From Spreadsheets to Live Analytics: Annual Data Collection Across Dozens of Agencies with SurveyVista on Salesforce

The Challenge: An Annual Data Collection That Had Outgrown Email and Excel

Every year, this State Government Agency collects data from a dozens of agencies across government. Those responses go into a detailed annual report, and the information in it has to be accurate, complete and defensible.

For years, the process ran on email and Excel. Surveys went out in individual emails, completed spreadsheets came back in every format imaginable, and the team spent weeks chasing, merging and cleaning files before any real analysis could begin. Reporting was hard and getting harder, and leadership had little visibility of progress while the collection was underway.

What Needed to Come Together:

• One Platform for the Full Survey Lifecycle: The agency needed a single place to prepare, send, track and report on surveys across every participating agency, replacing the cycle of emailing and consolidating spreadsheets.
• Agency-Level Responses, Not Individual Ones: Each agency's response needed to be submitted on behalf of that agency. Any authorised contact at an agency had to be able to contribute, without the agency's answer being split across several individual submissions.
• A Parent and Child Agency Hierarchy: Many agencies sit within a parent agency. Child agencies needed to submit their responses, and the parent agency then needed to review them, make updates and submit a consolidated response back to the collecting agency.
• Anonymity Where It Mattered: The participating agencies spanned internal and external organisations across departments, so the survey had to protect anonymity where required.
• Detailed, Reliable Analytics: Above all, the agency needed reporting it could trust. It wanted to see responses from across the network in one place and analyse them in depth for the annual report.

The Solution: An End-to-End Survey and Analytics Platform with SurveyVista on Salesforce

The agency already ran Salesforce, so Zenyus proposed building the solution there rather than introducing another standalone tool. After assessing the requirements, the team presented a solution built on SurveyVista, a Salesforce-native survey platform. It was selected because its configuration options and support model covered every core requirement, as well as the detailed business rules gathered during the design and requirements phase.

1. A Native Survey Platform on the Existing Salesforce Org

Survey responses are captured directly in Salesforce, alongside the agency records the team already manages. Surveys no longer pass through inboxes and spreadsheets, and every response lands in one consistent, structured format, ready to report on.

2. Agency-Level Responses from Any Authorised Contact

We configured the solution so that any authorised contact at a participating agency can respond on that agency's behalf. However many people are involved in preparing the answer, each agency submits a single response, and the collecting agency always sees one clear submission per agency.

3. A Review-and-Submit Workflow for Parent and Child Agencies

To reflect how government is actually structured, we built a multi-tier response workflow. Child agencies submit their responses first. The parent agency then reviews them, makes any updates and submits the consolidated response back to the collecting agency. Each response is checked by the right people before it reaches the final dataset.

4. Anonymity Built Into the Design

Because participants included both internal and external agencies, anonymity was treated as a design requirement from the start rather than added at the end. Respondents could take part with confidence, knowing their participation was protected where required.

5. Business Rules Configured Into the Process

The business rules agreed during design were built into how surveys are prepared, distributed, completed, reviewed and submitted. Data quality is handled within the process itself instead of being fixed in spreadsheets after the collection closes.

6. Reporting and Analytics, Ready for the Annual Report

With every response held in Salesforce, the agency can track progress across the agency network while the survey is live, then analyse completed responses in depth. The consolidated data feeds directly into the annual data collection report.

7. Working Hand in Hand with the SurveyVista Team

This delivery was a true partnership. The SurveyVista team worked closely with Zenyus at every stage, from solution design through configuration, testing and go-live. Their responsiveness and product expertise were a big part of delivering a solution that was both seamless and robust, and they continue to support the team on enhancements through managed services. A sincere thank you to the SurveyVista team.

The Outcome: On Time for the Annual Cycle, and More Than Was Asked For

The engagement covered requirements, design, build, testing and go-live, and it was delivered end to end in four months. The platform went live before the end of the financial year, in time for the annual data collection cycle, and agency leadership was delighted with the result.

• Live Before the Financial Year Ended: Go-live landed ahead of the financial year end, exactly when the agency needed it.
• First Survey Out on 1 July: The first annual survey was sent directly from Salesforce on 1 July, the start of the new collection cycle.
• Every Response Collected and Reported: Through late August and September, responses from across the agency network were gathered, reviewed and reported, with no spreadsheets to merge by hand.
• A dozens of Agencies, One Platform: The full survey lifecycle, from preparation and distribution through response, parent agency review and reporting, now runs in one place.
• Scope Managed, Expectations Exceeded: Zenyus managed evolving requirements and scope throughout and delivered beyond what the agency had originally asked for, while staying within agreed timeframes.
• Supported Beyond Go-Live: Zenyus continues to work with the agency through post-go-live support and managed services, with the SurveyVista team supporting every enhancement along the way.

For Zenyus, this engagement is one of our proudest examples of what a well-designed SurveyVista solution can achieve on Salesforce: complex, multi-agency data collection made simple, reliable and ready to report.

A Note on Confidentiality

The public sector agency for whom this solution was built and delivered has chosen to remain anonymous. If you are considering a SurveyVista solution on Salesforce, please reach out to us at hello@zenyus.ai. We would be happy to share more detail on how we delivered this solution.