Data is the foundation of any system, and as we progressed in the implementation of the CRM projects, it was important to get the data right! The Data Management team began with a thorough understanding of the Banner demographic, student, and academic data.
Learning the Salesforce CRM data structures and the TargetX data model was the first hurdle, with several options available for data storage and display. For example, data could be formatted consistently for display (i.e. phone number), or could be mapped to a code to ensure consistent values (i.e. country of residence). Once an understanding of the data structures, models, storage, and display options was established, the team was ready to partner with our functional experts to identify the data that was important to the CRM recruiting, admissions, and retention projects.
Because all of these projects require student demographic data, the General Person Data Migration project was initiated to establish the base layer of student data. The Data Management team partnered with a core group of data stewards led by Jennifer McDonough, Associate Vice President, Academic Operations & Administration, to identify the population, data elements, rules, and display options. The project scope was identified as:
|
Population |
Active Students:
|
|
Data Elements |
75 data elements (name, address, phone, etc.) |
|
Number of Records |
68,440 |
The teams met biweekly to review the data migration into the CRM, validate that it was placed correctly, and ensure that rules were applied appropriately. The testing effort was conducted in each of our test sandboxes (MIT and UAT) to accommodate both the CRM recruiting/admissions and University Calendaring/Flashperks teams. In June, final approval was received to migrate the General Person data from Banner to our production (PROD) Salesforce CRM. A total of 68,440 records were migrated successfully, enabling:
- The Recruiting team to identify applicants that are already in Banner.
- The Flashperks team to award points to active students.
The teams are continuing to work together to define the rules for keeping the data in sync and testing that the process is working as expected. The data sync effort is well underway, and is expected to go live in August 2017.