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Case Study

LEAF

LEAF is an intranet workflow platform built by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to let non-technical staff digitize and manage business processes like approvals, credentialing, and resource tracking. It provides a built-in form library to standardize best practices, aiming to cut low-value st

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Overview

LEAF (Lightweight End-user Application Framework) is the VA’s intranet workflow platform that helps non-technical staff digitize forms and multi-step approval processes. Built by VA for VA, it gives teams a shared place to create workflows, track status transparently, and standardize best practices so staff can spend less time on paperwork and more time serving Veterans.

What was included

  • Electronic forms and workflow engine for request intake, routing, and approvals
  • Built-in Form Library to reuse and standardize common processes
  • Organizational tools for users, groups, and org chart style structure (Nexus)
  • Status tracking and transparency across multi-layered approval paths
  • Documentation and contribution guidance for developers working on the platform
  • Containerized local development support (Docker) for engineers contributing to the codebase

Challenge

Many VA business processes still depend on multi-step approvals, credentialing, and resource checks that are hard to track and easy to slow down with no-value steps. The challenge was making process improvement accessible to non-technical owners without forcing every team to buy or build custom software while keeping reliability and full audit-friendly visibility across complex workflows.

Approach

LEAF is delivered as a service inside VA so facilities don’t have to procure servers or install software themselves. The platform centers on easy-to-use workflow and form tools, a shared Form Library for standardization, and modular components (request portal, org/user services, shared libraries). That lowers the barrier to digitizing processes, reduces startup cost for modernization, and keeps process ownership with the teams who run the work day to day.

Next step

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