About the Escola GmbH
The Swiss software company Escola was founded in the year of 2006 and offers web-based, modular solutions for schools to make processes for students, teachers, parents, school adminstrators, and others digitally visible across the board. The Escola product line includes a so-called School Manager used for tracking grades and absences and providing report cards, among other things, the student support planning including reports and special education measures, website creation, the Escola Study World for class organization, the administration of school offers such as lunch, after-school care, and the school bus, as well as the Mobile App for parent communication, sick leaves, evaluations, and more. As of December 2025, 401 Swiss schools consisting of about 759 school units count on Escola. Stackfield has been in use at Escola since the end of 2018 for software development, school onboarding, and project management, among other things. Valentin Wild is the head of the onboarding team at Escola and supports schools in introducing the software.
Valentin Wild – Management Onboarding
The initial situation: Slack, email, and communication via email
Before Stackfield, internal collaboration at Escola was done via Slack and Excel lists, but as teams grew, the limitations of traditional communication channels became apparent. As a SaaS company, Escola also maintains close contact with schools; until 2018, this was done via email in combination with file-sharing services such as Tresorit. However, email inboxes did not provide any overview of the needs of the various schools or the communication history to date. “This CC culture in email communication is also difficult because you have to know exactly who needs to be informed,” explains Valentin Wild. Therefore, in order to be able to share the project progress transparently with the schools as well as internally, the company decided to introduce a collaboration solution.
All-rounder Stackfield: Data security and functional diversity
Two-factor authentication in the app, regular penetration tests, and data stored on Swiss servers: as a company that provides software for public institutions, data protection is a top priority for Escola. It was therefore clear from the very beginning that the solution sought had to be well positioned in terms of security issues and, if possible, be based in a German-speaking country. In addition, the solution should be “visually appealing” and easy to use. In terms of functionality, particular emphasis was placed on a calendar functionality that could be used to maintain shared calendars internally and with the school. The company also wanted to replace Slack and (internal) emails with a secure channel, which is why the solution had to offer sufficient communication channels.
Stackfield quickly proved to be an “all-rounder” during the search: as a German, GDPR-compliant, and ISO-certified all-in-one tool, Stackfield impresses with the highest security standards. In separate workspaces, Stackfield's rooms, modules for communication, task management, and topic-related calendars are available. Moreover, Stackfield impressed Escola in terms of user-friendliness.
Quick setup thanks to best practice videos, FAQs, and Stackfield support
Fortunately, Escola was already well positioned when it was introduced to Stackfield, according to Valentin Wild: “We are also a software company and therefore all very tech-savvy,” which is why the first steps were taken entirely in line with the ‘learning by doing’ approach. If there were any hiccups, Stackfield provided sufficient start-up assistance: best practice videos and FAQs (frequently asked questions) were “very helpful and provided good examples, for example, of how to organize everything,” praises Valentin Wild. In addition, support via live chat, email, or phone was always available when specific questions arose: “It was very easy to get in touch with them.”
Software development via the Kanban board: managing tasks within the team
In software development in particular, Escola is increasingly focusing on mapping work processes in Stackfield. For this purpose, tasks are created by the product manager in a room set up specifically for development and assigned to the various developers. The Kanban board with predefined and customized columns provides information about the current status of the task: when work on a task begins, it is moved to the “In Progress” column. As soon as the relevant developer has checked in the implementation, the task is moved to the specially defined “Code Review” column. If everything is correct, the task is approved and completed.
In order to categorize tasks independently of their processing status, they are also assigned labels. The labels are visible in the Kanban board and in the tasks themselves and, in the case of Escola, provide information about the type of task, for example, whether it is a feature request or a bug, as well as its priority. The filter functionality can then be used to search for specific labels, for example, to display only high-priority tasks.
Thanks to the Kanban board, the entire process remains transparent, especially for product managers and team members. Valentin Wild emphasizes: “We can sort through the flood of messages and tasks so much better, especially when we compare Stackfield with messenger services.” Previously, tasks were only communicated via chat messages. The problem with this was that old messages disappeared from view over time, even if the corresponding task had not yet been completed. "You lose track of what has already been done and who is actually responsible. In Stackfield, everyone can configure their own view individually, and that's an advantage." If a user-defined view is created with filters, it can be saved as a private or public view and thus accessed again at any time. In addition to the card view, tasks can also be displayed in the form of to-do lists or in a Gantt chart. How and which tasks are displayed is therefore up to each user.
Managing and exporting internal team events in Stackfield
Another feature that is very popular at Escola and is used daily, according to Valentin Wild, is the calendar module: “Each of us keeps their calendar in Stackfield.” In the calendar, topic-related events can be created in a room and participants can be invited. The availability check is particularly helpful here: when a new event is created, a single click allows you to verify whether invited individuals are available for the event or perhaps already have another event scheduled. Appointments created in rooms where you are not a participant are “blocked” in the check, i.e., their title is censored to protect sensitive data. Stackfield calendars are additionally subscribed to at Escola, so that work-related appointments are also displayed outside of Stackfield in your own calendar. If the appointment comes from an encrypted room, the title is, again, censored by Stackfield.
School onboarding in Stackfield: schools are integrated as external users
As the customer base grows, new schools must be regularly introduced to the Escola software. This requires not only good internal coordination, but also transparency toward the different schools. To make the onboarding process as transparent as possible for all parties involved, the relevant contact persons at the schools are integrated directly into Stackfield with limited rights. For this purpose, a separate room is set up for each school. Since the rooms are very similar in structure, separate room templates including tasks, users, and modules have been defined for this purpose. If a new school needs to be introduced to the software, the respective room can be created based on the template and automatically receives all predefined settings and content. The contact persons at the schools are stored in Stackfield as users with the role “External”. External users can interact with regular users in rooms, but only have access to explicitly shared content – in onboarding, this mainly includes shared tasks, appointments, and files. Since non-shared content is not visible to the schools, the supervising Escola employees can also work on their own topic-related tasks directly in the corresponding room.
Support for module extensions in temporary project rooms
Escola's various products are strictly modular in design, allowing schools to add functions as needed. For example, Escola can be optionally expanded with a hiring module, a module for graphical location and class allocation, or resource management. To manage new module expansions in Stackfield, a separate project room is created for this purpose. Compared to standard rooms, project rooms are time-limited and have their own planning overview, including a project status, priority, and graphics to visualize the current processing status of tasks. The project status is particularly interesting, notes Valentin Wild; it allows the current status to be summarized in a few words and defined from existing categories (e.g., on schedule, vs. at risk) to show how the project is progressing. The contact persons for the booking schools are also integrated into the room and receive a brief introduction to the corresponding services booked, including training dates. For Valentin Wild, as team leader, the project portfolios are particularly valuable: a list of all current projects provides information on the progress, priority, and end date of the individual projects, among other things. This allows him to identify potential bottlenecks at a glance and compare the projects with each other.
“With Stackfield, collaboration is now much more transparent, especially when someone is absent and another person has to step in. You can simply take a look at the relevant project room to see what has already been done. This isn’t possible with emails because you don’t have access to your colleagues’ accounts.”
Simplicity and flexibility: that's what makes Stackfield so impressive
For seven years (as of 2025), processes at Escola GmbH have been running in Stackfield – for Valentin Wild, there is no reason to change that. “Stackfield is graphically appealing, simple, clear, and at the same time offers all the functionalities we need,” he praises. He also likes the flexibility that users are given: those who want to can use Stackfield as a desktop or mobile app or simply in their browser. The web-based version is particularly popular within the team. “Updates run in the background, so you don’t notice them. That’s similar to our software, something we really like.” A look into the future reveals that Stackfield is set to remain an integral part of the company. “We want to get more schools on board, even for small projects, and we also want to rely on Stackfield even more internally.”