Kuali Build is a cloud-hosted smart form and automated approval platform, built exclusively for Higher Education.
With mobile-ready, secure, and accessible forms and workflows, Kuali Build has helped campus users launch automated processes in minutes, not months.
Build’s platform features a robust drag-and-drop form and workflow builder, advanced form fields, signatures, role-based approval routing, branched conditions, a workflow tester, user-friendly yet powerful integrations, workflow status reporting, approval task management, and more.
Thoroughly go through the Electronic Signatures page to understand the requirements and use cases in selecting the right solution from available options. After that, if you feel Kuali Build is the right solution for your needs, continue reading through the rest of the information.
Kuali Build benefits
Smart Form Creator
- Drag and Drop - Create forms in minutes with a drag and drop layout designer with sections, dozens of field options, and rich-text capabilities.
- Complex Fields - Collect simple and complex data using advanced field gadgets like table layouts, integrations, file uploads, and more.
- Integrated Look-Ups - Never type your full name or email address again. Pull known information from internal campus systems to save your team’s time and reduce manual errors.
- Sophisticated Logic - Show or hide fields based upon information input in other fields. Use field validation to make sure input data matches what you’re looking for.
- Mobile-Ready - Automatically adjust to mobile-demands so Joe, the freshman, can submit his change of major request when running between classes.
Workflow Automation
- Process Mapping - Visualize and sketch out end-to-end process designs using our simplified workflow creator, making process mapping a breeze.
- Approvals Routing - Easily get a stamp of approval or acknowledgement from any person on campus with our powerful integrated group routing engine.
- Parallel Branching - Automate multiple simultaneous approvals by branching routing activities based upon information collected during the process.
- Customize Emails - Send automated and customized email notifications along every step of the workflow process, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
- Simulated Testing - Quickly preview and test your full workflow processes, including branches, notifications, and integrations, with the click of a button.
Dashboard
- Identify Bottlenecks - Never let another approval slip through the email cracks again by having full transparency.
- Custom Searches - Get into the groove of reporting with saved searches so your most pressing inquiries are front and center, always.
- Optimize Processes - Easily identify which workflow approval steps cause the longest delays so you can implement improvements.
- Export Data Sets - Unleash your inner data guru by importing data sets into your system of choice and query away to your heart’s content.
- Filter Submissions - Quickly filter form submission data by any available information, empowering maximum learning possibilities.
What Kuali Build is not used for?
- Document storage
- High risk data or confidential data
- Refer to important guidelines to be followed below when using Kuali Build for forms, workflows and eSignatures.
Kuali Build: Best Practices for Form Building
Getting Started
- Map out your form before you start by thinking about what questions you need to ask and the best way to ask them.
- Start by placing a “Section”. Gadgets outside of a section won’t format properly. Sections can also be turned into pages.
- Include a “Read-Only Text” gadget near the top of your page with a description of the form
TIP: Use the Form Builder Gadget Definitions to plan your build.
Managing Space & Length
- If your form is long, use multiple sections to break up the form.
- Create separate pages for sections by selecting “Form Settings” in the top right and selecting “Turn top-level sections into pages.”
- Use “Limit Visibility based on other gadgets” to control which questions appear depending on previous answers. Learn more about visibility rules.
- Instead of having a long column of questions, drag questions next to each other by clicking the question box, selecting the 6 dots on the left side, and dragging to the location highlighted in blue.
Utilizing Smart Gadgets
- There are some basic data integrations made available as part of the Kuali Build implementation, make use of them to pull the UpToDate information into the form.
- Use “Advanced” gadget from the lower left-hand corner to use the appropriate gadget to pull the information from available integrations*.
- Please note that no change or new integrations will be developed during the initial solution implementation, all feedback for new integrations will be gathered and reviewed at a later point of time and implemented based on need and availability.
Important guidelines in using Kuali Build.
- When implementing an electronic signature process, all applicable laws, rules, regulations, and NIU policies and procedures must be followed.
- Data owners and stewards still has the responsibility of following all the data retention, records maintenance and disposal as required by state.
- These solutions are only tools available to implement electronic signatures and workflow management and are not to be used as document storage solutions.
- All applicable data retention and record keeping rules must be followed outside the tool.
- These tools must not be used for the following types of High-Risk data at this time.
- Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)
- Credit Card or Payment Card Industry (PCI) Information
- Export Controlled Research (ITAR, EAR)
- Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Data
- Personal Health Information (PHI, HIPAA)
- Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
Policies and Compliance
Use of these tools must comply with Illinois law and University policies, including:
Support
Support for Kuali Build is only available through Kuali’s knowledge base, Kuali community and Electronic Signatures and Worflows Team’s community. No internal or Kuali support team available for form and workflow building (can contact Service Desk only for Form Builder access related issues).
- Visit the Kuali Build Knowledge Base for video training, step by step documentation, and easy to follow explanations and guides for all features in Kuali.
- Join the Electronic Signatures and Worflows Teams Community here to share your questions and ideas with other Kuali Build users at NIU.
- Kuali Build has a Community place that gives community schools a forum for discussion on a variety of topics. You can request access to this community by emailing build-support@kuali.co, visit this page to understand how to use this community. Please note that this email is only for basic account access to interact with the Kuali Build community and not to be used for support questions.
Some places to get started are:
- A one hour crash course on everything you need to know to build an app from the ground up.
- If you are going to be creating or managing forms and workflows, start with the Kuali Build app administrator documentation.
- If you learn best through videos, Kuali Build has a number of training videos available here.
- If you are an approver or reviewer (if you have been sent a Kuali Build form to fill out, approve, or review), start with the Getting Started for Reviewers/Approvers page.
- List of supported browsers can be found here.
- Guide for current available Kuali Build integrations is available here.
- Please note that no changes or new integrations will be developed during the initial solution implementation, all feedback for new integrations will be gathered and reviewed at a later point of time and implemented based on need and availability.
- The recording of the live training session conducted on Nov 8th can be found below (refer to the chapters that are added to this video for easy reference to specific sections)
Get Access
All NIU students, faculty, and staff have access to Kuali Build forms for form submissions. For ability to create forms and workflows, employees need to request access to form builder permission and agree to all the guidelines one need to follow and support available, before granting access.
Request access to Kuali Build form builder
Login to Kuali Build