Case Study: PraktiMatch for Esslingen University

Background

Esslingen University is a public university of applied sciences in the region with a distinctly practice-oriented profile. Direct contact between students and companies from the region is part of its identity: practical semesters, theses written in cooperation with industry, working-student roles and joint projects with practice partners are an integral part of studying there.

The way this matching was coordinated had grown over the years and was organized accordingly across many places. Offers from practice partners, requests from students and the matching of the two sides ran through a mix of emails, lists, individual contact people and various documents. It worked, but it required a lot of manual coordination and made it hard to keep an overview: who is currently looking for what, which position is still open, which request is still waiting for a reply.

Challenge

At its core, the task was to move a process spread across many hands into one central, reliable platform – without losing the personal support that makes this kind of matching work. Several requirements came together:

• Scattered information: profiles, offers and requests lived in different channels and had to be brought together manually.
• Lack of overview: there was no shared picture of which matches had come about and which requests were still open.
• Data protection: personal data of students and companies had to be processed in a GDPR-compliant and data-minimizing way.
• Accessibility: as the platform of a public university, the application should be accessible to as many users as possible from the start.
• Adoption: the solution had to be simple and inviting for students, practice partners and the university side alike – otherwise it would not be used.

Solution

TFLIT built PraktiMatch, a tailored web platform that brings students and practice partners together in one place – from creating a profile to matching to communication. The collaboration was designed in stages from the outset: first a shared understanding of the process and requirements, then a usable first version, and then step-by-step extension based on feedback from real use. Data protection and accessibility were not afterthoughts but part of the concept from the beginning.

At its core, the platform includes:

• Profiles for both sides: students and practice partners maintain structured profiles with the information that is genuinely relevant for a meaningful match.
• Matching: offers and requests are aligned against suitable criteria, so that fitting opportunities become visible faster instead of getting lost in email threads.
• Application and request management: requests and applications run through the platform in a traceable way, with a clear status instead of scattered responsibilities.
• Communication in one place: coordination between the parties happens centrally, so nothing gets lost and the current state is visible at any time.
• Data protection and accessibility by design: GDPR-compliant, data-minimizing processing and accessible operation were part of the architecture from the start.

Outcome

The qualitative impact shows above all where manual work used to be necessary. The central platform noticeably reduces manual coordination, creates a shared overview of open and matched requests, and speeds up the way students and practice partners find each other. Instead of scattered emails and lists, there is one reliable, shared state – for the university side as much as for the two matched sides.

• Less manual coordination effort on the university side.
• Better overview of open and matched requests.
• Faster coordination between students and practice partners.
• A foundation on which usage, profiles and matches can be measured cleanly in the future.

Conclusion

PraktiMatch shows how a scattered matching process shaped by a lot of manual work becomes a central, data-protection-compliant and accessible platform that reliably brings students and practice partners together. The key was the staged collaboration with the university, in which the solution grew closely along the real workflows.

Before publication, approved metrics or a client quote from Esslingen University should be added if they may be named publicly.