Summary
Facing a government mandate to digitize diploma issuance, PUC Campinas partnered with Hyland to implement OnBase for secure, compliant digital diploma management. The solution reduced diploma delivery time from three months to one day while lowering costs, improving efficiency, and ensuring full regulatory compliance.
The challenge
As digital transformation became increasingly widespread, universities reached a critical moment to deepen their adoption of digital processes. In 2019, Brazil’s Ministry of Education (MEC) announced the Digital Diploma initiative through the release of a technical note defining security standards and information requirements for all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) within the Federal Education System—both public and private—to issue diplomas digitally.
This announcement marked a major milestone for the Federal Education System, modernizing diploma issuance and registration by increasing security and reliability, reducing costs, accelerating processes, and ensuring transparency and auditability for MEC. Following publication of the Technical Note and the XSD schema (the standard diplomas must follow), HEIs were given a two year deadline to comply with the new digital diploma model.
Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (PUC Campinas) uses OnBase to issue and register Digital Diplomas.
Solution
In addition to being a diploma issuing institution, PUC Campinas also acts as a diploma registrar, which made rapid compliance with MEC’s newly announced system mandatory. Facing a tight and critical deadline, the university entrusted Hyland with the implementation of its digital diploma issuance and registration project, leveraging an already established strategic technology partnership.
A highly tailored and carefully designed solution was developed to meet both the university’s specific needs and MEC’s regulatory requirements, while accounting for the project’s complexity and fixed timeline.
What is in OnBase is exactly what we need to move forward with the improvements that MEC continues to require.
The Digital Diploma differs from the paper diploma by consisting of three core components: a graphic representation (RVDD), a graduate data file (XMLD), and an academic transcript file (XMLDA). The two XML files are linked to the graduate and generated by the academic management system, which integrates with OnBase for student document management.
All three mandatory signatures—Registrar, Secretary General, and Rector—are executed directly within OnBase through a customized workflow, with the option to sign in batches. Each completed signature triggers a notification from OnBase to the academic management system indicating the diploma’s status. Once all signatures are collected, the XML files are updated with the signatures and the required timestamp, as defined by MEC Technical Note No. 13/2019/DIFES/SESU/SESU. A final notification is then sent to the student confirming that the diploma is available.
Although OnBase is widely used across the university for multiple academic processes—including certificates—the digital diploma initiative stands out in terms of scope and complexity.
The digital diploma is one of the most complex projects we have when we talk about OnBase within PUC Campinas.
Results
With the implementation of the Digital Diploma signing solution, PUC Campinas significantly streamlined and accelerated its diploma issuance and registration process. The university eliminated expenses related to paper usage, removed the need for physical document transport and manual signatures, introduced batch signing capabilities to further speed digital workflows, and increased overall signature efficiency while involving only the professionals required by MEC regulations.
As a result, diploma delivery timelines were dramatically reduced—from three months to just one day—while also achieving a substantial reduction in paper related costs. Looking ahead, PUC Campinas plans to make OnBase its primary repository across all institutional areas.