Digital Consultancy Projects

Voluntary digital systems consultancy for third-sector organisations - CRM discovery, Power Platform architecture, automation, and service design.
Scottish Tech Army and Digital Xtra - Project Complete card acknowledging Richard Williams for streamlining the grant evaluation process

Scottish Tech Army · Voluntary · Dynamics 365 CRM · Dataverse · Power Platform · Power Pages · Model-Driven Apps · Microsoft Entra · SharePoint · WordPress · Power Apps · AI

3 projects Scottish Tech Army voluntary engagements
Completed Digital Xtra - evaluation cycle reduced from weeks to hours
In Development Connecting Carers CRM and Power Platform
3 reports Formal discovery and design reports for Connecting Carers
Dynamics 365 Dataverse Power Apps Power Pages WordPress Jira Microsoft Entra
Completed

Digital Xtra

Nov 2024 – May 2025. Rebuilt the legacy grant evaluation system for a Scottish digital charity using Power Apps and AI. Evaluation cycle reduced from weeks to hours. Presented to directors on completion.

Tools: Power Apps · AI automation · Microsoft 365

Concluded by client

Nursery Project

Documentation and instructional materials around a new system built by another volunteer. Engagement ended when the nursery adopted a commercial platform.

Tools: Instructional design · documentation

In Development

Connecting Carers

2025–present. Dynamics 365 CRM discovery and design for a national charity supporting unpaid carers. Three formal reports delivered. Now in Development.

Tools: Dynamics 365 · Dataverse · Power Platform · Power Pages · Entra

Digital Xtra - Grant Evaluation System Rebuild

November 2024 – May 2025 · Completed

Digital Xtra is a Scottish digital charity that uses a grant evaluation process to assess applications for funding. The existing process was largely manual and took weeks of effort from the evaluation panel and Partnerships Manager each cycle. I rebuilt it using Microsoft Power Apps and AI to automate the grant evaluation workflow end to end - from application intake through to panel scoring and reporting. The full evaluation cycle was reduced to hours. On completion, I presented outcomes directly to the organisation's directors.

"Richard volunteered to update our legacy grant evaluation system... He successfully delivered the project on time, and kept us in the loop as the project progressed. He was enthusiastic about the challenge and a pleasure to work with. Most importantly, the feedback from the evaluation panel was very positive about the improvements."

Kraig T Brown, Partnerships & Development Manager, Digital Xtra - Recommendation received November 2025

Connecting Carers - CRM Discovery, Design & Development

2025 – Present · In Development (Analysis and Design phases complete)

Connecting Carers is a national charity supporting unpaid carers across Scotland. Three formal reports were produced through the Analysis and Design phases, addressing different layers of the organisation's digital estate.

Report 1: Power Platform App Setup - A technical review of the existing Power Platform environment: which apps existed, how they were built, what data they used, what permissions controlled access, and where the fragilities and single points of failure were.

Report 2: Website Review - An assessment of the public-facing WordPress website, how registration forms connected to back-end systems, whether a staging environment existed, and how the website related to the broader digital ecosystem. Key finding: the website and CRM/Power Platform systems were not integrated in the way staff believed them to be.

Report 3: Dynamics 365 Integration - How Dynamics 365 CRM was being used operationally: which views were used for which jobs, where manual re-entry was occurring, and the relationship between the CRM Hub and Customer Service Hub. Analysis moved from system audit to service design - mapping how data moved through the organisation.

Power Platform admin centre showing the Connecting Carers Live environment - state Ready, region Europe, type Production, with Dynamics 365 and Dataverse

The Connecting Carers Live Power Platform environment - Production, Europe region, Dynamics 365 and Dataverse active.

Power Apps maker showing the Connecting Carers Dataverse entity relationships - Care For entity with relationships to Activities, Emails, Cases, Tasks, Appointments, Teams chats and more

Dataverse entity relationships for the Connecting Carers model - breadth of connected activities, cases and communications.

Governance Principles
  • Don't change live systems without a tested staging environment
  • Store data once - avoid duplication that requires manual synchronisation
  • Match the interface to the user, not the developer
  • Plan for the person who comes next
  • The right question is not "what can the technology do?" but "what does the organisation need, and can they sustain it?"

"Richard is a skilled volunteer and I've worked with him on two projects at the Scottish Tech Army. He brings his deep and wide technical knowledge to helping charities, generous with his time and collaborative in his approach. His ability to delve into and understand undocumented technical environments has been invaluable."

Jean Ferguson, Lean Continuous Improvement Facilitator & Scottish Tech Army volunteer collaborator

Skills Demonstrated

Dynamics 365 CRM investigation Dataverse / Power Platform review Microsoft Entra permissions analysis Data flow mapping across systems WordPress and web integration assessment Power Apps and AI automation Stakeholder discovery and mapping Service touchpoint analysis Governance and sustainability thinking Plain English technical reporting Non-technical director communication Formal multi-report discovery documentation Jira

View the IKON project → Workflow Automation & Solution Engineering ↗