Solution For Higher Education
A New Level of Connected Campus
Universities and educational institutions are among the largest localized organizations with thousands of constituents engaging at different levels with various groups in campus. However, they differ from most other organizations in the multitude of dimensions they must operate in, both internally and externally. These dimensions include management of student records, recruitment, events and student life, alumni, faculty and staff, academic programs, research activities, affiliates and exchange programs, tuition and financial aid, donations, investments, and facilities and properties. Add to this infrastructure elements like communication, content distribution, and a multitude of websites, and you have a large collection of activities that, if not unified into a single whole system with a shared data store, will render the system inefficient and deplete valuable resources. This inevitably takes the higher education institution into the heart of the social and mobile era, to the next level of Connected Campus.
A Unified View
In many macro systems, unification and centralization breeds efficiency. This is especially true in large information systems such as those used for higher education. If the different software tools and applications that a university uses are provided by different vendors, then achieving this unification by integration takes much expert planning, time, additional applications, and of course money. On the other hand, if a vendor can provide all these functionalities in a single software system, with capabilities for extending the functionalities and integrating with any other system, then it will enable an organization to achieve efficiency while saving those valuable resources.
Salesforce created a solution with this goal in mind. The Salesforce Solution for Higher Education and Higher Education Data Architecture (HEDA) is a set of end-to-end solutions that allow institutions to connect with constituents in new ways using social, mobile, and cloud technologies. It places students at the center of all interactions in the institute, and by facilitating student engagement in all these interactions, it nurtures success across campus.
A Unified Infrastructure
To establish a unified view of every interaction that prospects, students, alumni, donors and affiliates have within an institution of higher education, while providing tools for handing every aspect of these interactions, a system must have a foundation from which to share all of those tools. To respond to this challenge, Salesforce has introduced Higher Education Data Architecture (HEDA).
HEDA is a community-driven data architecture and set of best practices that forms the foundation of the Connected Campus. It is designed to configure Salesforce out of the box for Higher Ed. HEDA makes it even easier for institutions of any size to provide students with personalized, multi-channel communications throughout their journey, enabling richer and dynamic, 1-to-1 engagement across the student journey.
HEDA unified infrastructure makes it easier for administrators and system developers to build on core objects, fields and automation and integrate with a growing number of Higher Education AppExchange apps that are standardized on HEDA.
A Platform for Collaboration
Knowledge acquisition accelerates when traditional silos break down and students and faculty freely engage in meaningful interaction. This establishes a breeding ground for a generation of ideas and advancement of knowledge. Salesforce for Community Engagement facilitates collaboration amongst students and faculty for improved success and retention. It also empowers students, prospects, and alumni with broad access to the most information ever.
"The higher education community is very collaborative. The Salesforce customer community has been forthright in sharing best practices, lessons learned, and strategies to solve the common issues we all struggle with. Having the opportunity to network and learn from peers at other universities is extraordinarily valuable."
Roger Lurie, Executive Director, Enrollment Services Office, Arizona State University
Delivering Personalized Education
Salesforce for Higher Education allows institutions to combine digital channels like email, mobile, and social media to deliver content the way students want to consume, and therefore engage students throughout their lifecycle. It provides the flexibility to test multiple variations of content, channels, timing, and frequency to see what works best.
Salesforce for Student Success takes personalized education to a new level. A unique solution that enables institutions to learn what motivates students, identify at-risk students, align staff to help those students, make it easy for students to navigate the system and find the right staff to refer to, and build a supportive community across campus.
Optimized Recruitment and Alumni Relations
New applications and engaging loyal alumni are two essential factors in determining the health of a higher education organization. Salesforce for Higher Education includes a dedicated solution for each. Salesforce for Recruiting helps institutions find the right prospects and engage them across multiple channels of their choice so they ultimately enroll.
Institutions can stay current and relevant with alumni using Salesforce for Advancement by creating content and events that connect with their interests. It has facilities for multi-channel fundraising campaigns, and lets administrators manage the donation cycle from pledge to payment.
"Most fundraising apps are outdated and difficult to use. Advancement Connect was the only solution that offered a fundraising option and the ability to deploy across the university."
Cheryl Cerny, senior director, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Both solutions embody deep automation features that boost staff productivity and performance and optimize interactions with accurate data.
HubSpot Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing platform by Hubspot Marketing Automationuses digital media and online channels to deliver content that attracts prospects, therefore personalizing the marketing effort, which has proven to bring in more quality leads. Furthermore, it takes the prospect down the funnel with a precise nurturing scheme that is based on targeted content relevant to the prospects stage in the funnel.
In general, Hubspot’s inbound methodology has four stages:
- Attract: Optimize new and existing content to attract website traffic and increase program awareness with blogging, microsites, social media, and your website.
- Convert: Engage audiences with customized content unique to their stage in the admission cycle, intended area of study, or website activity.
- Nurture: Create multiple conversion points to tailor campaigns and shorten the length of time between a prospective student’s first visit and their application submission.
- Close: Use closed-loop analytics that directly attribute enrollments to your marketing campaigns and provide a 360-degree view of a prospective student’s journey.
Through its innovative inbound methodology, HubSpot helps educational institutions attract higher quality traffic to their website, convert that website traffic into prospective students, and nurture those prospective students into applicants.
Data Analytics
Data analytics plays a key role in increasing efficiency and performance in all areas in a higher education institution. From improving communication to lowering drop-out rate, analytics tools and techniques draws actionable insight from otherwise huge amounts of mostly useless data that is produced at a mind-boggling rate.
Cetrix Integrated CRM Automation for Higher Education includes tools from IBM and Salesforce that enable institutions maximize the use of this data. The complete cycle of analytics includes:
- Descriptive: A realistic view of what has happened in the past is only revealed after using advanced data mining techniques in different areas of institution. With such a powerful tool in their hand, school administrators can focus their resources on areas that will improve the institutions performance most.
- Diagnostic: Questions like what causes students to drop out, or what motivates students to complete courses faster, can be answered with Diagnostic analytics, which draws actionable insight into statistics.
- Predictive: This type of data analytics has extensive use in all areas. For example, in research projects, recommendations for future work can be drawn from statistical models and forecasting of past data. Or, in a student success improvement initiative, such models can predict the future outcomes and improvements based on past performance. In all cases, the institution can make key decisions that move it forward.
Table of Contents
- Appropriate Integration Strategies for Higher Education Institutions
- How to Personalize Learning in Higher Education
- How CRM Helps Facilitates Cross-Campus Collaboration
- Get the Best of Salesforce In Education
- How Can University Administrators Benefit from CRM for Higher Education?
Cetrix Integrated CRM Automation
As a partner of Salesforce, HubSpot, IBM, Google and Cloudera, Cetrix Cloud Service is in a unique position to offer higher education institutions with a CRM-centered integrated automation platform for all their activities needs:
- Salesforce offers substantial discount on its world-class CRM for higher education.
- Education Partner Program by HubSpot offers a free enterprise license with unlimited users.
- Analytics applications from Google, IBM and Cloudera that are geared to higher education institutions.
- Cetrix special offer for higher education that includes a complete implementation service (from consultation to training), plus post-implementation support plans for as long as the institution requires it.
