Standard consulting business transferred to the web
“By digitizing the application process for housing and real estate development, we wanted to handle simple consulting tasks on the web,” explains Fiedel. This allows the IBB experts to focus on highly profitable and larger-volume business, while allowing standard applications to be processed digitally. However, it is also possible for customers to apply via mobile devices. Logic is included in the apps to determine the financing options based on the entries made by the applicants as they are led through the process. Internally, the goal was to substantially reduce processing times. According to the project leader, processing times have been cut at least by half as a result of these measures.
In December 2016, IBB launched a modern new website with a responsive design that helps ensure mobile friendliness. As a result, it made sense to synchronize the two digitalization projects for business and real estate development with this approach. With the new and easy website navigation, customers will always find the opportunity to complete an electronic application.
The forms for the business development arm of IBB were previously static. They were converted into dynamic web forms with the help of Adobe Experience Manager Forms. “We take advantage of all the capabilities the technology offers,” says Nachtwey-Plath. Some of these capabilities include: device-specific display adaptation for desktop, tablet, or smart phone; intelligent forms to help ensure the proper information is entered; pre-filling forms with data pulled from the ERP system; identification of dependencies between entry fields; as well as the automatic email submission of a completed form.
“It used to take half a day to design a form, but now it only takes five minutes,” says Nachtwey-Plath.
The starting point for the new form management system at IBB, currently comprising about 50 application templates, was to create an information glossary. To this end, all of IBB’s business data that related to the loan and development process was stored within a schema with clear interpretations and descriptions. In the future, the process will only use this data, as doing so will prevent inconsistencies in downstream systems, such as SAP. The information glossary describes all information used for the execution of business processes, including connections, dependencies, field lengths, or help texts. The glossary is now used by other regional development banks in Germany that cooperate with IBB.
For the creation of a form within Adobe Experience Manager Forms, information is automatically transferred from the information glossary to an XSD schema. This schema is made available to the form designers, who create the needed forms as requested by individual departments. They can drag and drop the components to quickly create a form, and thereby fully concentrate on the specialized content. They no longer have to worry about the logic, dependencies, help texts, validations, field lengths, links, or other concerns. Because the system handles all of these things, the team can also focus on making forms responsive to all user devices and integrating everything with back-end systems.
