The problem
Late and short visits upset clients and families, and the pattern behind them (one run, one time of day, travel time that was never realistic) is hard to see visit by visit. If the registered manager spends 5 hours a month building a late-visit report from the rota system's export, that's 5 hours of spreadsheet work before anything gets fixed.
What the AI does
Copilot in Excel analyzes workbook data and shows charts, PivotTables, trends and outliers. The manager exports a month of planned and actual visit times from the care management system, with client and carer ID numbers instead of names and no care notes, and asks Copilot to compare planned and actual start times and durations by run, time of day, day of the week and carer ID, highlighting runs with repeated lateness. The manager checks each finding in the rota system, looks at the travel time on those runs and brings actions to the management meeting. Copilot runs within the Microsoft 365 service boundary and doesn't use prompts to train the models.
A worked example
A home care agency in Swindon delivers about 2,500 visits a month and already pays for Microsoft 365 Business Standard. The registered manager adds one Copilot Business license for the monthly visit-time review.
Before
5 hours a month building the late and short visit report
After
About 1.5 hours, including checking findings against the rota system
What it's worth
About $140£105€125A$202C$197 a month in registered manager time saved, against $21£16€19A$31C$30 for one Copilot Business license paid yearly. 3.5 hours saved a month, at an assumed $40£30€36A$58C$56 an hour.
How to set it up
- Buy one Copilot Business license for the registered manager, $21.41£16.10€19.16A$30.91C$30.27 a month paid yearly or $25.70£19.32€22.99A$37.09C$36.32 monthly, excluding VAT, on top of the existing Microsoft 365 plan.
- Export a month of visits with run, client ID, carer ID and planned and actual start and finish times only: no names, addresses or care notes.
- Ask Copilot to compare planned and actual times by run, time of day, day and carer ID, and to highlight repeated lateness or short visits.
- Check each finding in the rota system, including the travel time between visits on the runs flagged.
- Take the actions to the management meeting, such as re-timing a run or adding travel time, and repeat the analysis next month.
What goes wrong
- A late check-in can be a carer forgetting to log, not a late visit. Check the record before acting.
- Even with ID numbers, the workbook is personal data if it can be linked back. Keep it in the agency's Microsoft 365 and delete it when the review is done.
- Late visits for people with time-critical medication need action the same day through the rota system, not a monthly report.
- Whether free Copilot Chat works inside Excel depends on licensing; analysis in the workbook needs the Copilot license, charged per user.