle.

What happens after go-live?

We plan for your independence from day one. That means complete documentation, role-based user guides with click-by-click instructions, hands-on training for each team, and direct support during the transition period. Our goal is for your team to feel confident running the system on their own—not dependent on us forever.