Higher Ed Summit 2017: Innovating Together

Members of the Kent State Salesforce Implementation Team had the opportunity to attend a three-day conference in Austin, TX this past April that brought together higher education professionals from across the country. There were over 1,500 in attendance, setting a record for the 5th year in a row. Attendees heard dynamic speakers, engaged in hands-on workshops, and learned from colleagues that are innovating with the Salesforce platform across the student lifecycle. With a theme of “Innovating Together”, a couple of community-driven innovations highlighted at the conference were Advisor Link and the expansion of Higher Education Data Architecture (HEDA).

• Advisor Link is an advisor/student platform created with student success in mind by Salesforce and higher education partners, taking the advising experience to another level. Core features of the product include: Early Alerts, Appointment Setting, Student 360 View, Advising Notes, and Action Plans, as well a whole new mobile experience that allows students to engage with the advising process seamlessly from any device. HEDA was introduced by Salesforce at last year’s Higher Ed Summit in order to address the specific data needs of higher education institutions. At that time, only one university was piloting HEDA. One year later, over 250 institutions have adopted this data architecture with many more on the way.
• HEDA is a community-driven data architecture and set of best practices that helps institutions become a Connected Campus. This data architecture tailored to Higher Education allows for faster innovation with Salesforce by simplifying infrastructure and integration data.

The conference was a great time of learning, sharing, collaborating, and building relationships. We look forward to applying what we’ve learned and continuing to innovate using the many tools that Salesforce has to offer.