Replacing hours of manual data entry with a fully automated intake, notification, and inventory system
From Manual Chaos to Automated Clarity: How a Labor Union Eliminated 100% of Manual Swag Request Entry
Replacing hours of manual data entry with a fully automated intake, notification, and inventory system
Labor Union Client Overview
Our client is a regional labor union representing thousands of workers across the grocery, retail, and cannabis industries. Their Special Projects team coordinates branded merchandise for members, staff, and high-visibility events spanning multiple divisions. As programs expanded, the volume and complexity of requests quickly outgrew the process built to handle them. Client name withheld at client's request.
The Challenge
Every swag request arrived through a public web form, landed in a shared email inbox, and had to be hand-transcribed into a tracking spreadsheet, line by line, size by size. For the labor union's staff, this meant hours of recurring work each week:
- Copying form submissions into logs manually
- Chasing missing or unclear details from submitters
- Reconciling errors introduced by manual entry
- Producing reports with no real-time visibility
Requests spanned three distinct categories, general member giveaways, cannabis division promotions, and internal staff gear, each with complex size matrices that had to be carefully tracked against inventory. The process had no realistic path to scale.
The Solution
Technology Navigators designed and deployed a fully automated intake and tracking system that replaced the manual workflow end-to-end. Submissions now flow from a redesigned intake form, through an orchestration layer, and into a live inventory log and formatted team notification, all without a human touching a spreadsheet.
What we built:
- Smart intake form, A Jotform front-end with conditional logic, collapsible sections by swag category, and separate size matrices for cannabis and regular staff gear. Engineered for both submitter experience and clean downstream data.
- Real-time orchestration, A Microsoft Power Automate flow that triggers on every submission, parses nested form data, and fans out to email notification and structured spreadsheet logging simultaneously.
- Formatted email summaries, Conditional rendering ensures staff only see items actually requested. No blank fields, no noise.
- Live inventory log, Every request is written to a SharePoint-hosted Excel workbook across 20+ columns: requester details, event context, item quantities, and full size breakdowns.
- Division-aware data model, Cannabis and regular staff swag flow into distinct reporting segments for clean downstream analysis.
- Full documentation, A technical manual stored on SharePoint lets the labor union's team maintain and extend the system independently. No vendor dependency.
Stack: Jotform · Microsoft Power Automate · SharePoint Online · Excel Online
Results & Impact for the Labor Union
The labor union's Special Projects team has reclaimed hours of recurring work every week, gained real-time visibility they never had, and built a foundation for scaling member and staff engagement programs without scaling headcount. What was a week-by-week scramble is now a background process.
100%
Elimination of manual data entry for all swag requests
20+
Data fields captured automatically per submission
Instant
Team notification the moment a request lands
1
Single source of truth for inventory demand 24/7
