Industry
Education
Number of users
8,500
Solution
Mendix ISV
DimLab is a Dutch firm specializing in student flow management and helping universities, professors and students continually improve performance. DimLab’s founders have immense experience in the education sector, having worked at universities as teachers and as student counselors. Clariël Veldhuizen is co-founder and Lab Director of DimLab.
Since mid-2020, DimLab has complemented its offerings with an automated online service that helps both academic counselors at universities and students to access, navigate and select from courses and the many and various study tracks each offers.
The application is called Academic Routeplanner; DimLab’s online tool automates much of the course information searching, explaining and planning tasks that counselors used to undertake manually for each student, and the associated paperwork. This digital transformation means counselors can now spend more time mentoring students towards a successful study outcome. Students have on-demand access any-time, anywhere to the course information, study routes and personalized insights they need for their academic choices.
Going back a few years to when DimLab originally came up with the entrepreneurial idea for Academic Routeplanner, it built a simple demo to show to a major Dutch university. They loved it! So DimLab decided to develop the application for real. Already having a potential first customer, the founders wanted to develop the application quickly. They also wanted to ensure it would be scalable, cope with a large number of users and be easily adaptable for changes down-the-line.
In terms of a development platform, one of DimLab’s founders was already familiar with Mendix, the low-code platform. Although he wasn’t a skilled developer, he was impressed with what he’d seen in terms of speed of development and how easily changes can be made. DimLab decided that it wanted Academic Routeplanner to be built on Mendix, via a Mendix development partner.
DimLab is a Mendix ISV Partner, meaning that DimLab is an independent software developer who leverages the Mendix platform to develop and expand their solution. The Academic Routeplanner is featured as a solution in the Mendix Marketplace. Clariël highlights the benefits of being a Mendix ISV partner: “The scalability options and increased market exposure are significant advantages for us. The platform’s endless integration capabilities are particularly beneficial for DimLab. Education institutions often have complex, legacy infrastructures that are difficult to integrate with. Mendix allows our solution to seamlessly overlay existing IT systems, enabling easy integration with basically every system.” The Academic Routeplanner also handles a large amount of private and sensitive information. “We chose Mendix, because it meets data security standards and European Union regulatory compliance and privacy rules.”
Squad Apps consultants played a vital role in the development of the initial application for DimLab. When DimLab decided to expand the functionality of the Academic Routeplanner, choosing Squad Apps as their implementation partner was an easy decision. Clariël: “Squad Apps has a pragmatic approach. Their team delivers high quality work and seamlessly transitions between high-level architecture and practical application development. They always keep the end goal in mind, ensuring the best experience for students and university employees. This is what makes our collaboration so successful and I would recommend them to any organization who is looking for the best Mendix consultants in the market.”
The Academic Routeplanner is live at three different universities in The Netherlands, serving 8,500 users across thirteen different bachelor’s programs. Clariël: “The feedback of our users is overwhelmingly positive. The Routeplanner gives students a comprehensive view of their study programs, reduces stress and helps prevent dropouts. Supervisors use the tool to prepare for meetings and gain valuable insights into students' decision-making processes. It supports every step of the supervisory process.”
Counselors and students appreciate the Routeplanner's user-friendly design and intuitive interface. They find it easy to navigate, and they value the detailed information and smart functionality available at their fingertips.
