#BREAKING – Education Cloud Highlights from Dreamforce 2018
Today at Dreamforce 2018, Salesforce.org kicked off the annual conference with a keynote on Education Cloud. With the sold-out conference just getting started, there are over 864 attendees from the higher ed industry, from IT experts to administrators and power users. Natalie Mainland, Vice President of Higher Ed Solutions and Strategy kicked things off by welcome attendees and sharing some exciting updates from Salesforce.org. “The work we do in higher education is so much more than a job for us, it’s a mission” she noted, during her welcome remarks.
Below are some highlights from the keynote – be sure to leave a comment and let us know which features you’re most excited about!
Higher Education Data Architecture (HEDA) continues to grow:
- There are over 800 HEDA orgs being used across institutions big and small – this is HUGE!
- If you haven’t heard, HEDA is now part of Education Cloud. Education Cloud is the overarching solution set offered by Salesforce.org for Higher Education. It features the HEDA architectural foundation, and of course tools like Marketing Cloud, Pardot, Communities, Salesforce Advisor Link, Gift Processing, and more!
- By formalizing the solution as Education Cloud, Salesforce is committing to a continued growth of the product. Announcements included support for international legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and additional language support through translations for CASTL compliance.
Salesforce Advisor Link (SAL):
- University of Virginia (Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy) shared their Trailblazer success story, including their student advisor community built on SAL. All of the great data they collected as part of the recruiting process is available to the advisors to continue a consistent experience for the student. They noted that SAL has given them an “integrated student record that has allowed us to put the student at the center of everything.”
- Students love their experience interacting with the advisor team, like being able to schedule their own appointments. Advisors love their experience with SAL feeling empowered with SAL features of success teams, early alerts, unified advising record, and advising notes.
- Salesforce is looking to develop their ‘second chapter’ for SAL including putting the students in the driver’s seat, using AI to power up engagement and transforming advising. Jason Belland, Senior Director of Industry Solutions, shared Salesforce has impacted nearly 100,000 students through SAL alone.
Advancement and Gift Processing:
We’re particularly excited about this one here at Cloud for Good. Geshri Gunusukara, Director of Industry Solutions, Advancement made a #breaking announcement – she shared that we can expect to see the first build available at the end of January. We have several clients who are interested in rolling this into their solution, and we know they’ll be ecstatic to hear this!
- Einstein Voice will allow gift officers to speak donor notes into their phone, and Salesforce will automate any dictated follow-up tasks by parsing the notes and performing actions like updating donor information fields on their record and automatically creating tasks. This will be a game changer for gift officers and is a super practical example of the power that AI has to transform the way fundraisers work!
- Community College Trailblazers – In an amazing success story, Dallas County showed how they transformed the way student records can be accessed. Because they are educating students who have academic credits and credentials from various institutions and sources, they showed how they utilized blockchain technology to provide a unified transcript to students.
Higher Ed attendees at Dreamforce left the keynote full of energy hearing how their peers are successfully transforming the student and staff experience with the Salesforce platform. We can’t wait to share more exciting updates with our community as the week progresses! Until then, be sure to check out the Dreamforce Live Feed!
