News
Written by Enna-Liina Böök
Customer and use case
Kiipula Foundation
Project Schedule
14 week pilot + continued use
Kiipula Foundation
Kiipula Vocational College, maintained by the Kiipula Foundation, provides special vocational education across ten locations in Southern Finland. The institution supports students who require individual guidance and intensive special support throughout their studies. Through its work, the college promotes values related to equality, accessibility, and the strengthening of societal diversity.
As a foundation, the Kiipula Foundation is a responsible promoter of well-being. Its core values – effectiveness, humanity, and partnership – reflect an empathetic and people-centered approach to its operations. In recognition of its work in building a better society, the foundation has been awarded the Social Enterprise Mark.
The Kiipula Foundation actively promotes the use of digitalization and artificial intelligence in its operations. By utilizing the Nive Forms solution, the foundation invests in a digital tool that supports a smooth and accessible learning path for students.
Kiipula’s Joint Application with Nive Forms – Step by Step
Collection of Application Attachments
During the joint application period, the number of applicants to Kiipula increases significantly, and processing the applications involves a large volume of attachments. The vocational college has approximately 1,300 students annually, with 370 available study places and nearly a thousand applicants during the joint application. The attachments submitted by applicants are personal and sensitive, making secure transfer and handling of the files critical. Previously, the college received attachments via secure email and manually transferred them to the M-Files system. This process has proven to be error-prone and requires a significant amount of time from the staff.
The foundation needed a secure solution that would enable the reliable collection and storage of attachments directly into the M-Files system, while also supporting the foundation’s goal of accessible operations.
The vocational college found an effective solution in Nive’s new web form application. With it, applicants can easily and quickly submit their attachments directly to the college’s M-Files system.
Project Schedule
Nive carried out a three-month pilot project for the Kiipula Foundation, during which the Nive Forms solution was not only implemented but also further developed based on feedback from Kiipula. The pilot ran alongside the ongoing development of the solution, and during this time, the application evolved and gained new functionalities.
Due to the simplicity of the use case, the initial project setup and requirements definition progressed swiftly. Prior to full deployment, a major architectural update was implemented, leading to the creation of a dedicated Admin interface for the Forms solution.
Thanks to the new Admin interface, Forms configuration can now be managed via a responsive web-based UI, replacing the need to use the M-Files admin. Following development and thorough quality assurance, the application was ready for rollout to support the joint application period.
After installation, the solution was in use throughout the joint application period, during which its functionality was tested in a live production environment and any issues were resolved promptly. Following the pilot, the Kiipula Foundation decided to continue using the solution as part of its standard application process.
The three-month pilot and initial preparations lasted a total of 14 weeks, which included the following steps:
- Design and requirements specification (Weeks 1–3): The client’s needs were carefully reviewed, and it was ensured that the necessary changes to the solution would be completed in time for the joint application period.
- Technical Implementation and Quality Assurance (Weeks 2–5): The solution was developed to support the new architecture, and during this phase, security, accessibility, and functionality testing of the application was carried out.
- Installation and deployment (Weeks 5–9): The solution was installed on the client’s server, and its proper functionality within the environment was verified.
- Maintenance and further development (Weeks 9–14): The solution was maintained throughout the joint application period, and improvements were made based on identified development needs during its use.
Collection of Application Attachments
Forms Admin – Interface
The form management system (Admin) enables the creation and management of forms within the Forms environment. The development of the Admin interface was essential for Nive, the Kiipula Foundation, and other clients. The admin version installed for the joint application was secure but lacked reliability and a good user experience, which is why the form for Kiipula’s joint application was hand-configured by Nive outside of the admin.
The admin interface was further developed during the pilot phase to support the customer's independent configuration of forms.
Originally, the admin was accessed using the user's personal M-Files license, but with the update, login was extended to also support Entra ID. In addition, functionalities developed for the admin included adding input fields and field groups to forms, as well as linking them to properties in the M-Files system.
This enabled the use of M-Files value lists in multi-select fields. Functionality for adding languages and editing translations was also developed for the admin.
Results
Nive Forms served as a rapid solution that enabled the Kiipula Foundation to deploy a reliable form before the start of the joint application period.
The collection of attachments from vocational school applicants was successfully streamlined through digital means. The form offers a high-quality and accessible user experience across both desktop and mobile devices, contributing to increased customer satisfaction for the Kiipula Foundation. Furthermore, the application process has been significantly enhanced in terms of managing and processing application attachments, thanks to the integration between Forms and M-Files, which has also led to a reduction in manual work.
The delivered solution has been met with satisfaction and will continue to be used as part of the vocational school's application process. The Kiipula Foundation and Nive will continue their collaboration to further develop the solution.
