Moving Beyond Excel-Based Management to Digitalize Administrative Workflows — Resolving Challenges Unique to an Overseas Campus and Realizing Approval Processes Free from Paper Documents and Physical Seals.
| Business Overview | An overseas campus established in Malaysia by the University of Tsukuba, Japan. As an international branch of a university whose main campus is located in Japan, the campus conducts educational activities. |
| Deployment Type | Cloud Edition |
| Implementation Period | — |
| Number of Users | — |
The University of Tsukuba Malaysia Campus is an overseas branch established in Malaysia by the University of Tsukuba in Japan, conducting educational activities. As an international campus, it operates in an environment that differs significantly from the main campus in Japan, facing unique operational and systemic challenges. Due to the frequent travel of faculty and staff between Japan and Malaysia, approvals under the paper-based system came to a standstill whenever an approving authority was away on a business trip, causing significant delays in operations. To address these challenges, the campus introduced desknet’s NEO and AppSuite, enabling a full transition away from Excel-based management and achieving the digitalization and streamlining of its administrative workflows.
Before → After
Before (Prior to Implementation)
After (Following Implementation)
Challenges Prior to Implementation
Paper-based workflows and frequent international travel brought the approval process to a halt, stalling operations.
Faculty and staff engaged in a high volume of travel, with some faculty members returning to Japan as frequently as once a month. This constant movement made it extremely difficult to keep track of who was where at any given time.
Under the paper-based system, whenever an approving authority was away on a business trip, approvals could not proceed until that person returned. Pending documents accumulated on desks, and workflow disruptions were a frequent occurrence. The inability to authorize approvals or share information remotely became a significant bottleneck for the organization.
Furthermore, the entire workflow surrounding business travel — from trip requests and travel authorization to trip reports and expense reimbursement — was managed entirely through paper and Excel. Each stage required information to be manually transcribed, creating a high risk of errors.
For example, data entered via Microsoft Forms for a business trip request had to be manually copied into an Excel travel notification form. After the trip, a separate report had to be prepared, and the same information entered again into an expense reimbursement form. This repetitive data entry imposed a considerable burden on both applicants and administrators alike.
Reasons for Selection
Local support presence in Malaysia and a cost-effective pricing model were the deciding factors.
The primary reasons for selecting desknet’s NEO are outlined below. Although the evaluation period was limited, the solution was determined to be the most suitable system for meeting the requirements of a campus operating in the unique environment of an overseas branch.
1) Local Support Presence in Malaysia
The vendor maintains a support office in Malaysia, ensuring prompt assistance whenever questions or issues arise. Relying solely on a Japan-based office can lead to delays in receiving responses, and nuanced local circumstances or requirements may not always be conveyed accurately. However, knowing that multiple Japanese-speaking engineers are stationed locally — available for immediate consultation when needed — was an immensely reassuring factor for an organization operating overseas. This local support infrastructure proved to be a decisive element in the system selection process.
2) Competitive Pricing
The affordability of the solution relative to competing groupware products was also a significant consideration. While formal quotations were not obtained from multiple vendors, initial comparisons suggested that desknet’s NEO could be implemented at approximately half the cost of comparable alternatives. For a newly established organization, keeping initial investment and ongoing operational costs low is critically important. The solution’s ability to deliver rich functionality at a budget-friendly price point served as a strong incentive for adoption. Its outstanding cost-performance ratio holds particular appeal for educational institutions operating under constrained budgets.
Outcomes and Impact After Implementation
Custom applications built in-house without dedicated IT staff — achieving end-to-end efficiency from requests to reimbursement.
The University of Tsukuba Malaysia Campus currently uses desknet’s NEO and AppSuite primarily for HR & general affairs and finance & accounting operations. Without a dedicated IT department, the team has built the applications they need in-house, customizing them to fit their workflows. A staff member with prior experience managing performance records in Excel took the initiative — driven by operational necessity — to develop these applications through a process of trial and error. Leveraging the no-code capabilities of AppSuite, they have built practical systems that accommodate the complex approval workflows and form requirements dictated by university regulations.
1) [AppSuite] Business Travel Request Application — End-to-End Data Integration from Request to Reimbursement, Reducing Multi-Step Transcription
The entire workflow related to business travel has been digitized into an application, establishing a fully integrated process from initial request through to expense reimbursement. The cumbersome workflow that previously relied on a combination of paper and Excel has been substantially streamlined.
Previously, data collected via Microsoft Forms had to be downloaded into Excel, reformatted, and then shared through a separate application — a multi-step process that introduced data transfer risks and the possibility of transcription errors at each stage.
With desknet’s NEO, data now flows automatically from one process to the next within a single platform. This seamless integration has dramatically reduced processing time and minimized human error. In particular, the full linkage from business trip requests through to accounting has centralized all necessary information, resulting in a significant improvement in overall operational efficiency.
2) [AppSuite] Purchase Request and Payment Management Application — Managing the Full Cycle from Request to Payment Completion Across Multiple Linked Applications
Requests from faculty and staff for items or resources are received, used to generate purchase requests, and submitted for authorization. Once approved, the process moves to a payment verification stage, where confirmation is obtained before the actual payment is processed. This entire cycle — from receiving requests through to payment completion — is managed through a series of interconnected applications.
Going forward, the team plans to further strengthen cross-application integration to enable automatic status verification, ensuring that completed requests are confirmed before the workflow advances to the next step.
3) [AppSuite] CRM Application — Organization-Wide Sharing of Key Relationship Data to Support Strategic Stakeholder Engagement
For a university, relationships with a diverse range of domestic and international institutions and organizations are of paramount importance. There was a clear need for a system to systematically record and make accessible information about which organizations the university has relationships with, the nature of those relationships, and the history of interactions.
A CRM application was developed with the support of the local support team in Malaysia. This application enables organization-wide sharing of key stakeholder information and supports strategic relationship management. Because information is retained and handed over even when personnel change, continuity in relationship management is now ensured.
4) [AppSuite] HR Management Application — Consolidating Leave and Travel Data to Visualize Faculty Work Status via Individual Calendars
The application manages faculty leave requests, medical expense claims, and attendance records for local staff. Individual calendars provide a visual overview of each person’s work status.
At a glance, it is now possible to determine whether a faculty member is in the office, working from home, at the main campus in Japan, or on an overseas business trip. This has made it significantly easier to confirm the whereabouts of faculty and staff and to coordinate workloads accordingly.
5) Location-Independent Approvals Eliminate Workflow Delays — Decisions Can Now Be Made Instantly, Even While on a Business Trip
Even when an approving authority is on a business trip, approvals can now be completed online from any location. Under the paper-based system, approvals were suspended until the relevant person returned, bringing operations to a standstill. In an environment where overseas travel is frequent, it was not uncommon for an approver to be away for a week or more, leaving even urgent matters waiting for authorization.
Now that approvals can be processed online, workflows can proceed regardless of location or time. Faculty members temporarily back in Japan can approve requests submitted from the Malaysia office without delay, dramatically accelerating the pace of operations.
6) Granular Permission Settings Enhance Data Security and Eliminate the Risk of Accidental Data Corruption
Granular permission settings allow precise control over who can view or edit data, effectively eliminating the risk of accidental data corruption. In Excel, sharing edit access was necessary to allow data input, but this frequently led to problems such as forms being inadvertently altered or formulas being deleted without anyone’s knowledge.
With desknet’s NEO, it is possible to configure the system so that only administrators can modify the form structure itself, while general users are restricted to data entry only. This preserves format consistency and prevents unintended changes. The ability to create a state where only administrators can touch the underlying structure — simply through permission configuration — represents the most significant advantage over Excel.
7) Freedom from Unnecessary Maintenance Tasks — No More Time Lost to Excel Crashes and File Corruption
Staff are no longer burdened with the unproductive maintenance work of dealing with Excel crashes and file corruption. Previously, large files would cause Excel to crash unexpectedly or take an extended time to open. Regular checks to ensure shared files had not been corrupted, along with routine backups, were also required.
With desknet’s NEO, data is managed within a database, eliminating these concerns entirely. The system operates stably, data integrity is maintained, and the time previously devoted to maintenance can now be redirected to core responsibilities. The reduction in administrative burden has also significantly alleviated the mental load on the staff involved.
Comments from the Contact
Tetsuya Yamashita / Chief Accountant, Malaysia Overseas Education Base Support Office
What stood out most was the high degree of flexibility. The ability to arrange elements with great precision means that even forms prescribed by university regulations can be reproduced accurately within the system. Given the strict requirement to faithfully replicate officially mandated formats, this level of flexibility was critically important. While there is a learning curve at the outset, once you become accustomed to the system, the impression is that you can build essentially anything you need. By working through it incrementally — learning through trial and error — it becomes possible to implement even complex workflow processes.
The granular permission and access control settings make it possible to restrict visibility to only the information relevant to each user. For instance, payroll data can be configured so that only HR personnel can access it, and departmental data can be restricted to authorized parties only. The ability to finely customize and configure the system as a whole allows the organization to operate in full alignment with its security policies. It has enabled the ideal approach to information management — maintaining confidentiality while ensuring that the right people have access to the right information.
Future Outlook
The following areas of expansion are currently under consideration. While the current level of utilization is already substantial, the team is planning further system enhancements with the goal of achieving even greater operational efficiency and more sophisticated data utilization.
Enhanced Cross-Application Integration
At present, each completed request is manually verified before the workflow advances to the next step. For example, the process follows a sequence of : request → purchase order → authorization → payment → confirmation. The team aims to automate status verification across each stage and enable an at-a-glance view of overall progress. By building a mechanism that automatically triggers notifications upon process completion, further operational efficiency gains are anticipated.
Automated Budget Management
As purchase requests are generated, the associated budget is incrementally consumed. There is a need to track remaining budget balances and expenditure rates in real time. Currently, this is done through manual aggregation, but the team plans to automate the process and visualize budget utilization through a dashboard. The implementation of budget overrun alerts will enable more effective budget control. Centralized management of budget execution by department and expense category is also planned.
Centralized HR Management
While business trip requests and leave data are already integrated, the team is looking to further enhance the visualization of individual faculty work status through more detailed personal calendars — for example, using color-coding to intuitively indicate whether a faculty member is in the office, working remotely, at the main campus, or on an overseas assignment. Additionally, the team plans to incorporate deadline management for various permits requiring renewal — such as Employment Passes (EPs) and Teaching Permits issued by the Malaysian Ministry of Education — directly into the scheduling system. Automated alerts as deadlines approach will be implemented to prevent lapses in permit renewal.
Organization Overview
| Organization Name | University of Tsukuba Malaysia Campus |
| Location | Malaysia |
| Description | An overseas campus established in Malaysia by the University of Tsukuba, Japan. As an international branch of a university whose main campus is located in Japan, the campus conducts educational and research activities. |
Summary: Key Benefits of Implementing desknet’s NEO in Educational Institutions
Drawing from the experience of the University of Tsukuba Malaysia Campus, the key benefits of adopting desknet’s NEO in a university environment are as follows. This case offers particularly valuable insights for organizations with overseas branches or those requiring complex approval workflows.
1. Local Support Available for Overseas Branches
With a presence in Malaysia and multiple Japanese-speaking engineers stationed locally, the vendor is able to provide rapid, context-aware support tailored to local conditions. There are no time zone barriers, and the availability of assistance even in urgent situations provides significant peace of mind. Local support is an indispensable asset for any organization operating internationally.
2. Excellent Cost-Performance Ratio
Compared to other leading groupware solutions on the market, desknet’s NEO offers very competitive pricing. The accessible price point makes it a viable option for educational institutions and newly established organizations operating under budget constraints. The ability to deliver rich functionality while keeping costs low is a compelling advantage from a long-term operational perspective.
3. Flexible Accommodation of Institutionally Mandated Form Requirements
The high degree of configurability in AppSuite allows for precise replication of forms required under university-specific regulations. The ability to adjust element placement with granular control makes it possible to digitize existing paper forms without modification. The capacity to simultaneously satisfy regulatory compliance and operational efficiency is a significant draw for universities and public institutions subject to strict procedural requirements.
4. Operable Without Dedicated IT Staff
Because applications can be developed without writing a single line of code, organizations without a dedicated IT department can build the tools they need in-house. Staff with a working knowledge of Excel formulas can typically construct basic applications without difficulty. This flexibility to respond immediately to operational needs significantly accelerates the pace of process improvement.
5. Business Continuity Regardless of Location
As a cloud-based system, desknet’s NEO enables seamless processing of requests and approvals from anywhere — whether on a business trip, working from home, or operating overseas. For a university whose faculty and staff are frequently active on an international stage, a location-independent work environment is essential. The elimination of approval backlogs has resulted in a measurable improvement in overall organizational productivity.
