The Dreamforce 2022 education keynote simultaneously looked back at the recent successes of Salesforce in the education sector while looking forward to exciting innovations on the horizon. Inspiring stories from institutions like USC Annenberg and the Queensland University of Technology regaled how Salesforce has helped transform operations. Education announcements tied around the theme of wowing students for lifelong success introduced a number of key new features and enhancements poised to revolutionize the industry.
I want to unpack some of the more impactful announcements and client spotlights to explore how exactly the education sector stands to benefit from all that was showcased. Here are a few of the key takeaways I walked away from Dreamforce 2022 with and what I think they will mean for the future of education.
Better Data Handling
Two of the biggest education announcements made during Dreamforce 2022 were related to Data Mover and Salesforce Genie. The latter announcement has made quite a splash throughout the Salesforce ecosystem, and rightfully so, but I want to talk about Data Mover first.
Data Mover is a free managed package that is also cloud-agnostic. This means customers are able to freely import data from external sources, utilize custom mapping to connect that data to the desired objects or fields in a Salesforce org and catch any potential duplicate records in the process before they are created. Cloud for Good was included in the pilot for Data Mover and witnessed first-hand just how impactful the solution can be. When Data Mover was being discussed on stage, I couldn’t help but envision how this enhancement will benefit administrations looking to consolidate business processes and better leverage data.
Consider how big a difference Data Mover, and its smart duplicate detection, will be for administrations looking to build intuitive campaigns from an event’s attendee list, or how recruitment will be impacted through enhanced progression tracking of the student lifecycle. Regardless of the input method (whether that be existing campus ETL, manual entry, CSV upload, etc.), admins will now be able to bring in data to its final sObject destination, create child records, create multiple records for the same object (e.g., Student Contact vs. Parent Contact), and respected Record Types, all while preventing those stubborn duplicates.
Salesforce Genie works hand-in-hand with Data Mover to provide a powerful new way to integrate first- and third-party data with existing CRM data to great effect. This scalable data integration is helping institutions, like the Queensland University of Technology, consolidate disparate systems, promote unified student profiles, create hyper-personalization, and process automation in real time. Believe the hype, people, Salesforce Genie is a massive game-changer for institutions throughout the broader ecosystem.
Improvement to Learner Success
One of the enhancements announced during Dreamforce that I’m most excited about is Guidance Center for Student Success Hub. As part of the GA Winter ’23 release, this new Salesforce for Education feature is poised to deliver personalization at scale for students while providing step-by-step onboarding support and resources for admins. These tools assure success for new students through onboarding innovation and workflows connecting a series of tasks. Intuitive and visually easy to follow, Guidance Center allows students to check off critical tasks related to their unique admissions processes (form submissions, course selections, etc.). As students progress through their processes, admissions departments are also able to easily view the pending tasks of students, mark tasks as completed, and follow up on tasks to help move processes along.
Connected to improving overall student success was the announcement that Case Swarming is now available in Slack. While Case Swarming is an established idea that helps take the guesswork out of customer service by pooling resources from internal departments, the new integration with Slack will greatly approve efficiency. During the pilot of Salesforce’s Slack-based swarming model, a subset of 3.300 agents saw a 26% improvement in case close rates, a 19% improvement in same-day resolutions, and greater ease of building collective knowledge bases.
These efficiencies are made possible in part by intelligent meta tags and defined escalations that are configurable and able to pull the right people into the right channels to start the right conversations. Institutions, like USC Annenberg, are already witnessing how Case Swarming can help break down silos and add harmony to a multi-departmental utilization of the Salesforce platform. I foresee the new Slack-based Case Swarming to have a great effect on internal interview processes, appointment bookings, and quality of life improvements across advising departments.
OmniStudio for Admissions Connect
With the previous release of Admissions Connect allowing student data to be centralized, processes to be streamlined, and student support to be enhanced, OmniStudio allows to build off these innovations through drag-and-drop experiences. These experiences help to create intuitive forms in which to gather Admissions information and minimize manual data entry. Minimizing this data entry, of course, allows admissions departments to better use their time in building and fostering relationships with students and their families. All in all, OmniStudio for Admissions Connect has the potential to greatly improve the academic lives of prospective students and create a full, holistic view of applicants for admissions departments.
The future of higher education has never been brighter thanks to a number of high-impact new features and enhancements coming to a Salesforce org near you. If you couldn’t make it to Dreamforce this year, make sure to take in all the education and excitement on-demand through Salesforce+.
Contact Cloud for Good today to discuss how Salesforce can help you get the most out of your institution’s technology.
