UMass Amherst (UMass) and Cloud for Good have been long-time partners, with the relationship starting with a successful implementation of Salesforce Marketing Cloud to create a standardized branding and engagement strategy across the university and to centralize communications. Looking to create even more impact with technology, the partnership continued with an Enterprise Managed Services (EMS) engagement through Cloud for Good’s Managed Services practice.
Best Practices and Resource Allocation With Enterprise Managed Services
The catalyst for UMass Amherst’s Enterprise Managed Services engagement with Cloud for Good was an increasing list of backlog items on its Salesforce CRM that its central IT team needed support to manage. By layering Enterprise Managed Services on top of their existing CRM resources, the UMass team was able to focus on their CRM as a whole while tackling projects that would aid in the useability of the platform. Altogether, the enhancements that UMass sought for their Salesforce solution were sophisticated and would require additional resources and expertise to accomplish that they were already limited in.
“We knew we could probably get a temporary hire or a contractor to do some finger-on keyboard work,” said Chris Pilsner, UMass Amherst’s University Relations’ Chief Relationship Officer and project sponsor for the EMS engagement. “But really what we needed here was not just fingers on keyboards, but someone who could tell us, ‘Are we doing this the right way?’”
The need for guidance to deliver the work that UMass sought led to the decision to engage Cloud for Good’s Enterprise Managed Services.
Five Distinct Projects
When their Enterprise Managed Services contract with Cloud for Good began, the UMass Amherst team’s objectives were initially to:
- Leverage a valued partnership to provide burst resources and collaborate with IT
- Pool resources and allocate their funds fairly across their multiple business units
- Gain communication & governance strategies for the delivery of their projects
Together, UMass and Cloud for Good built a strong rapport and working relationship to successfully deliver five distinct projects during the Enterprise Managed Services timeline. These projects were identified to support specific key units within UMass’ Student Affairs and Campus Life, University Relations, Administration & Finance and Information Technology departments, and designed to be scalable for adoption with other areas of the university. With this goal in mind, thorough documentation and knowledge transfer sessions were held to enable the UMass stakeholders during each individual burst engagement.
Appointment Scheduler
One area of focus for UMass’ Recruitment department was to create an appointment scheduler that would allow students to schedule a time with program specialists to learn more about a specific UMass program. For this initiative, Cloud for Good developed an appointment scheduling solution that is powered by Engageware, Marketing Cloud, and FormAssembly.
The solution is now enabling:
- Students to schedule appointments through the website, with automated confirmations and calendar invitations delivered via email
- Automated appointment reminder emails that are sent 24 hours before an appointment starts
- Ability for both students and program specialists to change or cancel appointments, with automated cancelation notifications
- Automated follow-ups that are sent once an appointment concludes
The appointment scheduler is also helping deliver a seamless experience for current UMass and prospective students. The more automated processes are also creating a standardized journey for students engaging with their Program Specialists.
Case Management (Controller’s Office)
Another area of focus was to create a streamlined case management solution for the Controller’s Office at UMass. This department is responsible for the management of financial operations at the university and would often get inquiries for Chartstrings, Signature Delegation, Recharges, Journal Entries, and General Accounting.
This project involved creating new forms for the Controller’s Office powered by FormAssembly that are mapped to and managed within Salesforce. Once a form is completed, a new case will be created within Salesforce. This consequently triggers an Auto-Response rule, sending a confirmation message to the person who submitted the form. The case will then be routed to the correct queue based on the designation selected directly on the form.
From there, the Controller’s Office manages the case directly within the Salesforce platform. Once the case is closed, an automated email is generated that lets the submitter know the status of the case.
With a focus on privacy and security, a new Salesforce role was created for the Controller’s Office, allowing reviewers to view cases, reassign cases, and communicate with those who share the same role. The Controller’s Office cases are private and unable to be accessed by anyone who does not have this role assigned to them.
Parent Services Form
Cloud for Good and UMass also collaborated with program specialists on a form-to-case build for UMass’ Office of Parent & Family Services. The goal of this project was to reduce the number of calls and emails the office received on orientation questions, provide a more efficient experience for families to receive the information that they are requesting, and allow UMass staff to report on trends in the types of information requested and volume of requests throughout the year.
To accomplish this, Cloud for Good and UMass created a unified support form solution that is powered by FormAssembly and connected to Salesforce. This solution, which can be utilized by both students and parents, helps provide a positive experience for parents and students and enables reporting on trends around information type and volume of information.
Event Management
With a focus on event management, UMass sought to leverage an events management MVP that would allow university programs to:
- Advertise information session events, including paid ads on Drupal-powered webpages
- Standardized options for duplicating existing events in order to create new sessions with minimal effort
- Create event registrations records
- Track event registrations in Salesforce
- Use Marketing Cloud for event communications to confirm registrations or send event reminders
This event management initiative would also allow prospective UMass students to see options for university information sessions, have a program manager set up an information session with them, and open a new opportunity on Salesforce once a prospective student signs up for an information session.
To accomplish this, Cloud for Good and UMass utilized native Salesforce functionality to track event registration and attendance. Additionally, Marketing Cloud journeys based on Salesforce event information were utilized for communications around university events.
Chatbot
UMass sought to create a chatbot experience for their Residential Life page, with the goals of providing a resource that parents, students, and potential students could ask questions to and get information after hours, and also provide immediate responses to FAQ’s. Dave Hart, Director of Enterprise Applications at UMass Amherst explained UMass’ interest in also deploying the chatbot to other university groups: “One of the points behind the chatbot project is so that we would eventually learn how to do it ourselves and roll it out across campus.”
To build the chatbot, Cloud for Good leveraged Salesforce’s Einstein Chatbots, integrating it with a recruitment lead import feature, SSO for campus community, and Drupal-powered websites.
After building out the questions and responses, the chatbot was then rolled out with two pilot groups—one recruitment and one case management. “With students coming back to school, we are starting to see success with the chatbot, and that’s only going to ramp up,” said Hart. “Our registrar currently uses a third-party chatbot program, but we are excited to get them switched over, creating a more consistent experience for our external stakeholders.”
Success of the Enterprise Managed Services Engagement
Overall, the EMS engagement was a success and a valuable, positive experience for both the UMass and Cloud for Good teams.
“The reason why we work with Cloud for Good is because not only do they help us burst our resources when we don’t have enough, but also because they’ve worked with different institutions,” said Pilsner. “It’s helpful working with someone who has the experience of doing this before. Cloud for Good brings us best practices from multiple projects while allowing our team to benefit.”
To learn more about UMass Amherst, visit www.umass.edu.
