Houston Community Colleges - Adult Education & Literacy Department

About Houston Community Colleges 

Houston Community Colleges Adult Education & Literacy (AEL) department serves over 20,000 students across its 29 locations. They operate six separate AEL programs and rely on various state and federal funding sources channeled through their local workforce board. They manage over $4 million in grant funding between their multiple locations. 

Outdated & Transactional 

Despite being such an extensive network, HCC had virtually no communication between its campuses. Christina Robinson was the Executive Director of AEL at HCC at the time. She remembers how siloed and disorganized the program felt.

“When you have something that large, you have to have systems. When I came in, we weren’t using anything digital.” 

As a result, there was very little collaboration between campuses. This transactional framework made it hard to efficiently connect students with needed resources.  

Too Many Paper Trails 

HCC AEL relied on manual data entry and paper files to manage over 20,000 students and millions of dollars in grant funding. If staff left, it meant finding the paper file for each student in their caseload and manually reassigning it. Hundreds of thousands of paper records were filed away in boxes and stored in a warehouse at the end of every year. Required data entry for TEAMS (Texas Educating Adults Management System) was entirely manual, costing staff precious hours that could be spent with students. 

A Flexible, No-Code Solution 

myOneFlow offered a single, unified platform that could facilitate HCC’s large-scale case management, connect its many locations, and efficiently serve its diverse student body. It was the only solution that offered the flexibility, scalability, and ease of use HCC needed. 

myOneFlow worked closely with HCC to configure a system that could manage the entire adult education & literacy program, including students, employers, staff members, and other signers like parents or guardians. Throughout the build, the teams stayed connected through weekly meetings, project tracking and reviews, staff training, and close communication. Abel Guerrero is the Director of Data Management and Program Compliance for the college's AEL program. He attributes HCC’s ability to scale so effectively to myOneFlow’s responsiveness.  

“One of the key factors that has allowed us to be able to grow with myOneFlow has been the support that we’ve gotten from the myOneFlow team. Shanthi and her entire team have provided constant support throughout the entire process.” 

Guerrero also appreciates how easy myOneFlow’s no-code platform is for staff to configure themselves. Permissioned staff have system admin control that lets them customize dashboards, manage workflows, and more. “[We have] the flexibility . . . to control what it does without having to submit a ticket and wait until someone can get to it. We can bypass all of that and do the work ourselves.” 

Scaled Efficiency 

Before myOneFlow, manual intake and enrollment took an average of 24 days per student. Thanks to the platform’s simplified intake and automated workflows, this process now takes an average of fewer than seven days, enabling HCC to serve more students more efficiently. HCC’s myOneFlow portal logs over a thousand activities per month – this scale of service would be impossible if operations were still manual and paper-based. 

Key data integrations have also been instrumental in helping HCC optimize its processes. Integrating with PeopleSoft means that demographic information is automatically transferred to the student record in myOneFlow. myOneFlow is also integrated with the DRC/TABE database, so assessment data is automatically transferred and locked to protect data integrity. Staff use myOneFlow’s automated workflows to simplify WIOA compliance – the system automatically collects PIRL data from the student’s intake form, auto-populates required forms for WIOA reporting, and assigns them to the appropriate staff member to complete. 

Automated, Personalized Care 

Dr. Robinson loves that myOneFlow’s workflows can be used to automatically assign caseloads based on student information. “We case manage our students by need. When the student goes in and they answer specific questions on their intake form, it will then direct them to the appropriate case manager. That’s really critical because we know that people succeed more effectively when they’re supported by people who feel the things that they feel or know the things that they know.” 

HCC also uses myOneFlow’s Zoom integration to host its “virtual lobby,” an online space where students can get immediate assistance from live staff. They even host specific language hours to support non-English speaking students. 

Expanding to Meet the Future 

HCC has been using myOneFlow since the spring of 2020. According to Dr. Robinson, the platform was “a saving grace” for connecting to their students during the pandemic. In 2022, they made the decision to expand their use of myOneFlow to support their Teacher Certification Program. Thanks to myOneFlow, they’re now able to automate and simplify their application process, alleviate staff administrative burdens, and expedite enrollment.  

“From a digital transformation perspective, we have totally restructured the student experience.” 

-Dr. Robinson