About LIS Bremen
The State Institute for Schools LIS Bremen is an institution of the German state of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and placed under the jurisdiction of the Senator for Children and Education of Bremen. Being part of the Bremen education system, LIS supports schools in the state of Bremen in their development and provides professional, educational, and psychological services for institutions involved in schools and education.
Digitale Drehtür (German for Digital Revolving Door
) is a cross-state initiative for schools, initiated by LIS, and is supported by 12 different federal states as well as partners from abroad. As of 2026 more than 3000 live courses have been successfully conducted by Digitale Drehtür. The Campus
of Digitale Drehtür additionally offers over 500 self-study courses for students to explore various topics independently. Today, over 3,000 partner schools and a network of more than 20 universities and colleges are involved in Digitale Drehtür.
Richard Schwerthalter has been working at LIS in the context of Digitale Drehtür since 2024 and is responsible for process control, project management, and finance.
Richard Schwerthalter – Process Control, Project Management, and Finance
Excel spreadsheets and busy email traffic despite Slack
Although LIS had already gained experience with collaboration tools before Stackfield, Excel and email remained an important part of daily work. With a combination of Slack, Excel, email, and itslearning (a learning management system for students and teachers), the aim was to combine the advantages of different solutions and boost internal processes. The challenge was that information was scattered across different locations, communication was primarily bilateral via email, there was a lack of transparency for team members, and Excel lists required a lot of maintenance. In addition, data protection concerns emerged, particularly with regard to Slack.
Everything securely in one place: Stackfield as the clear winner
In order to bring the various tools together, it was decided to implement a solution that would serve as a central point of contact. Various communication channels, comprehensive task management, and the ability to store and organize files were to be accessible in one central location, thereby reducing the daily workload. Many solutions promise an all-in-one concept – the tool landscape is huge nowadays,
says Richard Schwerthalter. However, the actual range of features is usually rather limited, and many solutions fall short when it comes to data protection – a shortcoming that the LIS cannot afford, especially when processing children’s personal data. Richard Schwerthalter emphasizes: Data protection is very important in our line of work.
As a GDPR-compliant and ISO-certified all-in-one tool, Stackfield provides exactly the combination of security and desired features that other tools often lack. Richard Schwerthalter is particularly impressed by the smaller features that are not immediately apparent at first glance.
Stackfield as an Excel replacement: Collaborating on topics
Stackfield is now used across the board in various areas at Digitale Drehtür. Topics are assigned to coordination areas, and the corresponding work is carried out in Stackfield rooms. The room is set up differently depending on the respective requirements. We don't always use the Kanban board, but rather different modules depending on the topic, whether it's invoices to be processed or school offers,
explains Richard Schwerthalter. The great thing about this: Excel lists are no longer needed. Teamwork takes place simultaneously in the room, processes are transparently visible, and everyone can contribute where they want.
Our core product is the creation and provision of learning products, which we now also map in Stackfield. We used to organize these learning products in an Excel spreadsheet. Now we can do this really well in Stackfield because we can actively work on the content together and export it back to an Excel spreadsheet if necessary.
Transfer forms to Stackfield via email integration
In collaboration with various universities and freelancers, live courses for students (grades 2-13) are regularly held on the online campus of Digitale Drehtür. Interested institutions can use a form to define details such as the course topic, target group, or time frame of a potential offering. In order to keep track of the various offers at all times and to be able to organize live courses accordingly, the forms sent by email are automatically forwarded to Stackfield via Stackfield's email integration and created there in the form of tasks. The task card thus contains all the important information such as sender address, date, and form content at a glance and can be assigned and dated accordingly. Work can then continue with and within the task: task steps can be created via subtasks, comments can be written, and the task can be classified according to its current status using the columns of the Kanban board (task board). The board thus provides information about current offers and planned events at any time. The entire process is mapped in Stackfield,
says Richard Schwerthalter.
Customization as the greatest added value
For Richard Schwerthalter, the greatest added value of Stackfield is particularly the ability to customize Stackfield to suit one's own needs. Not only can rooms be equipped with various module elements such as tasks, files, surveys, and pages (Stackfield's text documents) as needed, but the columns of the task board can also be edited and expanded, custom workflows can be defined, and user-defined task fields can be added, for example, to store email addresses, phone numbers, or monetary amounts in a proper format. Richard Schwerthalter applauds: Since the beginning of the year, user-defined fields can even be displayed directly on the task cards in the Kanban board, making them visible in the overview.
The custom fields are a huge plus that you don’t find in all tools.
Intensive exchange via Stackfield's communication channels
When work with a partner university is more intensive, contact persons are directly involved in a shared exchange room on Stackfield. There, both sides can post and exchange topics, questions, or even tasks. These are usually support requests to us that are created by the university,
explains Richard Schwerthalter. He praises how much easier communication is via Stackfield compared to traditional email correspondence: It's just much faster and more flexible. We have the opportunity to communicate directly in tasks. Everything is in one place and we don't have to search for files in old emails later.
Internally, email has been almost completely replaced, internal communication is now largely limited to Stackfield's communication channels: Arrangements that will not necessarily be relevant again in the future, such as scheduling appointments, are handled via 1:1 or group chats. Topic-related and ongoing communication takes place in rooms, and if necessary, directly in a task or file in the form of comments. And for conversations that work better face-to-face, a 1:1 call is initiated.
Plans for the future: Cross-departmental collaboration and process automation
Today, not only staff from Digitale Drehtür works together in Stackfield, but also numerous departments from LIS and higher-level institutions. According to Richard Schwerthalter, Stackfield may also become particularly interesting as an interface between different departments. Its use is set to continue growing systematically in the future. In particular, further automation steps are planned, similar to the connection of live course forms via email integration. The aim is to gradually reduce manual work and make processes that are dependent on external influences more efficient.
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