Kuali Build is a new software application that allows faculty & staff to build Apps, which are made up of forms and workflows. These Kuali Build apps facilitate the collection of data, and allow you to perform intelligent actions based on that data.
This article will outline the benefits of using Kuali Build, and compare it to similar products that may already be in use.
For more instruction and helpful hints, see the following articles:
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Key Features
Here are few reasons why Information Technology selected Kuali Build as a the platform of choice for forms and workflows:
- Ease of Use: Kuali Build's form builder allows faculty and staff to build their own online forms with only a little training and minimal difficulty.
- Quality of Experience: Kuali Build's forms are mobile-friendly and provide top-quality accessibility by default.
- Centrally Managed: Kuali Build allows system administrators to manage apps, workflows and integrations centrally. This allows IT to easily step in and support faculty and staff when a problem occurs or a difficulty arises.
- Feature-Rich Workflows: Kuali Build allows us to take data submitted in forms, and make decisions based on the answers provided in the form, directing that data to the appropriate place, and making sure everyone is notified. This includes approvals, tasks, and email notifications.
- Organizational Flexibility: Kuali Build was built for higher-ed customers, by people who work in higher-ed. The designers understand the complexity that comes with academic organizations, and they have built the software to handle it. Kuali Build comes with hierarchical blueprints that allow us to define the types of groups (i.e. Departments, Divisions, Schools) that exist in our organization, as well as groups that follow those blueprints, and even within the groups, custom roles that we can assign to individuals within those groups. This allows workflows to conform to the highly specific ways that business is done at Cedarville
- Capable Integrations: Kuali Build comes with an integration builder that allows it to communicate with other platforms like Colleague and Slate. This allows us to pull in data about students, employees, or programs without the form submitter having to hand-enter data we already have somewhere else. Even better, once these integrations are built by IT, they are available for use by faculty and staff in workflows and forms without requiring any technical knowledge.
Ready to get started? Build your first form in Kuali Build!
Comparison to other platforms
CU has offered at least 4 other platforms that overlap with Kuali Build in one way or another. Each of these lacks some of the features of Kuali Build:
Google Forms
Google forms is on par with Kuali in terms of Ease of Use and Quality of Experience, but it's difficult to centrally manage (sometimes forms get lost simply because the person who owned the form took another job). Google Forms also has no built-in workflow capabilities, organizational hierarchy, or integrations.
Qualtrics
Qualtrics remains an excellent choice for doing surveys and statistical research. However, it is a bit harder to use than Kuali Build, and, like Google, lacks workflow capabilities, organizational hierarchy, or integrations.
FileBound
FileBound was the official IT forms and workflow solution until purchasing Kuali Build. Its major downfalls are on Ease of Use and Quality of Experience. FileBound has very functional workflows and integrations, but creating and editing them is exclusively the domain of IT, and extremely difficult to troubleshoot when things go wrong. Organizational hierarchy is possible, but doesn't come out of the box, and requires a lot of complexity to create and maintain.
Microsoft Forms
Microsoft forms was the most recent addition to this list, and was evaluated as an alternative to Kuali Build during the procurement process. While forms are easy to build in Microsoft Forms, like Google, it has issues with central management, and using Microsoft's PowerAutomate workflows quickly becomes confusing and hard to understand.
The Elephant in the Room: Document Storage
One of the features that Kuali Build doesn't provide is a generic place to store and index PDF documents. Many departments around campus need what amounts to an electronic filing cabinet where they can put documents, associate them with a specific student or program, and access them easily by looking up the student ID. Kuali Build does not provide this service. As IT begins to phase out FileBound, departments will have two options for storing documents:
Option 1: Kuali Build
For departments that will collect all their information through Kuali Build, and don't need to be able to pull up a Student ID and see all the information related to that student in one place, you can keep the data submitted in Kuali right where it is. Kuali has a great place where you can view, filter, and search the documents, but it can only display documents from a single app/form at a time. This is by far the least complex option, since all the pieces to use it are already in place.
Option 2: Sharepoint
For departments that need to scan documents or file PDFs with data that was not submitted through Kuali, IT recommends Sharepoint. Files can be indexed with metadata in sharepoint so that they are searchable by ID number and other arbitrary information. IT is building integrations for Kuali Build that will allow documents created in Kuali to be "filed" in Sharepoint, at the end of a workflow, for instance.
Document Migration
IT will work with the departments that currently have documents in FileBound to migrate these documents to SharePoint prior to the retirement of the FileBound system. It will not be possible to migrate FileBound documents directly into Kuali Build.