Making the decision to implement a connected campus not only requires cross-functional collaboration, investment in technology, and leadership support, but also takes a deep dive into the human impact. Here’s a look at the connected campus benefits and considerations for the people inside and outside of your organization.
The People You Serve
As primary external constituents, your students, alumni, and partners are impacted by a decision to implement a holistic software solution. A connected campus provides a greater opportunity for constituents to experience your institution as “one voice” by streamlining communication, content, and processes. A student portal, for example, can be a one-stop shop experience for resources, support, checklists, registration, and degree planning.
To realize the full benefit of a connected campus experience – constituents need to engage with your campus! This means as an institution you’ll want to communicate resources, provide fresh content, and keep an eye on utilization.
The People You Are
Your internal constituents such as staff and faculty are also supported by a connected campus. Using a consolidated constituent relationship management system helps reduce repeated processes across multiple, often archaic, systems and provides a single source of truth for records. Having a consolidated constituent or 360 degree view of constituents is especially important for situations where multiple departments are included to support a process. Breaking down silos of information to support increased interdepartmental synergy gives your organization the ability to focus on more than the day to day data management tasks.
Campus leadership can use data analytics and metrics to see the full constituent lifecycle and breakdown. Understanding how constituents are connected to the larger campus ecosystem and actionable insights can be used to deepen constituent relationships. Engage students to become volunteers, partners to become students, and alumni to become sponsors; use your relationships with your constituents to the fullest.
The People Who Support the Technology
Of course, we can’t forget about our invaluable IT team! A connected campus requires a shift to an enterprise system and eliminates the need to support point solutions that typically serve one functional area or process. This allows the IT department to focus the efforts of support resources and prevents risk of managing disparate systems.
A consolidated system means that departments will need to collaborate and yes, compromise on development features and enhancement priorities. The IT department should lead a cross-functional project team, such as a Center of Excellence (CoE), to help establish a governance and project implementation process. The good news is that the flexibility of the Salesforce platform provides a product that can easily be expanded to additional departments or functionality!
The Elevation Solutions team is here to support organizations looking for the right Salesforce solution. Reach out to a member of our team, complete our online contact form, or email us at booking@elevation.solutions.
