San Diego’s NewSchool of Architecture and Design uses airSlate to automate student registrations

Located in the design district of downtown San Diego, NewSchool of Architecture & Design is a globally recognized and award-winning design university with a vision to be a leading provider of architecture, design, and construction management education. The university is known for its forward-thinking professors, top industry connections, and collaboration opportunities. 

Though innovative at their core, NewSchool lacked a modern and efficient way to register and admit students. 

airSlate completely transformed that process. We chatted with Allen Mutchler, NewSchool’s Registrar, to learn more.

A complicated paper trail

NewSchool used a traditional pen and paper method to process student applications. While commonly used, relying on students to completely fill out an application leads to headaches such as missing fields, illegible handwriting, and a buildup of hundreds of sheets of papers. 

Mutchler commented that the admissions office had to hire somebody whose sole responsibility was to scan and file a seemingly endless flow of documents. Furthermore, incomplete forms meant that employee time was wasted attempting to identify applicants and track them down to collect missing information. 

This all translated to a loss of productivity for staff and a convoluted process for students.

Using airSlate to transform NewSchool’s workflows

Mutchler sought a digital solution that would streamline the registration and application process for his university and discovered that airSlate had the capabilities he needed.

“The first thing we did was take our forms and put them online,” explained Mutchler. “We were able to build required rules directly into our forms that are forwarded to the approving department and then back into our Customer Management System. This has eliminated any need for scanning files and uploading them into our system manually.” 

Aside from the gain in staff productivity resulting from an automated workflow, airSlate helped make things quick and easy for students as well.

“With airSlate, we can create static URLs for each form we use. Because of that, we were able to make posters to put up around campus with a QR code for each form, giving students instant access to what they needed.”

— Allen Mutchler, Registrar at NewSchool of Architecture and Design

NewSchool students are loving their greater ease of access and the Registrar’s Office now has the ability to track where each form is during the process of being completed. 

airSlate’s unmatched capabilities

A unique feature that Mutchler and his staff use most often is conditional routing, or the Send Slate with Roles Bot. 

The Registrar’s Office must send most transactions out for approval, but the approver could change based on the program the student is enrolled in, or even the course the student is taking, making the routing process somewhat complicated. 

“Because there are several factors determining the approver, we needed the form to be able to automatically tell documents where to go,” said Mutchler. “This is an airSlate feature that we have not been able to identify in any other competitive software.”

“airSlate is paying for itself with the positive impact we’ve felt across our institution.”

— Allen Mutchler, Registrar at NewSchool of Architecture and Design

The changes since implementing airSlate have been tremendous, with other notable impacts including:

• Forms that are completely filled out 
• Significantly faster response times 
• Form routing based on student data (easily implemented by NewSchool staff thanks to airSlate’s no-code set up)
• Greater workflow visibility that allows staff to step in quickly and efficiently

“We’re now able to use airSlate to track forms, collect student and faculty signatures, and get notified immediately via email at every step of the approval process,” remarks Mutchler. “airSlate is paying for itself with the positive impact we’ve felt across our institution.” 

So, what does the future look like for NewSchool? Currently, only the Registrar’s Office is using airSlate, but they’re in the process of bringing other departments online. Their productivity can only go up from here.