Improve your admissions process with Admissions Connect — Part 1

Your applicants deserve a better experience

Now more than ever, it’s imperative for your college or university to eliminate barriers to the application process and foster a positive applicant experience.

This means ensuring that your application requirements are clear, your application tool is accessible, and applicants get their questions answered quickly.

Your solution? Salesforce’s newest Education Cloud product: Admissions Connect.

Built on the Education Data Architecture, Admissions Connect is designed to use your Salesforce data to foster applicant engagement with admissions staff and make the application process easier for prospective students.

Here are four Admissions Connect features that can improve the applicant experience:

#1 — Applicant Portal 

Portals (also known as Experience Cloud sites) serve as an online one-stop shop for applicants. Applicants can log into your portal to access their application, upload and track the receipt of documents, and see their overall progress to completing their app.
Source: https://powerofus.force.com/s/article/AC-Portal-Build

Salesforce’s portals are also mobile-friendly, increasing accessibility for applicants who may primarily use their phones to complete their applications.

What’s more, your institution can connect your portal with an Admissions Connect-compatible form tool like FormAssembly to build out your application or other web forms with easy-to-use, education-specific templates.

#2 — Action Plans & Dynamic Application Checklist 

Knowing which application items to submit and when they are due can be overwhelming for applicants. Admissions Connect can help eliminate this stressor with its Action Plans and dynamic application checklist feature.

Action Plans are configurable within Salesforce and allow your institution to define application requirements for various types of applicants, ensuring that the required tasks are personalized and relevant to the applicant. Action Plans can be configured for a specific program an applicant is applying to, or for the type of student they are (such as an international student or transfer student).

When used in conjunction with your applicant portal, a dynamic checklist updates automatically as Action Plan Items are completed, showing a visual measure of an applicant’s progress.

This feature is a big step in ensuring that your application process is accessible to first-generation college students or individuals who are navigating the college application process on their own for the first time.

#3 — Chatbot & Live Chat

Give applicants instant answers to their questions with Mascot, the Admissions Connect chatbot. The chatbot comes with preconfigured dialogs and workflows specific to educational institutions and can be displayed on an applicant portal or your institution’s website. You can also combine the chatbot with a live chat feature, giving applicants the opportunity to chat with an admissions staff member instead of a bot during working hours.

Source: https://powerofus.force.com/s/article/AC-Bot 

#4 — Common App Integration

Why make an applicant submit the same information multiple times? With its Common App integration package, Admissions Connect allows your university to import Common App data and documents directly into your Salesforce org. This data can be displayed in your applicant portal just like other applicant data.

This integration eliminates the need for applicants to submit the same information to your university that they’ve already submitted via the Common App.

Interested in exploring Admissions Connect for your institution?
Sign up for a demo with our higher education team!