--- title: Northeast Iowa Community College Deploys Cloud Document Management description: Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) serves eight counties in northeast Iowa and surrounding areas, offering over 85 academic programs of study. With online and blended learning, vocational studies, and adult education and literacy, NICC focuses on providing affordable and high quality education options to various demographics of students across the state of Iowa. image: https://48231846.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/48231846/Imported_Blog_Media/northeast-iowa-community-college-Peosta-Campus-Main-Building.jpg --- [Bridge 2026](https://softdocs.com/bridge/2026) [Support](https://community.softdocs.com/s/login/) [Webinars](https://softdocs.com/webinars) [Blog](https://softdocs.com/blog) [![Softdocs](https://48231846.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/48231846/logos/softdocs/NEW/Softdocs%20Logo%20-%20RGB%20-%20Purple.svg) ](https://softdocs.com/) - Platform The leading document management and process automation platform for higher education, K-12 districts, and government agencies. 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Leadership knew they need a change and embraced a strategic move to the cloud. A cloud-based platform offers much more robust security features, redundant backups, automatic updates, and continuous uptime, whether an organization has one location or many. Such was the case for Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC), which has two campuses and six educational and career development centers; it knew its existing on-premises document management and workflow arrangement could have been more sustainable in the long run, and leadership embraced a strategic move to the cloud. ### Data Security Peace of Mind As NICC moved swiftly into migration planning, the question of data security during the migration and after was definitely top of mind. > “We partner with a security firm, and they gave us a comprehensive Cloud Vendor Questionnaire for Softdocs to fill out,” said Kieffer. “Everyone was so impressed by what Softdocs gave us. They’d never seen such a thorough response that ticked all the boxes.” By moving to the cloud, NICC transferred much of the data security burden from their internal CIS team to the Softdocs support experts. That included the tedious effort of maintaining on-site servers. “We went from five servers down to two, and the maintenance on those remaining servers is much more manageable.”By migrating to a cloud solution, now NICC’s CIS staff can focus more on improving the overall strategy and performance of their campus tech stack and processes rather than getting bogged down in supporting the day-to-day upkeep of their existing infrastructure. ### Simplifying a Complex Migration The magnitude of a migration from on-prem to the cloud may seem daunting at first. But with precise planning and clear delegation of responsibilities, NICC felt confident moving forward. “The migration was a huge undertaking. You’re disconnecting thousands of connections and then putting them all back together,” said Kieffer. > “Fortunately, Softdocs did most of the heavy lifting. We set up the hybrid server separately from the production servers we were using at the time, and Softdocs created the cloud system. One of the things I liked was that it was basically a standalone system we could test. We could make sure everything was working and move forward confidently before the final cutover.” Though the migration plan and responsibilities were clear and Kieffer felt confident about moving forward, he couldn’t shake the concern about losing “control” of key databases. “From my on-prem admin perspective, I was reluctant to give up access to the database,” said Kieffer. “Not only because I want to see what’s going on there, but also we were running several reports through Informer that referenced the Etrieve Content database specifically, and we didn’t want to lose access to those.”“So we created a linked database, which is a read-only version of the databases we’re still able to query. I can’t run any update statements on it or affect the data, but we can query the data that is there. I think we have hundreds of reports using this process, so it was a big deal for us to keep that access. Softdocs worked with us to make that solution happen. Then once the system was up, we simply made sure all the processes worked the way we needed. By the first week after migration, everything was 100%.” As NICC continues to discover the benefits of its cloud-based document management and process automation platform, the expectation is to continue to scale the operational efficiencies more quickly to more areas. “We’re a heavy user of Softdocs across campus. I don’t think there’s a department that doesn’t have at least one or two Softdocs processes running,” said Kieffer. “It’s a continual kind of growth, and we are always striving to add more process automation whenever we get the chance.” ![Northeast Iowa Community College](https://48231846.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/48231846/logos/customers/Northeast%20Iowa%20Community%20College.svg) Location Peosta, IA Tags Higher Education Registrar Office Student Services Human Resources Financial Aid ## More Higher Education Case Studies [![](https://48231846.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/48231846/blog-media/bunker-hill-community-college.jpg) ##### How Bunker Hill Community College Went Fully Paperless and Now Delivers Financial Aid Weeks Earlier with Softdocs Learn how Bunker Hill Community College went fully paperless, delivering financial aid packages weeks faster and reducing review times. Higher Education Electronic Forms Student Services Financial Aid Ellucian Colleague Perceptive Content ](https://softdocs.com/case-studies/how-bunker-hill-community-college-went-fully-paperless-and-now-delivers-financial-aid-weeks-earlier-with-softdocs) [![](https://48231846.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/48231846/roger%20williams%20university.jpg) ##### How Roger Williams University Achieved Nine Years of Integrated Workflow Success with Softdocs Roger Williams University built nine years of campus-wide workflow automation with Etrieve, turning a small team into an engine of institutional process improvement. Higher Education Electronic Forms Workflow Managed Services Ellucian Colleague ](https://softdocs.com/case-studies/how-roger-williahow-roger-williams-university-achieved-nine-years-of-integrated-workflow-success-with-softdocs) [![](https://48231846.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/48231846/UMass%20Amherst.jpg) ##### How the University of Massachusetts Built a Foundation for Long-Term, System-Wide Scale with Softdocs The University of Massachusetts replaced ImageNow with Etrieve to scale workflows, share services, and modernize systems across multiple campuses. Higher Education PeopleSoft Document Management ImageNow ](https://softdocs.com/case-studies/how-the-university-of-massachusetts-built-a-foundation-for-long-term-system-wide-scale-with-softdocs) [![](https://48231846.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/48231846/blog-media/university-dubuque-featured-image.jpg) ##### How the University of Dubuque Replaced Legacy Tools and Built Campus-Wide Efficiency with Softdocs The University of Dubuque modernizes workflows, eliminates manual processes, and recovers over 40 hours/week by utilizing Etrieve to streamline operations. 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All Rights Reserved.| [Privacy Policy](https://softdocs.com/privacy-policy)| [Security and Trust](https://softdocs.com/trust)| [Accessibility Statement](https://softdocs.com/accessibility-statement) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org/", "@id" : "https://softdocs.com/case-studies/northeast-iowa-community-college-deploys-cloud-document-management-across-multiple-campuses", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@id" : "softdocs", "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Softdocs", "url" : "https://softdocs.com/case-studies/author/softdocs" }, "dateModified" : "2025-3-22", "datePublished" : "2025-3-22", "description" : "Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) serves eight counties in northeast Iowa and surrounding areas, offering over 85 academic programs of study. 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