Case Study: Gettysburg College
"It's an absolute breath of fresh air to see how fast we can turn things around with Kuali Build." Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, Gettysburg College
About Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a highly selective, four-year, private liberal arts institution. Established in 1832, it sits adjacent to the historic Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Despite the college's small size, the faculty, staff, and 2,200 students are proud contributors to the institution's rich history and spirit of innovation.
Problem: Increase Institutional Efficiency
Small institutions like Gettysburg College look and operate differently than larger institutions; however, their core business processes are similar. As a smaller institution with fewer employees, Gettysburg College staff must be more efficient in their work.
Staff managed business processes in many ways: paper and PDF, simple web-based forms, and custom applications in Peoplesoft and OnBase. These management methods left room for improvement. The simple paper and web-based processes were inefficient, leaving room for error and confusion. On the other hand, though intricate and complex, producing the Peoplesoft and OnBase processes required lots of resources.
Gettysburg leadership recognized the need for more agile, dynamic business processes to operate successfully in today's higher education landscape.
Leadership created a processes and procedures committee charged with this responsibility: "take the work out of our processes." The committee set out to introduce a new level of efficiency to the college through new tools, standardized processes, and training.
Solution: Forms and Workflow Automation Platform
To meet efficiency goals, Gettysburg College needed a solution to facilitate streamlined business processes. After consulting with peers at other institutions and attending Kuali Days to compare notes with Kuali customers, Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, and his team chose Kuali Build.
Kuali Build is a forms and workflow automation platform designed to meet the needs of higher education and is an excellent fit for Gettysburg. It uniquely allows users, with or without technical expertise, to create and deploy form and workflow business processes across the complexity spectrum via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop tool.
Foster and his team were quickly intrigued with the prospect of Kuali Build. Upon seeing the product for the first time, Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources at Gettysburg College, knew, "This is [meant for] me! This is what I need!"
Result: Improved Efficiency and Cross-Departmental Collaboration
Gettysburg College launched 25 Kuali Build applications in six months, with 20 more coming soon. Staff saw transformative improvements in efficiency and collaboration across campus through Build's integrations, transparent processes, and a better, more seamless user experience for everyone. Gettysburg staff have watched a new kind of partnership unfold between IT and other departments on campus, spurred by Kuali Build. Build is the first form and workflow tool to meet IT's high data integrity, security, and governance standards, while still allowing faculty and staff to create and maintain their own processes.
"I could immediately see the benefits of how this was going to revolutionize not only HR but our work across the institution." - Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources
Powerful Integrations Without Sacrificing Security
According to Andrew Meyers, Network Applications Programmer at Gettysburg College, the power of Kuali Build's integrations is "what drew us in. " Via Rest APIs, Kuali Build can pull dynamic data into forms. Users add these integrations through a drag-and-drop, what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) format. Integrations also allow users to write data back into systems of record. With that capability, staff eliminated dozens of manual entry steps, decreasing the opportunity for error.
One of IT's most significant concerns with any form and workflow tool is that it won't meet IT's governance standards. Kuali Build, however, exceeded expectations. Build can allow users with specific access to add or edit integrations. At Gettysburg College, IT owns integrations but can give process ownership to the department in need. Before Build, IT was the bottleneck to custom applications. Now, IT only needs to add a no-code integration, which can take as little as five minutes, and then hand it back to the process owner. Compared to previous methods, Kuali Build facilitates a more collaborative relationship with IT and lightning-fast application creation.
Minimizing Duplicate & Manual Efforts
While onboarding Kuali Build, Gettysburg staff closely examined their processes. "Look at your workflows," said Barth. "Know your processes inside and out." The HR department found multiple instances of duplicate efforts and manual data entry. Kuali Build was the catalyst for finding those inefficiencies and the tool used to automate them.
The personal information update process was one of the most meaningful process transformations so far. Before Build, this process included walking to an office, filling a form, email threads tracking approvals, and manual data entry into Peoplesoft. Here are just a few ways the institution has automated this process:
- Digital form
- Information automatically fills in within the form, such as name and department
- Automated workflow with role-based approvals
- Full process transparency for stakeholders
- Automated email confirming completion
Now, staff spend less time shuffling paper around, and more time on meaningful work that drives agility and employee satisfaction.
Top-Tier User Experience
For many staff members, including Barth, one of the biggest benefits of Kuali Build is a better user experience for everyone, from back-end builders to form recipients. "We wanted to focus on the human aspect of our job and our employees rather than constantly pushing paper around," said Barth.
The form preview and workflow simulator are two significant features that contribute to an improved user experience. These two features allow a process owner to preview the form and test the workflow as if they are other users, allowing them to catch errors before launching an application.
Another staff favorite is the ability to see their history within Build. Staff can access all forms they've submitted in one location and see the forms' status and the completion time. Staff love that they don't have to sift through their inbox to determine what they already submitted and the status of their approval.
Because of Kuali Build's excellent user experience, faculty and staff are fully "bought-in " to the tool. The majority of staff are "very enthusiastic" about Build, and even change-averse folks can quickly learn how to use it. Easy buy-in means faster rollout and widespread use of standardized processes, leading to enhanced institutional agility.
Institutional Transformation
Gettysburg College has big plans for its future with Kuali Build. "We're taking it and spreading it across campus because we've had such great success with it," said Foster. They plan to use Build for some of their curricular processes and continue their mission of institutional transformation.
Case Study: Gettysburg College
"It's an absolute breath of fresh air to see how fast we can turn things around with Kuali Build." Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, Gettysburg College
About Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a highly selective, four-year, private liberal arts institution. Established in 1832, it sits adjacent to the historic Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Despite the college's small size, the faculty, staff, and 2,200 students are proud contributors to the institution's rich history and spirit of innovation.
Problem: Increase Institutional Efficiency
Small institutions like Gettysburg College look and operate differently than larger institutions; however, their core business processes are similar. As a smaller institution with fewer employees, Gettysburg College staff must be more efficient in their work.
Staff managed business processes in many ways: paper and PDF, simple web-based forms, and custom applications in Peoplesoft and OnBase. These management methods left room for improvement. The simple paper and web-based processes were inefficient, leaving room for error and confusion. On the other hand, though intricate and complex, producing the Peoplesoft and OnBase processes required lots of resources.
Gettysburg leadership recognized the need for more agile, dynamic business processes to operate successfully in today's higher education landscape.
Leadership created a processes and procedures committee charged with this responsibility: "take the work out of our processes." The committee set out to introduce a new level of efficiency to the college through new tools, standardized processes, and training.
Solution: Forms and Workflow Automation Platform
To meet efficiency goals, Gettysburg College needed a solution to facilitate streamlined business processes. After consulting with peers at other institutions and attending Kuali Days to compare notes with Kuali customers, Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, and his team chose Kuali Build.
Kuali Build is a forms and workflow automation platform designed to meet the needs of higher education and is an excellent fit for Gettysburg. It uniquely allows users, with or without technical expertise, to create and deploy form and workflow business processes across the complexity spectrum via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop tool.
Foster and his team were quickly intrigued with the prospect of Kuali Build. Upon seeing the product for the first time, Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources at Gettysburg College, knew, "This is [meant for] me! This is what I need!"
Result: Improved Efficiency and Cross-Departmental Collaboration
Gettysburg College launched 25 Kuali Build applications in six months, with 20 more coming soon. Staff saw transformative improvements in efficiency and collaboration across campus through Build's integrations, transparent processes, and a better, more seamless user experience for everyone. Gettysburg staff have watched a new kind of partnership unfold between IT and other departments on campus, spurred by Kuali Build. Build is the first form and workflow tool to meet IT's high data integrity, security, and governance standards, while still allowing faculty and staff to create and maintain their own processes.
"I could immediately see the benefits of how this was going to revolutionize not only HR but our work across the institution." - Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources
Powerful Integrations Without Sacrificing Security
According to Andrew Meyers, Network Applications Programmer at Gettysburg College, the power of Kuali Build's integrations is "what drew us in. " Via Rest APIs, Kuali Build can pull dynamic data into forms. Users add these integrations through a drag-and-drop, what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) format. Integrations also allow users to write data back into systems of record. With that capability, staff eliminated dozens of manual entry steps, decreasing the opportunity for error.
One of IT's most significant concerns with any form and workflow tool is that it won't meet IT's governance standards. Kuali Build, however, exceeded expectations. Build can allow users with specific access to add or edit integrations. At Gettysburg College, IT owns integrations but can give process ownership to the department in need. Before Build, IT was the bottleneck to custom applications. Now, IT only needs to add a no-code integration, which can take as little as five minutes, and then hand it back to the process owner. Compared to previous methods, Kuali Build facilitates a more collaborative relationship with IT and lightning-fast application creation.
Minimizing Duplicate & Manual Efforts
While onboarding Kuali Build, Gettysburg staff closely examined their processes. "Look at your workflows," said Barth. "Know your processes inside and out." The HR department found multiple instances of duplicate efforts and manual data entry. Kuali Build was the catalyst for finding those inefficiencies and the tool used to automate them.
The personal information update process was one of the most meaningful process transformations so far. Before Build, this process included walking to an office, filling a form, email threads tracking approvals, and manual data entry into Peoplesoft. Here are just a few ways the institution has automated this process:
- Digital form
- Information automatically fills in within the form, such as name and department
- Automated workflow with role-based approvals
- Full process transparency for stakeholders
- Automated email confirming completion
Now, staff spend less time shuffling paper around, and more time on meaningful work that drives agility and employee satisfaction.
Top-Tier User Experience
For many staff members, including Barth, one of the biggest benefits of Kuali Build is a better user experience for everyone, from back-end builders to form recipients. "We wanted to focus on the human aspect of our job and our employees rather than constantly pushing paper around," said Barth.
The form preview and workflow simulator are two significant features that contribute to an improved user experience. These two features allow a process owner to preview the form and test the workflow as if they are other users, allowing them to catch errors before launching an application.
Another staff favorite is the ability to see their history within Build. Staff can access all forms they've submitted in one location and see the forms' status and the completion time. Staff love that they don't have to sift through their inbox to determine what they already submitted and the status of their approval.
Because of Kuali Build's excellent user experience, faculty and staff are fully "bought-in " to the tool. The majority of staff are "very enthusiastic" about Build, and even change-averse folks can quickly learn how to use it. Easy buy-in means faster rollout and widespread use of standardized processes, leading to enhanced institutional agility.
Institutional Transformation
Gettysburg College has big plans for its future with Kuali Build. "We're taking it and spreading it across campus because we've had such great success with it," said Foster. They plan to use Build for some of their curricular processes and continue their mission of institutional transformation.
Case Study: Gettysburg College
Case Study: Gettysburg College
"It's an absolute breath of fresh air to see how fast we can turn things around with Kuali Build." Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, Gettysburg College
About Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a highly selective, four-year, private liberal arts institution. Established in 1832, it sits adjacent to the historic Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Despite the college's small size, the faculty, staff, and 2,200 students are proud contributors to the institution's rich history and spirit of innovation.
Problem: Increase Institutional Efficiency
Small institutions like Gettysburg College look and operate differently than larger institutions; however, their core business processes are similar. As a smaller institution with fewer employees, Gettysburg College staff must be more efficient in their work.
Staff managed business processes in many ways: paper and PDF, simple web-based forms, and custom applications in Peoplesoft and OnBase. These management methods left room for improvement. The simple paper and web-based processes were inefficient, leaving room for error and confusion. On the other hand, though intricate and complex, producing the Peoplesoft and OnBase processes required lots of resources.
Gettysburg leadership recognized the need for more agile, dynamic business processes to operate successfully in today's higher education landscape.
Leadership created a processes and procedures committee charged with this responsibility: "take the work out of our processes." The committee set out to introduce a new level of efficiency to the college through new tools, standardized processes, and training.
Solution: Forms and Workflow Automation Platform
To meet efficiency goals, Gettysburg College needed a solution to facilitate streamlined business processes. After consulting with peers at other institutions and attending Kuali Days to compare notes with Kuali customers, Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, and his team chose Kuali Build.
Kuali Build is a forms and workflow automation platform designed to meet the needs of higher education and is an excellent fit for Gettysburg. It uniquely allows users, with or without technical expertise, to create and deploy form and workflow business processes across the complexity spectrum via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop tool.
Foster and his team were quickly intrigued with the prospect of Kuali Build. Upon seeing the product for the first time, Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources at Gettysburg College, knew, "This is [meant for] me! This is what I need!"
Result: Improved Efficiency and Cross-Departmental Collaboration
Gettysburg College launched 25 Kuali Build applications in six months, with 20 more coming soon. Staff saw transformative improvements in efficiency and collaboration across campus through Build's integrations, transparent processes, and a better, more seamless user experience for everyone. Gettysburg staff have watched a new kind of partnership unfold between IT and other departments on campus, spurred by Kuali Build. Build is the first form and workflow tool to meet IT's high data integrity, security, and governance standards, while still allowing faculty and staff to create and maintain their own processes.
"I could immediately see the benefits of how this was going to revolutionize not only HR but our work across the institution." - Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources
Powerful Integrations Without Sacrificing Security
According to Andrew Meyers, Network Applications Programmer at Gettysburg College, the power of Kuali Build's integrations is "what drew us in. " Via Rest APIs, Kuali Build can pull dynamic data into forms. Users add these integrations through a drag-and-drop, what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) format. Integrations also allow users to write data back into systems of record. With that capability, staff eliminated dozens of manual entry steps, decreasing the opportunity for error.
One of IT's most significant concerns with any form and workflow tool is that it won't meet IT's governance standards. Kuali Build, however, exceeded expectations. Build can allow users with specific access to add or edit integrations. At Gettysburg College, IT owns integrations but can give process ownership to the department in need. Before Build, IT was the bottleneck to custom applications. Now, IT only needs to add a no-code integration, which can take as little as five minutes, and then hand it back to the process owner. Compared to previous methods, Kuali Build facilitates a more collaborative relationship with IT and lightning-fast application creation.
Minimizing Duplicate & Manual Efforts
While onboarding Kuali Build, Gettysburg staff closely examined their processes. "Look at your workflows," said Barth. "Know your processes inside and out." The HR department found multiple instances of duplicate efforts and manual data entry. Kuali Build was the catalyst for finding those inefficiencies and the tool used to automate them.
The personal information update process was one of the most meaningful process transformations so far. Before Build, this process included walking to an office, filling a form, email threads tracking approvals, and manual data entry into Peoplesoft. Here are just a few ways the institution has automated this process:
- Digital form
- Information automatically fills in within the form, such as name and department
- Automated workflow with role-based approvals
- Full process transparency for stakeholders
- Automated email confirming completion
Now, staff spend less time shuffling paper around, and more time on meaningful work that drives agility and employee satisfaction.
Top-Tier User Experience
For many staff members, including Barth, one of the biggest benefits of Kuali Build is a better user experience for everyone, from back-end builders to form recipients. "We wanted to focus on the human aspect of our job and our employees rather than constantly pushing paper around," said Barth.
The form preview and workflow simulator are two significant features that contribute to an improved user experience. These two features allow a process owner to preview the form and test the workflow as if they are other users, allowing them to catch errors before launching an application.
Another staff favorite is the ability to see their history within Build. Staff can access all forms they've submitted in one location and see the forms' status and the completion time. Staff love that they don't have to sift through their inbox to determine what they already submitted and the status of their approval.
Because of Kuali Build's excellent user experience, faculty and staff are fully "bought-in " to the tool. The majority of staff are "very enthusiastic" about Build, and even change-averse folks can quickly learn how to use it. Easy buy-in means faster rollout and widespread use of standardized processes, leading to enhanced institutional agility.
Institutional Transformation
Gettysburg College has big plans for its future with Kuali Build. "We're taking it and spreading it across campus because we've had such great success with it," said Foster. They plan to use Build for some of their curricular processes and continue their mission of institutional transformation.
Case Study: Gettysburg College
"It's an absolute breath of fresh air to see how fast we can turn things around with Kuali Build." Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, Gettysburg College
About Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a highly selective, four-year, private liberal arts institution. Established in 1832, it sits adjacent to the historic Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Despite the college's small size, the faculty, staff, and 2,200 students are proud contributors to the institution's rich history and spirit of innovation.
Problem: Increase Institutional Efficiency
Small institutions like Gettysburg College look and operate differently than larger institutions; however, their core business processes are similar. As a smaller institution with fewer employees, Gettysburg College staff must be more efficient in their work.
Staff managed business processes in many ways: paper and PDF, simple web-based forms, and custom applications in Peoplesoft and OnBase. These management methods left room for improvement. The simple paper and web-based processes were inefficient, leaving room for error and confusion. On the other hand, though intricate and complex, producing the Peoplesoft and OnBase processes required lots of resources.
Gettysburg leadership recognized the need for more agile, dynamic business processes to operate successfully in today's higher education landscape.
Leadership created a processes and procedures committee charged with this responsibility: "take the work out of our processes." The committee set out to introduce a new level of efficiency to the college through new tools, standardized processes, and training.
Solution: Forms and Workflow Automation Platform
To meet efficiency goals, Gettysburg College needed a solution to facilitate streamlined business processes. After consulting with peers at other institutions and attending Kuali Days to compare notes with Kuali customers, Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, and his team chose Kuali Build.
Kuali Build is a forms and workflow automation platform designed to meet the needs of higher education and is an excellent fit for Gettysburg. It uniquely allows users, with or without technical expertise, to create and deploy form and workflow business processes across the complexity spectrum via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop tool.
Foster and his team were quickly intrigued with the prospect of Kuali Build. Upon seeing the product for the first time, Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources at Gettysburg College, knew, "This is [meant for] me! This is what I need!"
Result: Improved Efficiency and Cross-Departmental Collaboration
Gettysburg College launched 25 Kuali Build applications in six months, with 20 more coming soon. Staff saw transformative improvements in efficiency and collaboration across campus through Build's integrations, transparent processes, and a better, more seamless user experience for everyone. Gettysburg staff have watched a new kind of partnership unfold between IT and other departments on campus, spurred by Kuali Build. Build is the first form and workflow tool to meet IT's high data integrity, security, and governance standards, while still allowing faculty and staff to create and maintain their own processes.
"I could immediately see the benefits of how this was going to revolutionize not only HR but our work across the institution." - Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources
Powerful Integrations Without Sacrificing Security
According to Andrew Meyers, Network Applications Programmer at Gettysburg College, the power of Kuali Build's integrations is "what drew us in. " Via Rest APIs, Kuali Build can pull dynamic data into forms. Users add these integrations through a drag-and-drop, what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) format. Integrations also allow users to write data back into systems of record. With that capability, staff eliminated dozens of manual entry steps, decreasing the opportunity for error.
One of IT's most significant concerns with any form and workflow tool is that it won't meet IT's governance standards. Kuali Build, however, exceeded expectations. Build can allow users with specific access to add or edit integrations. At Gettysburg College, IT owns integrations but can give process ownership to the department in need. Before Build, IT was the bottleneck to custom applications. Now, IT only needs to add a no-code integration, which can take as little as five minutes, and then hand it back to the process owner. Compared to previous methods, Kuali Build facilitates a more collaborative relationship with IT and lightning-fast application creation.
Minimizing Duplicate & Manual Efforts
While onboarding Kuali Build, Gettysburg staff closely examined their processes. "Look at your workflows," said Barth. "Know your processes inside and out." The HR department found multiple instances of duplicate efforts and manual data entry. Kuali Build was the catalyst for finding those inefficiencies and the tool used to automate them.
The personal information update process was one of the most meaningful process transformations so far. Before Build, this process included walking to an office, filling a form, email threads tracking approvals, and manual data entry into Peoplesoft. Here are just a few ways the institution has automated this process:
- Digital form
- Information automatically fills in within the form, such as name and department
- Automated workflow with role-based approvals
- Full process transparency for stakeholders
- Automated email confirming completion
Now, staff spend less time shuffling paper around, and more time on meaningful work that drives agility and employee satisfaction.
Top-Tier User Experience
For many staff members, including Barth, one of the biggest benefits of Kuali Build is a better user experience for everyone, from back-end builders to form recipients. "We wanted to focus on the human aspect of our job and our employees rather than constantly pushing paper around," said Barth.
The form preview and workflow simulator are two significant features that contribute to an improved user experience. These two features allow a process owner to preview the form and test the workflow as if they are other users, allowing them to catch errors before launching an application.
Another staff favorite is the ability to see their history within Build. Staff can access all forms they've submitted in one location and see the forms' status and the completion time. Staff love that they don't have to sift through their inbox to determine what they already submitted and the status of their approval.
Because of Kuali Build's excellent user experience, faculty and staff are fully "bought-in " to the tool. The majority of staff are "very enthusiastic" about Build, and even change-averse folks can quickly learn how to use it. Easy buy-in means faster rollout and widespread use of standardized processes, leading to enhanced institutional agility.
Institutional Transformation
Gettysburg College has big plans for its future with Kuali Build. "We're taking it and spreading it across campus because we've had such great success with it," said Foster. They plan to use Build for some of their curricular processes and continue their mission of institutional transformation.
Case Study: Gettysburg College
"It's an absolute breath of fresh air to see how fast we can turn things around with Kuali Build." Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, Gettysburg College
About Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a highly selective, four-year, private liberal arts institution. Established in 1832, it sits adjacent to the historic Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Despite the college's small size, the faculty, staff, and 2,200 students are proud contributors to the institution's rich history and spirit of innovation.
Problem: Increase Institutional Efficiency
Small institutions like Gettysburg College look and operate differently than larger institutions; however, their core business processes are similar. As a smaller institution with fewer employees, Gettysburg College staff must be more efficient in their work.
Staff managed business processes in many ways: paper and PDF, simple web-based forms, and custom applications in Peoplesoft and OnBase. These management methods left room for improvement. The simple paper and web-based processes were inefficient, leaving room for error and confusion. On the other hand, though intricate and complex, producing the Peoplesoft and OnBase processes required lots of resources.
Gettysburg leadership recognized the need for more agile, dynamic business processes to operate successfully in today's higher education landscape.
Leadership created a processes and procedures committee charged with this responsibility: "take the work out of our processes." The committee set out to introduce a new level of efficiency to the college through new tools, standardized processes, and training.
Solution: Forms and Workflow Automation Platform
To meet efficiency goals, Gettysburg College needed a solution to facilitate streamlined business processes. After consulting with peers at other institutions and attending Kuali Days to compare notes with Kuali customers, Gavin Foster, Associate Vice President for IT, and his team chose Kuali Build.
Kuali Build is a forms and workflow automation platform designed to meet the needs of higher education and is an excellent fit for Gettysburg. It uniquely allows users, with or without technical expertise, to create and deploy form and workflow business processes across the complexity spectrum via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop tool.
Foster and his team were quickly intrigued with the prospect of Kuali Build. Upon seeing the product for the first time, Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources at Gettysburg College, knew, "This is [meant for] me! This is what I need!"
Result: Improved Efficiency and Cross-Departmental Collaboration
Gettysburg College launched 25 Kuali Build applications in six months, with 20 more coming soon. Staff saw transformative improvements in efficiency and collaboration across campus through Build's integrations, transparent processes, and a better, more seamless user experience for everyone. Gettysburg staff have watched a new kind of partnership unfold between IT and other departments on campus, spurred by Kuali Build. Build is the first form and workflow tool to meet IT's high data integrity, security, and governance standards, while still allowing faculty and staff to create and maintain their own processes.
"I could immediately see the benefits of how this was going to revolutionize not only HR but our work across the institution." - Rebecca Barth, Assistant Director of Human Resources
Powerful Integrations Without Sacrificing Security
According to Andrew Meyers, Network Applications Programmer at Gettysburg College, the power of Kuali Build's integrations is "what drew us in. " Via Rest APIs, Kuali Build can pull dynamic data into forms. Users add these integrations through a drag-and-drop, what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) format. Integrations also allow users to write data back into systems of record. With that capability, staff eliminated dozens of manual entry steps, decreasing the opportunity for error.
One of IT's most significant concerns with any form and workflow tool is that it won't meet IT's governance standards. Kuali Build, however, exceeded expectations. Build can allow users with specific access to add or edit integrations. At Gettysburg College, IT owns integrations but can give process ownership to the department in need. Before Build, IT was the bottleneck to custom applications. Now, IT only needs to add a no-code integration, which can take as little as five minutes, and then hand it back to the process owner. Compared to previous methods, Kuali Build facilitates a more collaborative relationship with IT and lightning-fast application creation.
Minimizing Duplicate & Manual Efforts
While onboarding Kuali Build, Gettysburg staff closely examined their processes. "Look at your workflows," said Barth. "Know your processes inside and out." The HR department found multiple instances of duplicate efforts and manual data entry. Kuali Build was the catalyst for finding those inefficiencies and the tool used to automate them.
The personal information update process was one of the most meaningful process transformations so far. Before Build, this process included walking to an office, filling a form, email threads tracking approvals, and manual data entry into Peoplesoft. Here are just a few ways the institution has automated this process:
- Digital form
- Information automatically fills in within the form, such as name and department
- Automated workflow with role-based approvals
- Full process transparency for stakeholders
- Automated email confirming completion
Now, staff spend less time shuffling paper around, and more time on meaningful work that drives agility and employee satisfaction.
Top-Tier User Experience
For many staff members, including Barth, one of the biggest benefits of Kuali Build is a better user experience for everyone, from back-end builders to form recipients. "We wanted to focus on the human aspect of our job and our employees rather than constantly pushing paper around," said Barth.
The form preview and workflow simulator are two significant features that contribute to an improved user experience. These two features allow a process owner to preview the form and test the workflow as if they are other users, allowing them to catch errors before launching an application.
Another staff favorite is the ability to see their history within Build. Staff can access all forms they've submitted in one location and see the forms' status and the completion time. Staff love that they don't have to sift through their inbox to determine what they already submitted and the status of their approval.
Because of Kuali Build's excellent user experience, faculty and staff are fully "bought-in " to the tool. The majority of staff are "very enthusiastic" about Build, and even change-averse folks can quickly learn how to use it. Easy buy-in means faster rollout and widespread use of standardized processes, leading to enhanced institutional agility.
Institutional Transformation
Gettysburg College has big plans for its future with Kuali Build. "We're taking it and spreading it across campus because we've had such great success with it," said Foster. They plan to use Build for some of their curricular processes and continue their mission of institutional transformation.