Autodesk Unifies Program Management with Centralized Intake and Real-Time Directory Sync

Autodesk manages 47 strategic programs across HR, property, and cross-functional initiatives supporting 14,000 employees globally. Programs lived in OKR Board, Asana, Smartsheet, Product Board, and PowerPoint with no connections between them. When someone needed to understand program status, they had to check five different systems manually.

Setting up new projects meant configuring data across multiple platforms, which created errors and consumed time. When employees transferred teams, their program assignments stayed in the system for weeks because there was no automatic sync with the employee directory.

InAir built a centralized Airtable system that structured work around how Autodesk actually plans:

• We synced this system with Autodesk’s employee directory so when someone transferred teams, their assignments updated automatically.

• Custom interfaces were built for different teams so managers could see relevant data without database complexity.

• Project setup became automated through templates that eliminated repetitive manual configuration.

• Milestone health calculated automatically from actual task completion instead of requiring manual status updates.
  
  Leadership went from waiting for email status compilations to seeing all 47 programs in real-time, and program managers spent their time executing instead of consolidating data.

Autodesk’s platform teams tracked projects across OKR Board, Asana, Smartsheet, Product Board, and PowerPoint. None of these systems connected to each other. When the Chief People Officer needed to know if programs were on track, program managers had to pull status from multiple systems, consolidate information manually, and send email updates. By the time that email arrived, programs had moved and the information was outdated.

One program manager estimated spending 40% of his week data hunting: pulling task status from Jira, asking stakeholders for updates through Slack, consolidating numbers into spreadsheets, emailing summaries to leadership. That happened three times a week. Actual program work happened in the remaining 60% of his time whenever available.

When employees transferred to new teams, their names stayed in the system for weeks because there was no automatic sync with the employee directory. Tasks kept getting assigned to people who had already left. Three weeks later, someone would discover a critical program stalled because work was assigned to a ghost, an employee who had transferred months earlier but never got removed from assignments.

Setting up new programs required manual configuration across systems. The hierarchy of how issues connected to initiatives, and initiatives to programs, wasn’t enforced consistently:

• Errors happened frequently
• Different teams needed different views and interfaces but no system provided that customization without manual workarounds

Our Airtable expert team built a centralized Airtable system that reflected Autodesk’s actual planning structure:

Issues connected to components, components to features, features to initiatives, initiatives to programs, outcomes tied to programs. 

This wasn’t enforced through spreadsheet conventions anymore: it was the foundation of the data structure.

We also connected this system to Autodesk’s employee directory through real-time sync so:

• When someone transferred teams, their program assignments updated automatically
• When they left the team, their access was automatically revoked
• When they changed roles, their team permissions adjusted.

No weekly cleanup. No manual reconciliation.

Our Airtable consultants also engineered API integrations connected Airtable to Jira and Product Board so data could flow between systems.

The Chief People Officer logged in and saw all 47 programs with health status and risk indicators instantly without sending a single email.

Work no longer gets assigned to employees who have transferred teams. The entire category of stalled work that nobody knew about disappeared because ownership updates automatically.

Ultimately, program managers didn’t see databases: they saw smart forms for entering program name, sponsor, stakeholders, and outcomes. The system handled everything else: creating relationships, assigning owners from the live directory, configuring permissions, generating project templates.

Project setup became consistent and automated instead of manual and error-prone.

Custom interfaces and dashboards were also built for different teams so each could see what mattered to them without seeing irrelevant data. For instance, the milestone health is now calculated automatically from actual task completion instead of requiring manual status updates.

Reporting and milestone tracking work across multiple bases and teams without each team maintaining separate spreadsheets.