The Client
The Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education (OCHE) is the central administrative unit of the Montana University System and the Board of Regents. The Commissioner of Higher Education, and their staff, are responsible for providing quality and timely service to the Board of Regents, government entities including the executive and legislative branches, the public and the media, students and staff, and others in the education community when they request information or assistance.
The Commissioner’s Office works to strengthen the credibility of the Montana University System in order to provide effective advocacy and provide balance between the needs and interests of the campuses and the needs and interests of the State and our students.
The Challenge
When OCHE went looking for a new Salesforce partner, They wanted something special. They didn’t want any old Salesforce expert. They didn’t want to feel that their project was just another one in the stack. They needed a partner that would care enough to challenge their assumptions and advise them on best practices. They wanted to be able to understand not just what they were getting, but why. They wanted a collaborative relationship that would also help them develop their own internal Salesforce skills.
They had numerous challenges to overcome and new opportunities to capitalize on. While OCHE had good documentation and tracked a lot of their data in Salesforce, the system still had its own problems, including sluggish system performance and bugs they couldn’t solve. There were known issues with data, so neither users nor leaders could really trust the system and make informed decisions. OCHE also had new programs to launch and manage in their Salesforce org leveraging best practices and minimizing the time to implement.
The Solution
As OCHE’s selected partner, Redpath kicked off the engagement by first learning about their objectives, their business processes, and the current state of their Salesforce org. Using Redpath’s “Enhancement Manager” app, OCHE was able to organize all of their pain points and feature requests into a single manageable backlog. Then, they prioritized this list based on their timelines and priorities. From there, Redpath started to take action. The Redpath team met with OCHE each week to demonstrate progress and provide incremental training on new functionality. Using the project timeline in Enhancement Manager, they would then discuss next steps, ensure everyone was aligned on priorities, and take the time needed for both sides to ask questions. This workflow allowed trust and partnership to build naturally, and for Redpath to start delivering the quick wins and system improvements that created excitement and buy-in from the OCHE team.
As an example, Redpath helped OCHE build out their public facing application forms, integrated with Salesforce. OCHE described how they needed the application process to work from a business perspective. Redpath took the time to not just understand this process, but to ask questions. Redpath consultants don’t approach their work as order-takers. Instead they are motivated to “Challenge the Status Quo,” to think holistically about how a solution will be used in Salesforce, and within the business. With OCHE’s program applications, Redpath identified opportunities to refine, streamline, and automate the application process. In addition, the Redpath team recommended new reports and dashboards to make the data from incoming applications more useful and actionable.
As another example, Redpath helped OCHE move their many Process Builder automations to Flow. OCHE had many process automations, but they also had big problems with system performance and frequent process errors. During the migration to Flow, Redpath took the time to not just understand what they were automating, but why. This considered and collaborative process allowed them to build the automations OCHE needed in better ways. OCHE’s internal admin was also empowered to manage these processes in the future with a better understanding of Salesforce Flow principles and best practices.
The Results
OCHE’s partnership with Redpath has resulted in both technical and capacity improvements.
They have streamlined many processes, saving significant time in processing applications, graduation letters, and more. This allows them to focus more time on other valuable efforts.
Their Salesforce org’s performance has dramatically improved. Prior to this work, OCHE was limited to importing and record processing in batch sizes of 10. Now they can process batches at the normal maximum of 200 at a time.
OCHE has gained trust and confidence, not only in their partner, but in their data and their system. With Redpath on their team, OCHE knows that they can stand up new programs in weeks with no technical issues at go-live. As a result of this partnership, OCHE receives ongoing advising, support and strong relationships with the Redpath team, who now has a deep understanding of their goals and needs.
“Cheers to team Redpath! Specifically, a huge thank you to Sathya Balasubramaniam and Ben Koch, who has assisted most recently in our graduation process for professional student exchange programs. This detailed process was very difficult to navigate last year and caused significant stress; however, with Sathya and Ben’s assistance, we were able to streamline the process, test thoroughly, and to our satisfaction. We were able to execute the entire process in about half an hour. If we had bottles of champagne, we would have been spraying each other with them in celebration of the ease and smoothness of the process.”
– Amy Unsworth
Director of Student Assistance
Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education
Montana University System
Nationally Recognized, Trusted Salesforce Partner
