Resources / Case study
AXI Case Study · DASNY · 2026

DASNY — six years of MWBE+SDVOB goal setting & outreach for one of the State's largest capital portfolios.

How the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York uses AXI to run project‑specific goal setting, certified search, and statewide engagement across hundreds of active construction projects — and why the engagement is structured as a fixed monthly charge rather than usage billing.

Client
DASNY · Opportunities
Program Group (OPG)
Engagement
Since 2020
Scope
Goal setting, search,
outreach & engagement
Published
May 2026
900+
Active projects
$13.6B
Active portfolio value
200,000+
Outreach messages / year
6+ years
AXI partnership
Contents
01 · The engagement

Goal setting and statewide outreach across one of the country's largest public construction portfolios.

The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York finances and manages billions of dollars in higher‑education, healthcare, and public‑facility construction across the State. The Authority's Opportunities Program Group (OPG) is responsible for ensuring that every project above the §15‑A threshold sets defensible MWBE and SDVOB participation goals, that those goals reach the certified business community, and that the resulting record withstands review by Empire State Development, the Authority's Board, and the public.

AXI has supported OPG and the Business Development & Engagement (BDE) team since 2020. The engagement covers pre‑contract compliance end‑to‑end: project‑specific search and goal setting across the integrated MWBE+SDVOB certified directory, project‑level outreach to every qualifying firm, a custom CRM that consolidates DASNY's legacy contact records, and the reporting that sits on top of all of it.

This case study describes the work AXI performs for DASNY, with the understanding that the same set of capabilities is available to every AXI client. What changes from engagement to engagement is the configuration — goal logic, search defaults, outreach process, report templates — not the underlying platform.

"DASNY's six‑year engagement is a useful template for what an authority‑scale §15‑A program actually looks like on AXI. Goal setting, search, outreach, CRM, and reporting in one place — configured to how their team works, not how a generic portal wants them to work."
AXI · Engagement summary
02 · The platform & services

Nine capabilities — how AXI runs goal setting and outreach at portfolio scale.

The list below is the operational picture of what AXI's platform and execution services cover. The "How DASNY uses it" note on each card describes the configuration in production at the Authority. Every capability is part of AXI's standard offering — the work in a new engagement is to tune the configuration to fit how that client's program runs.

Capability 01 · Directory

Integrated MWBE + SDVOB certified directory.

AXI downloads the full ESD‑MWBE and OGS‑SDVOB directories daily, scrubs and enriches each firm record with contact, work‑history, bonding, and insurance data drawn from a dozen additional certified sources (NYC SBS, the Port Authority, federal SAM, neighboring states), and merges everything into a single, searchable master directory.

For DASNYDual ESD + OGS searches against the AXI‑enhanced directory, with a per‑project archive of the certified list as it existed on the day the goal was set — so audits open the same data the team used.
Capability 02 · Industry codes

NAICS, NIGP, and CSI — including historical sets.

AXI integrates all three industry code systems, including historical revisions going back to 1997 — necessary because certified firms often carry codes from prior revisions that no longer exist in current code sets. 48,526 codes are mapped to a unified trades map, so users no longer hand‑pick across three datasets per search.

For DASNYThe trades map is used for every project goal setting — one selection per scope replaces a dozen NAICS / NIGP / CSI picks and surfaces firms whose certification still references older codes.
Capability 03 · Quick search

Drag‑and‑drop scope unbundling & search.

Cost estimates uploaded into AXI are parsed into individual subcontracting opportunities — without an arbitrary cap on how many scopes — and the system runs a search per scope across the unified trades map and the integrated geography tools. Searches consistently surface 20–60% more certified firms than a manual review of the official directories.

For DASNYThe pre‑contract team uploads project cost estimates; AXI returns a structured scope map plus a search per scope in under five minutes — versus the ten hours a manual cross‑directory compilation would take.
Capability 04 · Vetting

Contractor vetting & Commercially Useful Function review.

Each search result is surfaced in a vetting interface that puts capability, capacity, bonding, insurance, and prior‑project history one click away. Reviewers can confirm fit, flag a CUF concern, or exclude a firm from outreach — with the rationale captured against the project record.

For DASNYOPG reviewers use the trade‑specific vendor review page to clean search results before any outreach goes out — ensuring every firm contacted is a real fit and that the CUF check happens at the front, not at audit.
Capability 05 · Goal setting

Project‑specific goals, anchored in 142.2.

AXI's goal‑setting workflow follows 5 CRR‑NY 142.2 directly: scope, subcontracting opportunities, availability, certified pool, geography, and contract size are all surfaced for the analyst, with a per‑scope availability calculation that compares certified firms against Census County and Zip Code Business Patterns for the relevant geographic market area. The system computes a recommendation; the analyst sets the goal.

For DASNYGoals are returned within a 24‑hour turnaround per project, with the full availability math, the search archive, and the goal‑setting rationale captured in two report formats the Authority requested — Executive Summary and Full Goals Report.
Capability 06 · Outreach

Project‑level outreach campaigns & tracked engagement.

The outreach module manages multi‑message campaigns per project: initial notification on the day the RFP posts, a reminder 10 days later, and additional messages for pre‑bid meetings, extensions, addenda, surveys, and capacity‑building events. Every send is logged with delivery and read receipts; every response is routed back to the project record.

For DASNYAXI manages the BDE‑integrated outreach end‑to‑end — checking the OPG site daily for new postings, composing project‑specific notifications with attachments and links, and reporting on campaign performance across 200,000+ messages per year.
Capability 07 · CRM

Project CRM for Good Faith Efforts documentation.

Each project has a relationship‑management surface that captures outreach campaigns, direct phone calls, in‑person events, and ad‑hoc correspondence — with attached documents and notes filed against the firm and the project. The CRM is the record that GFE packets and waiver packages draw from.

For DASNYThe CRM holds the audit trail for every project — the file a reviewer asks for is generated from the live record, not assembled after the fact.
Capability 08 · Custom directory

Legacy contact records, consolidated and searchable.

Most authorities sit on years of internal contact records — registries, spreadsheets, business‑card lists, project notes. AXI imports these into the client‑specific layer of the CRM, where every team member can search across them, attach notes, and flag firms based on past performance.

For DASNYAXI consolidated the Authority's Old Registry, Website List, and Business Cards Working List into a single DASNY Directory inside the CRM, with notes carried forward so institutional knowledge survives team turnover.
Capability 09 · Reporting

Goal, search, and outreach reports — on demand.

Every project carries a reporting surface that combines the goal‑setting record, the search archive, the outreach log, and engagement analytics. Reports are templated per client and generated on demand against the live data — not re‑keyed.

For DASNYTwo custom formats are in production — a Goals Executive Summary for project teams and a Full Goals Report for the audit file — plus campaign‑level and DASNY‑wide engagement analytics responding to OPG questions on any specific project.
03 · The fit

Built around DASNY's process — not a generic compliance portal.

The deepest difference between an AXI engagement and the alternatives is not the feature list. It is that AXI treats each client's process as the design surface. DASNY does not run the program the way HCR runs the program, which is not the way Stony Brook runs the program, which is not the way Skanska runs the program. The platform and the services adapt to that.

Goal logic, search defaults, outreach cadence, message templates, report formats, the names of the buttons — all configurable. What gets installed is the minimum capability set the program actually needs. What doesn't get installed are the modules a client will never use, the workflows they don't run, and the dashboards designed for someone else.

The conventional compliance portal

One product, every customer, every workflow.

  • A single national template that no authority's process actually matches end‑to‑end.
  • Pages and menus the team has to ignore because they don't apply.
  • Report formats that have to be re‑formatted offline before they can be circulated.
  • Customization quoted as professional services, on top of license fees.
  • Per‑user, per‑project, or per‑transaction billing that makes growth a budget event.
The AXI approach

One platform, configured to your program.

  • Goal logic, search defaults, and outreach process configured to your operating procedure.
  • Only the capabilities you actually use — without extra modules cluttering the surface.
  • Report templates designed with your team, formatted as the artifact you actually send.
  • Configuration is part of the engagement — no separate professional‑services line item.
  • Unlimited users, projects, and outreach — growth doesn't change the bill.
04 · Commercial structure

A fixed monthly charge — predictable, all‑inclusive, easy to budget.

DASNY's engagement is structured the way every AXI enterprise engagement is structured: a fixed monthly charge, set at the start of the term and held flat through it. The monthly figure covers the full capability set — platform license, configuration, execution services, hosting and back‑end maintenance, and reporting — with no per‑user, per‑project, or per‑message billing layered on top.

The reason this matters operationally is not the price; it is the predictability. Authorities, universities, and municipal programs run on annual budgets and multi‑year plans. A fixed monthly charge translates directly into a budget line that does not move when the portfolio grows, when an unusually busy quarter doubles outreach volume, or when the team needs a new report on short notice. That predictability is what makes AXI easy to extend and easy to defend in budget review.

Pricing model

Fixed monthly charge · unlimited use.

One number per month, set at the start of the term, covering the full capability set described in this case study. No usage tiers, no overage line items, no separate implementation fees.

  • Unlimited users across the client organization.
  • Unlimited projects on the platform — the portfolio can grow without a billing event.
  • Unlimited outreach — message volume scales with the program, not the invoice.
  • No implementation fees — configuration is part of the engagement.
  • No usage charges — features, execution services, and reporting all included.
05 · Six years in

The shape of a long partnership.

The most reliable evidence that an engagement is working is that it keeps getting extended. DASNY's relationship with AXI began in 2020 under Contract #229619, was renewed for the 2022–2025 term, and has been extended again through 2027 — with the Business Development & Engagement scope expanded as part of the new term. Across that span:

24 hr
Standard turnaround on project‑specific goal reports
20–60%
More certified firms surfaced versus manual directory review
100×
Faster than a manual cross‑directory compilation

The output is the same record an authority needs: a per‑project file with the search the goal was based on, the certified list as it existed that day, the outreach campaigns that ran against it, the responses received, and the analytics the program reports against. That file is built once, maintained as the project runs, and produced on demand — for OPG, for ESD, for the Board, for the auditor.

06 · Reference

The full scope DASNY has under the enterprise license.

For reference, the deliverables included under the DASNY extension — performed in accordance with the Authority's operating procedures and with a maximum 24‑hour or next‑business‑day deadline on execution services.

Integrated MWBE + SDVOB directories
Included
Integrated industry code directories (NAICS, NIGP, CSI — including historical sets)
Included
Certified MWBE + SDVOB searches
Included
Project‑specific goal setting (5 CRR‑NY 142.2 aligned)
Included
Document management
Included
Business development outreach & engagement
Included
Business development directory management (legacy DASNY records consolidated)
Included
Search, goal setting, & outreach reporting (custom report templates)
Included
Hosting & overall back‑end maintenance
Included

Run your program on the same platform DASNY does.

Configured to your operating procedure, scoped to the capabilities you actually use, billed as a fixed monthly charge that holds steady as the portfolio grows.