How CEI Builds Real-Time Forecasting and Financial Visibility

^{The Problem}

Breaking Silos to Scale Impact

The Center for Educational Innovation (CEI), Colorado’s longest-standing K–12 education intermediary, partners with over 100 school districts to improve student outcomes through strategic initiatives, professional development, and systemic change. But as CEI expanded its impact, its internal operations struggled to keep pace.

Critical functions like project tracking, contract management, and revenue forecasting were handled across fragmented systems—static Excel files, Google Sheets, SharePoint folders, and manually generated PDFs. Development, finance, and program implementation teams operated in silos, leading to disconnected workflows, redundant data entry, and limited cross-functional visibility.

These challenges were especially pronounced in CEI’s revenue operations, which balance philanthropic grants and fee-for-service work. With new contracts increasing annually, the lack of a unified platform created barriers to collaboration, increased administrative burden, and introduced risks of error and misreporting. Reporting required excessive manual effort, and data inconsistencies hindered strategic planning.

To support its mission of educational innovation at scale, CEI needed a flexible, integrated system capable of managing the full project lifecycle—from development and delivery to invoicing and financial tracking.

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^{The Solution}

Unifying Operations with a Custom Fit

We chose SmartSuite because it allowed us to bring together disparate information sources and workflows into a single, customizable platform. Its flexibility in field types, data views, and automation capabilities enabled us to design interconnected solutions that reflected how we work. Implementation allowed us to align teams around shared data, streamline processes like invoicing and project tracking, and reduce reliance on manual updates and disjointed systems. We finally had a tool that could grow with us.

SmartSuite was introduced to bring order to CEI’s growing complexity. Initially, the focus was on development and finance: capturing revenue contracts, aligning projections, and ultimately building an integrated pipeline view.

Eileen Walz, CEI’s Operations Lead, led the platform rollout. “We designed SmartSuite to reflect the full journey of a project—from grant proposal or contract opportunity, all the way to tracking deliverables and impact,” she explained.

The team customized SmartSuite’s architecture to mirror their unique structure: one pipeline for contracts, one table for active projects, and junction tables to handle multi-district and multi-year work. They also partnered with a consultant to extend SmartSuite’s financial capabilities, building dashboards for real-time revenue recognition and forecasting by month, category, and body of work.

We’ve built custom SmartSuite solutions for our development pipeline, grant and contract management, invoicing, and program implementation tracking. Each solution is linked to ensure continuity across the organization—for example, funder records connect to deliverables and payment schedules, which tie into invoicing and program milestones. Dashboards provide live insights by team and project area, and automations support consistent communication and follow-up. We continue to iterate and expand our workspace as new needs emerge.

SmartSuite replaced a combination of Excel, Google Sheets, SharePoint, and manual PDF processes for invoicing and tracking. Previously, development and finance each maintained their own spreadsheets that didn't connect. This made coordination difficult and increased the risk of outdated or incomplete data. SmartSuite gave us a single, integrated home for our core operational functions, improving alignment and reducing complexity across the board.

Q2

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^{The Result}

Bringing Clarity to Complex Portfolios

Since implementing SmartSuite, we’ve seen significant improvements in collaboration, efficiency, and data transparency across teams. Manual invoicing processes that used to take hours and multiple systems can now be completed in minutes within a single workspace. Teams have real-time visibility into project and funding pipelines, and we’ve reduced duplicative work and errors. Staff have expressed greater clarity and confidence in our internal systems, and we’re better equipped to support partners and stakeholders with timely, accurate information.

SmartSuite enabled CEI to visualize its entire portfolio of grants and contracts in one place—linking school districts, project types, contract values, and timelines with precision. For the first time, development projections, actuals, and financial planning were connected in real-time.

“We want to see how our pipeline of projects interacts with what we thought would happen for the year,” said Emily. “And now we can.” The operations team built naming conventions and automations that drastically reduced manual work, while dashboards empowered leadership with visibility over secured revenue and gaps.

SmartSuite also transformed the user experience. “There was a shift for me,” Eileen shared. “I realized I should be designing for dashboards, not tables. That’s what makes it user-friendly for our team.”

We love the many field types, capacity to customize their looks, automate pieces, and build dashboards to tie information together. These have allowed us to build intuitive and elegant interfaces for tracking complex relationships between grants, deliverables, invoices, and timelines.