Using Education Portals in Salesforce Education Cloud

Using Education Portals in Salesforce Education Cloud

Does your educational institution need digital processes for faculty members, administrators, and students in one go? Why not leverage Salesforce for your higher education administrative tasks? 

Salesforce is clearly the world-leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform, and with its Education Cloud offering, institutions can keep data and multiple processes running in a single location. 

Want to know more about Salesforce Education Cloud and the benefits of linking it to an education portal? Join us in the article below. We explore these ideas with use cases in more detail.

Let’s get started!

What is Salesforce Education Cloud? 

Basically, it’s a software platform designed for institutions operating in the education industry.

Salesforce Education Cloud can be used to manage student journeys, which include recruitment phases, application programs, continuous support ventures, and programs that build long-lasting alum relationships.

Education Portal Use Cases

As Salesforce Education Cloud has advanced tools for communicating with students and tracking their data, schools and colleges find that by creating a portal that connects to Salesforce Education Cloud features, they can track an entire education journey from one platform. 

But how does it work to help schools, universities, or even training centers in the real world?

That’s where use cases come in to show how an education portal with Salesforce can streamline popular processes, such as:

• Student Enrollment Programs
• Course Management 
• Communication Between Faculty Members and Students
• Engagement with Alumni

Now, let’s take a look at a few use cases of student portals for education to see how institutions can improve Salesforce operations and learner experiences. 

Student Recruitment and Admissions

An education portal is ideal for institutions that want to speed up student recruitment and admissions tasks. For example, a school can build an education portal connected to Salesforce to allow students to:

• Create user profiles that contain personal information.
• Submit application and program forms for enrollment at the school.
• Track the status of their application 24/7. 

These features benefit prospective students tremendously, but what about the administrative professionals at the school? How can an education portal make their jobs faster? With an education portal, the admins at the school can log into Salesforce to complete the following tasks:

• Manage Student Applications
• Automate Communication with Prospective Students
• Track All Interactions with Candidates

By using an education portal, the school can personalize outreach ventures and make faster decisions on submitted applications. Additionally, the data collected from the education portal is stored in Salesforce so that researchers can easily study them and create more targeted engagement strategies that boost recruitment and enrollment drives. 

Student Management

After a successful enrollment, individuals become students and need support for various experiences throughout their academic journey. An education portal linked to Salesforce can support the student management practices offered by a school. 

For example, an education portal gives students the following capabilities:

• Access to School Schedules
• Access to Grades
• Access to Course Materials & Tools

On the other hand, Salesforce assists faculty members by providing them with features to:

• Monitor Student Attendance to Classes.
• Track Student Academic Performance Over Time.
• Give Students Feedback on Projects, Assignments, Essays, and Exams. 
• Analyze Data to Identify Students Who Are at Risk of Failing Courses.
• Send Automated Messages to Students about Deadlines for Projects and Assignments. 

The best part about using an education portal and Salesforce for managing student experiences is that institutions can do all of it from one platform. Working with Salesforce education portals helps speed up communication between students and a school’s faculty members for a better educational experience. 

Alumni and Donor Management

An education portal integrated into Salesforce can continue to add value to an institution long after students have graduated. For example, it can be used to nurture alumni relationships and support donation programs. 

The school can ask alumni to engage with their education portal in the following ways:

• Update Contact Details
• Join Networking Events
• Download Essential School Resources or Material

The school can then monitor alumni data using Salesforce’s features to segment donor lists or create personalized outreach programs. When using an education portal in this way, a school has an easier time managing fundraising, donations, and long-term relationships.

Academic and Course Management

When it comes to the actual studies, an education portal integrated into Salesforce can assist with speeding up the following processes:

• Access to Course Catalogs
• Registering for Modules and Subjects
• Monitoring Performance throughout Duration of Study
• Managing Uploaded Content of Classes
• Monitoring Essays, Assignments, Tests, and Exams.

A school can take the education portal a step further and set up Salesforce automation. With it, teachers can communicate updates and deadlines to students. Additionally, other Salesforce features, like data analysis tools, give teachers a way to measure how successful their courses were and more insights into student grades. 

As you can imagine, streamlining these tasks in schools can reduce administrative burdens and give teachers and students more time to focus on the learning experience. 

Student Services and Support

The school experience is more than just studying course material. Students need additional services and support from schools. With an education portal powered by Salesforce, students can access additional school services, support, and resources. 

For example, students can use an education portal to log tickets regarding issues at the school, schedule an appointment with a counselor, or view frequently asked questions and answers from fellow peers. 

Salesforce is an ideal choice for an education portal for this use case, as the platform can automate a ticketing process by sending queries to the correct advisor. The advisor can then view the student’s details, including previous interactions, directly in Salesforce so they have a complete picture of the query and can create personalized engagement. 

Salesforce can also monitor how fast an advisor responded to a student and how long it took to resolve the issue. By using an education portal and Salesforce, institutions can improve the services they provide to students. 

Community and Collaboration

An education portal can serve the purpose of creating a community for students, alumni, and faculty members to interact and collaborate. For example an education portal can house:

• Discussion Forums
• Spaces to Collaborate
• A Library of Study Resources

Teachers will find an education portal useful for creating communities where students can discuss topics related to what they are studying. They can also use it to share information with students in real-time. When the portal is integrated with Salesforce, teachers can track student interactions, then decide if students need extra support. 

Let’s not forget the alumni we mentioned. They can use a portal in the following ways:

• Network with Students
• Join Events
• Collaborate on School Programs

Adding these functionalities to an education portal creates an environment that encourages collaboration and learning in the community. 

Financial Management

With an educational portal hooked up to Salesforce, managing finances becomes easier for institutions and students. Here is a list of things students can accomplish on an education portal:

• Pay Fees
• View Invoices and Statements
• Monitor Financial Loans
• Track Scholarships 

Admins at the educational institution can use Salesforce to check this financial data and manage their students' accounts better. They can also use the portal and Salesforce to:

• Process Payments
• Automatically Send Messages to Students about Fees
• Monitor Fundraising Events
• Optimize Donation Programs

An education portal and Salesforce make tracking financial information easy and relieve administration work for students and the institution. 

Analytics and Reporting

An education portal built to integrate with Salesforce has access to the CRM’s advanced analytics and reporting tools. With them, the department heads at institutions get real-time insights into the school’s performance. 

For example, Salesforce admins can perform the following tasks:

• Monitor Trends in Student Applications
• Check Course Completion Statistics
• View the Distribution of Financial Aid

The Salesforce data analytics and reporting tools also support faculty members. They can do the following with ease:

• View Student Progress Reports
• Analyze Student Engagement 

Salesforce also provides custom dashboards so departments can visualize data better to make objective decisions that ensure resources are used well and students pass courses successfully.   

Final Thoughts on Education Portals in SF Education Cloud

We covered many use cases for education portals that when integrated with Salesforce Education Cloud can give an institution a world of benefits. From supporting faculty members and administrators at an institution to elevating student experiences, a Salesforce Education Cloud is the future way of collaborating, sharing knowledge, and supporting continuous learning from enrollment all the way to alumni.  

However, creating one for your Salesforce org is not easy without custom development. We can highly recommend Titan. The software company provides a powerful platform with drag-and-drop tools that give institutions no code solutions that boost any Salesforce Cloud. 

Titan can help you build an education portal directly integrated with Salesforce to support custom student and employee experiences. Find them on the Salesforce AppExchange marketplace!