The project Cool Collaboration II was born from a growing need to adjust to the ongoing trend of digitalization. Its aims were clear: To raise the level of digital competences of partners’ youth workers. Feed and exponentiate the work already done during Cool Collaboration. And to democratize the access to digital tools, by making them simple and accessible to other organizations / youth workers.
The main goal was to improve the quality of youth work, its efficiency and the capacity of the organizations to manage and implement Erasmus+ Projects.
The project was co-funded by the European Union through the Portuguese National Agency – Agência Nacional Erasmus+ Juventude/Desporto Corpo Europeu de Solidariedade
Objectives
Impact
Through the implementation of Cool Collaboration II, the consortium behind this project and its youth workers have developed a more digitalized approach to youth work and are now open to experiment and explore digital opportunities instead of being skeptical about it.
The digital project management and collaboration tools, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 were configured and integrated in the youth work of all members of the E29 network, assuring all youth workers digitalize their tasks or manage them digitally.
The guide “Simplified Digital Project Management and Collaboration procedures” allowed for more young people as well as other NGOs to better organize projects using digital procedures and tools, decreasing bureaucratic processes and increasing their active participation.
International Activities
As part of this project we organized two trainings aimed at raising the digital competences of our youth workers and one blended mobility where young people learned more about the digital skills they need to create and implement successful international projects.
The 4 transnational meetings were used not only to take care of the management of the project and preparation of activities, but also as working sessions to build our own digital tools.
Guided by mentors, participants practiced logistics and coordination, learning to manage activities with structure and creativity.
Youth workers in Guimarães enhanced their digital skills with advanced Microsoft tools, preparing for future projects.
In Budapest, youth workers from four countries explored Microsoft Power Platform tools in a practical training on digital youth work.
Results
The project produced a series of results, starting with the full integration of Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 tools across the E29 network. All partners of the network are now using the same system and digital tools.
E29 Project App
Even though the system is decently complex, we have managed to improve our project management by building our own E29 Project App, a fully integrated CRM system – allowing for the shared and real-time access to all project’s relevant information, contacts and document databases. The Project App allows also the automatization in creation of documents such as Participants List and Declaration, YouthPass Import, reimbursement reports, or even more operational outputs such as Room Allocation or any other documents that rely on the stored data.
E29 App - Project table
E29 App - Project Form
E29 App - Activities Tab
E29 App- Activity Form
E29 App - Outputs Table
Project Management Tools – Microsoft Project and Planner
We have unified other digital project management tools such as Microsoft Project and Microsoft Planner – allowing all the partners to monitorize and track all the tasks, deadlines and milestones referring to a specific project. By standardizing the processes, creating and automatizing templates used in the implementation of our activities we have decreased the space for mistakes, for doubts, ensuring we achieve the quality standards we aim for.
Microsoft Planner - Grid View
Microsoft Planner - Board View
Microsoft Planner - Timeline View
Microsoft Project
Power Bi – Real-time visualization
The development of online infographics using Microsoft Power BI allows our event coordinators to do real-time assessment of the status of a project, focusing on participant selection and the statistical analysis of target group elements such as age range, gender balance and previous experience.
Microsoft Power Bi -KPI Checker
Guide
Project management is not easy, when combined with digital tools and procedures which need to be followed by project documentation, it might become overwhelming and demotivating to pursue. Therefore, we created a guide with simplified digital project management and collaboration procedures. The guide aims to explain the digital tools we integrated and give step by step guidelines of the processes needed to implement a “project”, mainly youth exchange type of activities.
The guide is complemented by a series of resources used with the digital tools. These include templates to implement with Microsoft Project and Microsoft Planner as well as a compilation of tutorials about the various softwares used to develop our own digital tools during this project.
Download the Guide here
Other Resources
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Agência Nacional Erasmus+ Juventude/Desporto e Corpo Europeu de Solidariedade. Neither the European Union nor the funding authority can be held responsible for them.