University of Oulu

University of Oulu: Dynamic templates make the work easier for thousands of people

In the University of Oulu both student and staff communities are international. “We have over 90 nationalities in our community which is a tremendous asset. Science is a global thing”, begins Raisa Juntunen. Raisa works as a Marketing Planner in the communications, marketing and public relations team at the University of Oulu. Additionally, the team includes communications experts, as well as professionals in fundraising, public relations, alumni activities and applicant marketing.

What’s in the HUB?

Exove has created a branding and content management service for the University of Oulu. The HUB was renamed to UniOulu Material Bank by the local users. In the service, all the content and materials are categorized into clear entities. “It is now easier to visualize the content entities and search and find them,” says Raisa. Images, logos, instructions, document templates, and dynamic or customizable templates all have their own distinct places.

“Universities create a lot of content and organize a huge number of events. One of the core roles of our communications and marketing professionals is to support the university staff working in different roles to communicate with the best quality. Especially for visual communication in different channels we needed a tool that manages photos and other visual material, and can be used by everyone to easily produce the material they need”, says Marja Jokinen, Director of Communications and Marketing at the University of Oulu.

“Different users need very different materials in everyday work”

The University of Oulu has granted access to all 13,000 students and 2,900 employees to the service. Different user groups have been created: students, employees, administrators, as well as advertising agencies and photographers belonging to the ecosystem of the University of Oulu. “Everybody gets in, welcome! Our organization is really big, and a huge number of people use the service every day. Understanding and motivation to use the service are the main things we communicate to people,” says Raisa, who has a wonderful service attitude. “It’s convenient for all photographers to directly upload the photos to the service and name them by themselves, and we can easily find the images.”

 “Disclose the know-how of Science Communities”

The number of videos is growing in the marketing of the University of Oulu. “I believe in the power of moving image, especially in student marketing, because it is a great way to build brand. Our academic community uses videos to highlight their scientific work and expertise. The faculties are very independent and use the service as they want. They have access to logos and pictures so they can produce both print and online content,” says Raisa. “Sometimes the material from the scientific community comes to us for our review and we work together the best way for implementation. We manage a lot of language versions, at least Finnish and English are the languages ​​we always use,” says Raisa.

What were the problems and bottlenecks at work before Exove created the service? “We are always busy. Version control of the content was always a challenge, the latest versions had to be available to everyone at once. And we have a massive amount of material. As well as different user groups with different needs. How did we ever survive before Exove? Fortunately, we no longer have to look back. Now it is so convenient to work with dynamic templates, for instance, ” says Raisa.

With dynamic templates, only sky is the limit for ideas

What are the benefits of using the service created by Exove in the everyday work? Raisa praises the dynamic templates for making the work easy. They are customizable templates based on brand guidelines, for example for brochures, posters and ads. “With our dynamic templates, the whole staff can independently combine materials – text and images – with ready-made logos to branded templates,” Raisa illustrates. “We have a lot of content. We have a huge number of photographs in our 60 years of history alone. We have brand, person and science images. Exove service provides clear structure for all images and other assets which speeds up everyone’s work. It is easy to save and search the material.”

“The faculty people are happy to use the dynamic templates. This is understandable, because researchers are very busy, so their assistants are also using dynamic templates.” Collaboration is power! “Our different units, not just the faculties, are also using dynamic templates. They create independently brochures and posters among other things. These units include Language Center, Information Management, Property Services and Alumni Activities for former students,” Raisa illustrates.

Are dynamic templates easy to work with? “Getting started requires fortitude but when the authors see their own work directly in the service, success will encourage them to continue,” Raisa has noted. “Doing it yourself makes it fast to create visually quality material, and you can test different title versions, for example.”

How does the dream asset management service look like in the future?

Raisa has a wild idea. “We could have more dynamic templates in use in the future. And if they could read the mind of the authors, while still making sure that brand guidelines are followed, that would be a dream come true. In addition, it would be great if the service would suggest to the author directly whether the content is for print or digital and then scale the images and other elements to the right size. And that would be real AI when artificial intelligence could even read your mind!”