Frontline Education is an integrated insights partner supporting more than 12,000 educational organizations in their efforts to develop the next generation of learners. The award-winning Frontline Insights Platform brings together dedicated K-12 human capital management solutions to meet the unique needs of the education community.
Their story
Two years ago, educational insights partner Frontline Education underwent a rebrand. New logo, new website, new messaging.
The marketing team’s previous project management solution wasn’t making the process any easier. Folders were lost inside folders. Collaboration suffered. Team members struggled to manage tasks.
“We used another project management solution, which everyone hated,” says Sean Amster, Frontline’s Digital Strategy & Operations Manager. “It was really convoluted. Previous to that, the team used Asana. That’s when we realized we need a little bit more project management and not just task management, but the alternative was overly-complicated. It’s not designed with the end user in mind.”
Amster was responsible for launching Frontline’s new website. With so many pieces to manage, he turned to Wrike.
“I actually introduced Wrike to my company because we were going through a rebrand, and I was leading the process from a website operations perspective,” he shares. “We eventually had the rest of the marketing team use it to QA the website, and everyone really loved it. Wrike is easy to use for individual contributors but powerful enough for managers and executives.”
We do more, and we do it faster with Wrike. Projects that used to take us eight days now take us only five. We’ve also been able to handle about 80 more projects per quarter.
Their victory
Frontline relies on Wrike to streamline communication across the organization, do more work in less time, and zero in on high‑impact projects.
One tool to rule them all
While marketing was the first team to use Wrike, nearly every department at Frontline has since adopted the platform. The company now boasts 180 Wrike users and 160 collaborators.
“Wrike has been able to bring finance, marketing, CS, operations, and IT all together in one system,” says Amster. “This is huge for us because now I can get a request from CS about a project, for example, and I can comment back-and-forth in Wrike for clarifications or approval. We now have an all-in-one project management system, which has been transformational for our company.”
More projects in less time
With all project details and communication stored in Wrike, Frontline employees have a clearer view of their schedules, workloads, and expectations. “People are less stressed because they understand what work they need to get done and have ahead of them,” says Amster.
The ability to plan ahead, collaborate effectively, and access information quickly has made the marketing team extremely productive.
“It has been amazing,” he says. “We do more, and we do it faster. Projects that used to take us eight days now take us only five. We’ve also been able to handle about 80 more projects per quarter. That’s a 20% increase in workload that marketing can take on because of Wrike.”
Focusing on meaningful work
Frontline uses Wrike’s real-time, custom reports to monitor employee workload and progress. The marketing team is integrating Wrike with its business intelligence tool, Microsoft Power BI, to gain deeper, actionable insight into performance.
“Over the last month or two we've really been able to dive pretty deep into some of our front-end analytics to be able to address bottlenecks and training opportunities,” says Amster. “We’re looking at workload, which types of projects are normally delayed, which types of projects are behind, which owners of projects are typically delayed, and those types of things.”
Frontline hopes to tie projects to leads and ultimately to revenue in the near future. “We don't want to be just a department that's busy. We want to be a department that's doing meaningful work,” Amster explains. “And Wrike combined with our other business intelligence allows us to focus on the things that add the most value to our company.”
We don't want to be just a department that's busy. We want to be a department that's doing meaningful work.
Their superpowers
Dynamic Request Forms
Marketing projects come in through Wrike’s Dynamic Request Forms, which help marketers get the details they need without bogging down requesters. “Dynamic Request Forms really help cut down on people emailing our project coordinator or requesting items over random Slack conversations,” says Amster. “They help us make sure we have everything we need to actually start the project.”
Custom workflows
Wrike’s Custom Workflows allow users to create project-specific statuses, like ‘In development’ or ‘Approved.’ “The ability to customize our workflows for specific processes was huge,” says Amster. “With Wrike, we're able to create statuses that are really meaningful and tell us a story of where a task or a project is. Ultimately, that allows us to better communicate to management and leadership.”
Collaboration tools
Rather than sending files and feedback via email, Frontline now collaborates within Wrike using comments and Wrike’s proofing tool. “Being able to @mention people and comment back-and-forth has been very helpful,” says Amster. “We love the ability to attach different items like emails, Word documents, or pictures to tasks, and comment on them and mark them up right in Wrike.”
Find out how Wrike can help your business
