Problem
At Western University, a leading higher education institution based in Canada, the engineering department struggled with pervasive PDF and hard copy processes. Manual data entry and processing consumed limited resources and caused significant delays.
The engineering department’s hiring form was particularly problematic. This lengthy form has many conditional sections which should be filled only under specific circumstances. As a PDF, submitters could see every section of the form and found it difficult to know which sections to fill. Then, when submitters inevitably filled the form incorrectly, administrators spent extra time processing the form.
In addition, the processing and approvals for this form were paper-based. It took three to four weeks to process the paperwork causing delays in the hiring process.
Western’s engineering department searched for a forms and workflow automation platform to alleviate their paper-based forms and approvals issues.
Solution
The engineering department selected Kuali Build, a forms and workflow platform built exclusively for Higher Education. The platform offered the much needed automation solutions for Western’s problems.
Kuali Build provides an easy-to-use form builder supporting conditional logic, or the ability to hide/show form fields based on what the submitter completes on the form. Now, form submitters only see sections of the form that pertain to them and their specific circumstances. Because submitters are filling their forms more accurately, administrators don’t need to spend so much time manually correcting and processing forms.
Results
Across the departments of engineering, finance, human resources, and graduate and undergraduate services, Western University has created 40 forms and processed 5,000 documents with Kuali Build with minimal support from IT.
Perhaps the most significant impact of Kuali Build at Western University is that administrators have a better medium than paper, PDF, and email to get their work done. Even the most change-averse individuals are beginning to see and understand the value of an automated form and workflow solution. An added benefit is the capture of data to be further utilized to enhance administrative and planning processes.
“This software helped us come to an agreement within the faculty that we could use Kuali as an approval process without a signature on a piece of paper. That was huge!” - Ron Farren, Associate Director, Information Technology, Department of Engineering, at Western University
In addition to processing 5,000 documents and counting, Western University benefits from working on their processes with excellent support from the Kuali Build team.
“I love the support we’ve received. The Build team has been very responsive, open to suggestions, and quick to implement.” - David Lee, Technical Specialist, Western University
Farren, Lee, and the engineering department look forward to implementing many more forms in coming months.
Interested in learning more about how to automate pervasive PDF processes at your institution? Take a closer look at what you can build with our form builder and workflow automation software!
