Set yourself up for Education Cloud’s Digital Transformation – Part 1 of 2

The benefits of Salesforce’s Education Cloud for your higher education institution can be considerable. Achieving them, however, isn’t as simple as implementing the Education Data Architecture (EDA) and moving forward.

Whether you’re already on your way down your Education Cloud path and you’re looking to improve or you’re just getting started, consider this blog your springboard to maximizing the solution’s capacity for your institution. You can make adjustments within your organization to make sure your existing — or newly implemented — Education Cloud implementation is operating as effectively as possible by focusing on a few key objectives.

In this two-part series, I’ll share how taking time to understand your vision, value proposition and team capabilities are integral planning steps involved with a successful implementation.

Objective 1: Understand the Value and Align on Vision

Before embarking on the Education Cloud journey you must ensure you have a clear vision and defined value proposition. It is important to first identify who are the internal and external consumers of your data. Typically, this could be applicants/prospects, students, alumni, staff, and faculty. Once you have identified your audiences/customers you can utilize Strategyzer’s Value Proposition Map as a brainstorming aid to organize your thoughts.

The goal is to think through the value Education Cloud might bring to your organization and compare it to what your constituents are looking for. Ask yourself: What will Education Cloud provide? How will it alleviate pains and create gains? How well does that match what your various constituent audiences are seeking? In the case of Education Cloud you might ask and answer these questions many times, once for each audience we defined above.

With the value clearly defined you can begin to articulate your vision for Education Cloud. Imagine that the implementation is complete. Both staff and students are utilizing Salesforce to its full potential. What do you hope to be true? What efficiencies have you gained? What is the student satisfaction level with navigating the university to apply, register for courses, meet with their advisor, etc. Defining your vision and ideally identifying critical success factors will be integral to keep the project team focused on your end goal.

At Redpath, we follow this process for every new initiative. It is our proven Path to Success allowing us to simplify, accelerate and transform any project. You can learn more about our Path to Success here.

Objective 2: Recognize the Capabilities of Your Team, End Users and Executives

Implementing Salesforce to provide a holistic approach for your students impacts everyone at your university. You need to be sure the key players are prepared for this journey of change and are ready to utilize the system in a way that maximizes its value. Before you begin your journey, take time to assess your organization’s readiness and capability to implement Education Cloud by assessing your IT team, end users (staff), and executives.

Your IT team will likely play a critical role in implementing Education Cloud and supporting the solution through its lifetime. While we recommend you work with a Salesforce partner like Redpath, you can’t move forward without the support of your internal technical resources. Implementing Education Cloud typically requires integration with your SIS/ERP, modifications to your access and identity management solution, and syncing data between your campus email marketing tool. All of this requires a team that knows how to support and alter your existing systems. A Salesforce partner like Redpath can step in and support you in these goals in the interim but it’s in your best interest to establish a long-term strategy for handling these necessities in-house. Work with your CIO to identify whether the IT team has the time and the right skill sets to participate in a Education Cloud implementation and provide ongoing support and maintenance. We can also help you review your existing capabilities and identify any potential hurdles that may exist. Typically the Education Cloud implementation will result in deprecating older tools and solutions that should clear some of the team to support Salesforce and related integrations. Just make sure you’ve identified what systems will go offline and when.

Next, before you start designing the system, it is time to get real about your team’s capabilities and appetite for change. Salesforce has a lot of tricks up its sleeve, but those tricks won’t wow users if your team isn’t prepared to apply them. At Redpath we strongly believe in the crawl, walk, run approach to implementation. Artificial Intelligence brings competitive advantage to your recruitment and retention strategies, but it won’t benefit you, your team or students if you aren’t prepared to know how to use it properly.

Think through the last time you implemented something new for your team, whether it was a new printer, updating to Windows 10, or implemented using the Common App. How did your team react? Were they excited for this change or did they push back when things felt confusing? Understanding how your team reacts to change can help you determine whether this is a six-month initiative or a gradual two-year evolution.

In addition to the team’s preparedness for change, you also need to assess what they are capable of taking on individually. Perhaps you are envisioning a campus-wide email marketing platform where each department can send their own messaging to the students they have access to. Great! We can’t wait to work with you on that. But first, let’s talk about the staff in each department. Does each department have someone who will be able to create their own mailing lists, write email content, etc.? It’s vital you verify you have the people to support your process as well as your vision.

Finally, you need to ensure your executives are ready to campaign for Education Cloud. This type of project impacts everyone on campus (online or in person). Such a big undertaking means you need a lot of people at the table from across the university to align on strategy and process.

For example, what does it mean when a student is registered vs. enrolled? Can one graduate program recruit students in another graduate program? Does course attendance data need to be visible to academic advisors? These decisions require strong data and system governance, which requires busy people to take time and sit at one table (or in one video conference) to make these often contentious decisions. This means you need executives in each college and department to see the vision, be onboard with the strategy, and value devoting time to these high-impact decisions.

Now Read Part 2 to dive into how to successfully integrate Salesforce with your existing campus solutions, and create a roadmap to help you realize your Education Cloud vision. 

If these internal assessments feel daunting, we are here to help. Get in touch to learn how we can guide your process to ensure your Education Cloud delivers on everything you need for your university.