Following the success of our Digital Skills event on Tuesday 3rd February, many of you asked for more practical guidance on how to replace time-consuming, paper-based processes, particularly incident logging. We listened.
Bury Care Academy partnered with the Business Innovation Team at the college, James Shuttleworth and Eve Burroughs from the Bury College Business Innovation Programme, to deliver a free follow-up webinar. The session gave care providers a live, step-by-step walkthrough of how to build a semi-automated incident reporting system using tools already included in Microsoft 365.
Watch the full recording below, or read on for the key highlights and takeaways.
The session started by clearing up a common source of confusion in the Microsoft 365 world: the difference between OneDrive and SharePoint. OneDrive is a personal cloud drive, while SharePoint is a shared drive built for team collaboration. For any process that multiple staff members need to access, such as an incident log, SharePoint is the right place to build it.
From there, James introduced Microsoft Lists, a tool built into Microsoft 365 that most organisations have never opened. Lists is far more powerful than a standard Excel spreadsheet for capturing structured data: you can control exactly what type of information gets entered in each field, make certain fields mandatory, and build rules and automations directly on top of it, all without any coding knowledge.
A few things stood out as particularly valuable for care providers:
• You can design the form so staff only ever see a clean, simple form to fill in, they never need access to the underlying list where all the data is stored. That means you control who can view sensitive incident information.
• Choice dropdowns, date pickers, and number-only fields mean the data coming in is consistent and structured, making it far easier to review patterns, report on incident types, and evidence your processes.
• Rules and automations mean the system does the chasing for you. New incidents can automatically notify the duty manager. High-severity incidents can trigger an alert to senior leadership. Case owners get emailed when they are assigned. Deadline reminders go out automatically. No-one needs to remember to do any of it.
• Everything sits within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem your organisation already uses, so you are not introducing new security risks or paying for additional software.
This was one of the most practical questions raised during the session, and it is a real consideration for care settings with sessional or bank staff. The short answer is: it is still achievable, with a small additional step.
The reporting form can be made accessible to anyone with the link, no Microsoft login required. Staff without accounts simply use plain text fields to enter their name. For those that do have organisational accounts, the system can link directly to their profile to trigger personalised email notifications. Where a fuller connection between the form and the list is needed for external staff, this can be set up using Power Automate, a free tool also included in Microsoft 365. The Business Innovation Team is happy to walk through this with any organisation that needs it.
The session closed with a brief tour of other tools sitting quietly inside most Microsoft 365 subscriptions that care providers are not yet making use of, including Planner for task management, Viva Reflect for staff wellbeing check-ins, and Copilot, Microsoft's built-in AI assistant, which can help you build and troubleshoot processes simply by describing what you want in plain English.
As James put it: most organisations are already paying for these tools. The opportunity is simply in starting to use them.
The Business Innovation Team is offering free one-to-one support sessions to help care providers implement this kind of system, tailored to their specific organisation and processes. Sessions typically last around an hour. To book, simply email us using the contact details on this page.
Do I need to pay for anything extra? No. Microsoft Lists, SharePoint, Microsoft Forms, and the built-in Rules automation feature are all included in standard Microsoft 365 business subscriptions. Power Automate also has a free tier that covers the most common workflows. If your organisation already uses Microsoft 365, you very likely have everything you need.
How long would it take to set this up? A working version of the incident reporting list and form can be built in under an hour once you know what fields you need. The Business Innovation Team can help you get there in a single focused session, tailored to your organisation.
Is the data secure? Yes, everything sits within the Microsoft 365 environment your organisation already uses to manage emails, documents, and sensitive data, so you are not introducing new risk. You should think carefully about permissions (who can view the list versus who can only submit the form) and consult your IT provider before enabling features such as file attachments.
Can this approach be used for other processes, not just incident reporting? Absolutely. The same method can be applied to rota management, maintenance requests, staff check-ins, and many other paper-based workflows. Incident reporting was used as a practical example in the webinar, but the underlying approach transfers directly.
How do I get support from the Business Innovation Team? Get in touch with us using the contact details on this page to request a free one-to-one session. The team will tailor the support to your organisation's specific needs and existing setup.