Oxford University Innovation transforms policy engagement
- Dan Hawtrey
About Oxford University Innovation
Oxford University Innovation (OUI) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Oxford.
OUI helps to manage and commercialise the University’s intellectual property, principally through creating new technology companies and facilitating a professional consulting service. For example, OUI was involved in negotiating the licensing of the COVID vaccine developed in the Jenner Institute.
Policies and procedures are very important to OUI’s 100 employees. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) relating to protecting intellectual property and areas such as anti-fraud and anti-bribery must be watertight.
There are some procedural points that always need to be followed.”
Challenge: Hard to find, duplicated and out-of-date policies
When OUI started focusing on quality management, Philip Priest knew OUI needed a better way to manage its policies.
OUI had grown to 100 people. With all the different aspects that take place within the business, we decided to start looking at a quality management system and consider the easiest way to manage our documents, including our policies and procedures.”
There were significant issues with finding and updating policies. Not only was it hard to find the right policy, there were also duplicated policies, and it was hard to tell what was up to date.
We found three copies of the same policy at different stages of being updated. Another set of guidelines was about six years out of date. It just made sense to bring it all together and streamline everything.”
An easy-to-use system built for SharePoint and Microsoft 365
With the go-ahead to procure a policy management software, the team were keen to find a solution that integrated with SharePoint and OUI’s Microsoft 365 digital workplace.
SharePoint is a format that our employees are used to for accessing documents and we didn’t want to spook them with another system to learn! We decided we really wanted a solution that hooked in with SharePoint, which is why we landed on Xoralia. It was reasonably priced and had the SharePoint integration we needed.”
Implementation: Support from the Xoralia team
Once Xoralia was purchased, the launch a few weeks later was relatively straightforward, with support from the Xoralia team to iron out a couple of small technical issues. The team also carried out training which Priest describes as being “really useful.”
OUI also asked the Xoralia team to make a small tweak to the platform so one of Xoralia’s icons in the software could be better seen against OUI’s dark blue branding.
We raised a ticket, and the Xoralia team fixed it quickly, so we were happy.”
Easy to use, easy to find policies
Today, OUI employees are accessing Xoralia to find policies covering everything from HR documents to anti-bribery measures to IT policies to health & safety procedures.
So far, Xoralia has been well received. The combination of Xoralia’s SharePoint integration and user-focused design means that Xoralia is easy to use and policies are now easy to find. Additionally, updates about new policies or policy changes previously sent by email no longer get missed.
Xoralia has worked really well. People can just see the documents really easily. When they log in, they've got the list of documents they must read in the corner of their screen straight away, rather than just receiving email spam all the time. We’ve had positive feedback from users telling us it is easier to find documents and ultimately get the information they're after.”
Xoralia is not only intuitive for users, but it is also very easy to use for admins and policy owners too. Priest attributes some of the previous issues with policies not being found due to some content owners “not understanding SharePoint very well” and failing to add documents properly to SharePoint libraries.
However, these issues have now gone, and the combination of Xoralia’s user-friendly interfaces and robust version control means that duplicated or superseded policies appearing in the platform are a thing of the past.
A unique collection of web parts
One of the reasons that Xoralia is so easy to use is the unique collection of ready-to-deploy web parts that cover targeted policy management use cases for users, managers and policy owners. This has helped to ensure Xoralia is relevant to everybody, whatever their role.
We’ve used the web parts by SharePoint a lot, covering areas such as viewing documents, updating documents, documents owned by policy owners, favourites, and must-read documents. The line manager dashboard is also being used.”
Achieving 100% policy compliance
One of the most successful features of Xoralia has been employee attestation, where employees must acknowledge they have read a particular policy. In the past, OUI’s annual compliance process involved employees reading anti-bribery and anti-fraud policies, but there was no way to track the process. Now OUI are regularly getting 100% compliance on reading mandatory policies.
Employees not only have to confirm they have read and comply with a policy, but the team have taken advantage of Xoralia’s custom quiz feature to add specific questions to ensure understanding is fully embedded.
We’ve never had this feature before. Now because employees have to do the additional quiz, we’ve got evidence that they've obviously been through the policy and know what they're talking about.”
Another reason that OUI has been able to achieve 100% policy compliance is Xoralia’s in-built attestation reporting.
It’s been really useful being able to see that list of who has read mandatory documents. If someone hasn’t read something important, it gives us that chance to have that conversation with that person.”
Looking to the future
Now that Xoralia has been successfully in place for a few months, there are plans to introduce Xoralia into the employee onboarding process. The team are also looking at unlocking more features, including in-built approval workflows for the creation and updating of different documents.
We’re working through the workflow for approvals, and I’ve recently started exploring ‘Collections’ to present different policies together. We may also use more of the other web parts too.”
A successful partnership
Overall, OUI has also had a positive experience of working with the Xoralia team, with Philip Priest describing the relationship as “excellent”.
My experience has been really good. The Xoralia team have been fantastic and really responsive. So really, I can't fault it!”
The story behind Xoralia
Xoralia was built by the team at Content Formula, an intranet and digital workplace consultancy that has built SharePoint intranets for some of the world’s most famous companies. Now, most companies want their policies and procedures on the intranet but they don’t just want to store them there, they also want tools to help better manage them. Over the years we came across just about every single requirement for a policy management system. As this article above explains, there are gaps in SharePoint and so we never built what in our mind was the perfect policy management system.
However, one of our clients challenged us to build something for them that filled all the gaps but still used SharePoint at the back end. We had a great relationship with them and agreed to share the budget to do this, provided we could then market the solution to others. That was in 2019. We’re now on version 3 of Xoralia and the product has grown and evolved a lot.
3 benefits you can expect from Xoralia
Make it easy to find policies
Centralised policy library with powerful search and filtering
Reduce administrative burden
Automations and notifications so that all policy tasks are carried out on time
Demonstrate compliance and best practice
Sophisticated tracking and dashboards to drive and measure compliance.
And lots more!
What our clients say
A great time saver and tool for document management
We have found Xoralia to be very beneficial to us as it has allowed us to focus on other area’s as Xoralia will take care of who has read the documents and notify them if they have not. A great time saver and tool for document management all together.
Tim Galer
IT Coordinator
Hughes
Ideal partner for our regulated environment
LifeArc operates in a strictly regulated sector where compliance and information security are critical. It is essential that LifeArc’s workforce have easy and effortless access to the latest up-to-date policies and procedures, which is the structure Xoralia gave us.
Adam Lythgoe
IT Manager
LifeArc
How to get started with Xoralia
Step 1: Explore or request a demo
Start a free trial for instant, hands-on access, or fill out our form to book a personalised demo at a time that suits you.
Step 2: Get a price proposal
If Xoralia looks right for your organisation, ask us for a tailored quote. We’ll outline any options and packages to fit your needs.
Step 3: Install and launch
Set up Xoralia in your environment with our support. We’ll provide onboarding, training, and full assistance to get your team up and running quickly.
Here's what you'll get
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Central policy library
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Search and filter tools
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Mandatory read policies with attestations
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Quizzes
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Notifications and alerts
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Employee dashboard
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Line manager dashboard
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Works on mobile, in Teams and SharePoint
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New policy creation workflows
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Policy update workflows
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Review and approval gates
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Policy version history
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Compliance dashboard
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Audit trail
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Full reporting
And last but not least:
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Professional implementation service and support
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Evergreen software – frequent updates and improvements
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Comes with our "it just works" support warranty – we’ll fix any bugs, often before you even notice
Ready to get started?
Connect with us to streamline your policy management and ensure effortless compliance.
A solution that seamlessly integrates with SharePoint and our Microsoft 365 digital workplace
SharePoint is a format that our employees are used to for accessing documents and we didn’t want to spook them with another system to learn! We decided we really wanted a solution that hooked in with SharePoint, which is why we landed on Xoralia.
Phil Priest
HSEQ and Facilities Manager
