All together now: Managing data campus-wide gains traction


College IT officials are looking for ways to connect department databases.

Databases constantly updated with student and faculty information is nothing new in higher education, but linking those myriad systems to each other and sharing information between campus departments is gaining traction, especially at one major university.

Colleges and universities large and small have for years used Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) software to handle reams of student data that must be kept readily available to campus decision makers.

In other words, campus staffers who collect and maintain student applicant information often have no communication with school employees who handle alumni information.

If a student tells one department that his or her contact information has changed, the message won’t be relayed to other departments that need to know, IT officials said.

Indiana University announced last fall that it would use a CRM software that would soon connect databases and departments across the school’s network of nine campuses.

“It became very clear that some [department heads] were picking one direction and others were going in another direction” in departments that had little, if any, direct communication with each other, said Brad Wheeler, chief information officer and vice president of IT at Indiana. “We took a little time out and looked at what was happening, and we realized … you had two locomotives about to hit each other.”

A system-wide CRM software, Wheeler said, would allow the university to keep accurate files on and stay in contact with students from the time they first inquire about attending Indiana until they are alums willing to contribute to fundraising efforts.

Indiana will use a CRM system made by Florida-based college software company Campus Management, which works with more than 1,700 colleges, universities, and foundations.

Shifting to a CRM model that bridges departments across the university will have its complications, Wheeler said, because Indiana’s current data management model has created autonomous department chiefs who will now integrate with other decision makers.

“Officials are very empowered here, so this is a bit of a cultural change,” he said, calling the CRM implementation a “daunting undertaking… “Some have [become accustomed] to a departmental system and they’re not thinking about it as an enterprise system. … That means we have a lot of disparate data sources that we need to get our hands around.”

Timothy Gilbert, senior vice president of Campus Management, said college IT officials who have helped implement department-by-department CRM software have become more willing to examine a system-wide system that helps track a person through his or her entire relationship with a school, providing a more “holistic view of the student and employee life cycle.”

“More and more colleges and universities are envisioning CRM as a strategy to be utilized throughout the lifetime of their constituency,” Gilbert said.

Texas A&M University’s Kingsville (TAMUK) campus switched to a school-wide CRM system when officials there documented consistent struggles with managing student enrollment information.

Employees who headed new student outreach efforts had little communication with staffers from financial aid, admissions, and the registrar’s office, according to a TAMUK report. And a TAMUK office that handled international student admissions functioned separately from all other departments.

Bringing an enterprise CRM system to campus reportedly reduced late student applications by 10 percent and increased student applications by more than 200 percent.

The system-wide CRM also allowed TAMUK’s student outreach staffers to automate personalized brochures, eMails, and letters based on admissions stages. That meant students who were classified as prospects would receive different messages than students who had been admitted to TAMUK.

Campus Management conducted a higher-education survey last month that showed how colleges are using CRM software.

Six in 10 respondents said CRM was most useful in recruiting students, while 24 percent said the software was best used to “enhance student services.”

Five percent of respondents said CRM was best used for alumni relations and 10 percent said fundraising, according to the survey results.

Sign up for our newsletter

Newsletter: Innovations in K12 Education
By submitting your information, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Oops! We could not locate your form.

Sign up for our newsletter

Newsletter: Innovations in K12 Education
By submitting your information, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.