Salesforce gives Professional Education resources to streamline student support

For more than 15 years, University of Utah Professional Education (ProEd) staff relied on a massive Microsoft Excel workbook to manually track hundreds of adult learners through multicourse certificate and microcredential programs. A new Salesforce-powered enrollment tracker has transformed that process, increasing student support while reducing administrative work and giving staff better tools to make data-informed decisions.

Jennifer Thatcher said she and her director, Ashley Kramer, were excited to see the Salesforce implementation become a reality.

“We share a focus on both the student journey and data-driven decision-making,” said Thatcher, program manager for ProEd. “Salesforce has brought those priorities together in a way that better supports students and staff alike.”

ProEd, which is part of Continuing Education in University Connected Learning (UCL), offers in-person, online, and hybrid bootcamps, classes, programs, and workshops for “working professionals who want practical, industry-relevant skills they can use right away.” Its open enrollment catalog includes three completion award programs for which students receive a digital badge and one microcredential program. The programs consist of three to six classes that students can take at their leisure and in any order, so completion times can vary from weeks to years.

Thatcher said for about 15 years the office relied on an Excel workbook with a spreadsheet for each program to track the student journey, including contact information, program, attendance, completion date, and certificate send date. She estimated staff tracked about 150 students per semester who took two or more classes per semester over three semesters.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, students took longer to complete programs, and the spreadsheet ballooned to 40 columns and hundreds of rows despite staff periodically removing inactive students. Additionally, the Excel tracking system wasn’t compatible with Canvas, the learning management system used to host classes and track attendance, grades, and more, so ProEd staff had to manually transfer that data to Excel for each student after the semester ended.

About four years ago, ProEd enlisted UCL’s Salesforce & Customer Relationship Management (CRM) team, now part of UIT’s University Support Services (USS) unit, to create processes in Salesforce to email students, send automatic course reminders, automate surveys, and record notes in their accounts. After evaluating the initial successes and time savings, the ProEd team reviewed and improved the way it structures programs/classes and assigns subject codes.

ProEd then asked whether they could use Salesforce to track the student journey, confirm registration, and reduce manual data entry and the potential for errors.

Carrie Felton, senior Salesforce system administrator, said her team found a program tracking solution in Salesforce that met most of the project requirements, including working with student data imported from PeopleSoft. Using out-of-the-box functionality from Salesforce and existing student data, the team developed the desired automation.

“When Salesforce receives student enrollment from the import, the system automatically checks the data against ProEd’s list of classes and programs, and tracks class completion, grades, and everything else,” said Felton, who mapped the data structure and automation architecture for the solution.

As long as students remain actively enrolled, they can register for and take classes in any order. They also receive consistent and reliable communication about their progress, including automatic reminders about classes they still need to complete.

“We cater to adult learners, usually someone who has a hard time getting time off work or finding childcare — things that can be impediments to completing a program, getting those unique pathways to education, and leveling up in their career. They need flexible education. Salesforce has helped us offer that to students,” Thatcher said.

The project, Felton said, has laid the groundwork for a Salesforce integration with the new PRISM Registration system, which will enable ProEd students to access their class data and track their progress for the first time. The USS Product Management for Student Systems team is overseeing the initiative.

Additionally, the UCL CRM team built ProEd’s system so it can be scaled across other U programs, said Mythri Ravandur Mani, a Salesforce system administrator for the UCL CRM team. Mani built the automations, validated data, and oversaw testing.

“This project is going to work for some of the other things that are on our roadmap or in our backlog, so that we’re not having to reinvent the wheel every single time we get a request like this,” Felton said.

Salesforce is already working wonders for ProEd staff. It has eliminated a lot of repetitive manual work, reduced administrative burden and errors, and allowed staff more time for program development.

“They’re experts in professional development opportunities,” Felton said. “A system could never replace that skill, but a system can absolutely replace checking this name against this name, keeping that record, and reporting on that.”

“We’re talking about a lot of manual maintenance work,” Thatcher said.

Previously, Thatcher said, one ProEd employee would spend 10-15 hours a week on student progress using information in the Excel workbook to check whether they were meeting the requirements of their programs, give permission for class exceptions, and more. Now, Salesforce automatically captures that information from PeopleSoft. Thatcher estimates it has saved her team 15+ hours a week.

Staff also spent time identifying students to follow up with and crafting emails with links about upcoming and remaining classes, which sometimes felt futile.

“Email providers often sent our emails to junk or spam because we include these helpful action items and links,” Thatcher said. “Sometimes, we were blocked from reaching students’ inboxes because we didn’t have a ‘recognized’ or ‘trusted’ system to communicate with students.”

Since implementing Salesforce, more ProEd emails are making it to student inboxes. Thatcher knows because ProEd staff can see when students receive and open emails, one of the out-of-the-box features Salesforce offers. This data, she said, is especially valuable for the ProEd marketing team, which is working on how to better connect with students and persuade them to reenroll.

Mani created several data-driven reports for ProEd, providing better visibility on program enrollment, time to program completion, and program completion rate.

The move to Salesforce also provides ProEd the flexibility to change and scale its programs without making major changes to the system. They simply update their classes and indicate program offering dates, and the system will automatically notify new students about the new program, while still tracking existing students through the programs that are being retired.

“With the spare time we have, because we’re freed from these manual processes, it is going to program development. We usually offer programs for two or three years at a time, but now some of our AI course offerings will be changing all the time, maybe multiple times a year. The flexibility to be able to dive into new course offerings is amazing,” Thatcher said.

She praised Felton and Mani for their work on the project, saying they deserved “well-earned applause for turning big ideas into systems that work.” Felton and Mani called it a team effort.

“Jen reached out, Carrie was able to come up with some ideas, and I was able to work on that. So, it’s always teamwork,” Mani said.

Thatcher called Salesforce a game changer, noting her ProEd team is happier, more easygoing, and has some room to innovate and collaborate.

“It has freed staff members from the burden of maintaining a giant Excel spreadsheet that had been in use for years. It has lifted the stress of managing that system. It’s been absolutely amazing.”

Contact UIT’s Salesforce teams

Do you have a workflow or process that takes too long or requires a lot of manual work? One of UIT’s Salesforce teams might be able to help! Contact Barb Iannucci at barb.iannucci@utah.edu.

 

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