Digital Marketing
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University CRM
Project Description
This project aims to transform how we recruit students onto UCD programmes by implementing Salesforce as a new CRM. It covers the full journey that a prospective student goes through, from marketing, through recruitment activities and on to applying and being admitted into UCD. The project covers all UCD Colleges and all types of student recruitment including EU and Non-EU recruitment. Salesforce will integrated into Banner so that there is a seamless transfer from being a prospective student to registering in UCD.
The project team have created a short information video about the CRM Applications system, addressing key questions for staff.
Watch below to find out about our 'go-live' date, training on the system and our upcoming information roadshows.
Our 'Monday Minutes' are 60 second video updates providing fortnightly progress reports on work of the project team. You can watch these back via the Video Gallery. If you wish to receive an email alert for each Monday Minute please email (opens in a new window)universitycrm@ucd.ie
What is a CRM?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM helps organisations to manage their customer data. It supports recruitment or sales management, delivers actionable data insights, integrates with social media and facilitates team communication.
University Customer Relationship Management is tailored for higher education institutions, allowing them to collect, maintain, and analyse useful data about prospective, current, and past students. University CRM can be used to record and track student, potential student, and non-student interactions across the University. The insights from these interactions can be connected, giving us a more unified view.
In many cases, CRM systems are used to make crucial touchpoints throughout the student lifecycle, from initial application all the way to graduation.
Functionality which CRM will deliver
Why did we choose Salesforce for our CRM?
As part of the procurement exercise, a number of leading CRMs were evaluated against UCD’s requirements. Salesforce was selected because of its:
- Strong marketing capabilities & vision
- Demonstrated capabilities in Artificial Intelligence in CRM
- Modern & engaging user interface
- Strong understanding of our requirements
- Salesforce Education Cloud - prebuilt functionality for us to use
- Strong US & UK university experience
Project Outcomes
Successful achievement of this project will deliver many outcomes. These include:
- Improved competitiveness in the recruitment market by bringing UCD into line with systems utilised by many of our competitors globally.
- Improved communications by enabling personalised communication via social media, email and SMS.
- Increased agility to respond to the fast-changing recruitment landscape
- Smarter recruitment by automating processes, use of artificial intelligence and improving student conversion
- Enhanced analytics and enabling real time data-driven decision making by capturing, analysing, and reporting on key metrics and trends related.
- Enhanced reputation and experience for our prospective students by utilising more professional systems.
Project Approach
Regular project progress updates can be viewed on our video gallery.
University CRM concluded the “Scoping and Design” phase which took place between October and December 2023, and included significant engagement with our many stakeholders involved in the recruitment and admission of students. In January 2024 the project team began work on the building, configuration and testing of the solution. In April the project entered the 'hardening' phase, which focuses on fixing any bugs or issues found during the development phase. Then follows a process known as System Integration testing, followed by User Acceptance Testing.
In parallel with the project phases the team have been engaging and working with the expected users of the new system from the initial scoping and design workshops to the User Acceptance Testing process. Training and support is being provided before the change and will continue after the 'go-live' date.
Timeline
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November 2022
Tender for new CRM Issued
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May 2023
Salesforce selected as preferred tender
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26 June 2023
UMT Decision to Proceed
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4 September 2023
Technical Implementation of Salesforce starts
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2 October 2023
Scoping & Design Phase
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1 December 2023
Configuration & Build Phase
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1 April 2024
Testing Phase
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1 June 2024
Pre-Launch Phase
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1 August 2024
Go Live
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1 October 2024
Utilise for 2024/25 Application Cycle
Information Roadshows
The University CRM Project team held a series of Information Roadshows in April and May 2024. If you missed the chance to attend one of these sessions you are welcome to email (opens in a new window)universitycrm@ucd.ie and request access to a recording.
Project Team
Frank McCracken
CRM Implementation Director
Katharine Slattery
CRM Change & Communications Lead
Martin Hurley
Admissions Business Lead
Juliette Mora
CRM Business Lead
Michelle Mathews
CRM Business Lead
Peter McKiernan
Head of CRM Technologies
Brian Kane
IT Technical Architect
Project Governance
| Position |
Name |
|---|---|
| Co-Chair, Vice President for Global Engagement |
Dolores O’Riordan |
| Co-Chair, Chief People Officer and Director of SIRC & Legal Services |
Tristan Aitken |
| Head of Marketing, Communications Office |
Lisa Flannery |
| Business Owner & Senior Director of Registry |
Kevin Griffin |
| Director of International Student Recruitment, UCD Global |
Una Watkins |
| Deputy Director of Student Recruitment, UCD Registry |
Susan McAlinden |
| Director of Admissions, UCD Registry |
Jill O’Mahony |
| Head of Student Recruitment and Admissions, School of Business |
Elaine Aherne |
| Head of Business Development, School of Business |
Alison Monaghan |
| Programme and Operations Manager, College of Science |
Eoin Taaffe |
| Director of Global Relations, Partnerships and Mobility, UCD Global |
Shauna Hughes |
| Chief Information Officer, IT Services |
Phillip Fischer |
| Director of Enterprise Applications, IT Services |
Mark Lande |
| Organisational Change Manager |
Helen Doyle |
| Service Lead |
Jeremy Britton |
| CRM Implementation Director |
Frank McCracken |
| Head of CRM Technologies |
Peter McKiernan |
Single Course Catalogue
A unified approach to the structure of the single UCD Course Catalogue is in progress, in support of the ongoing development of the University CRM. The benefits of this approach are:
- Delivering a consistent experience for all prospective students and a suitable entry point into the new University CRM
- Ensuring that accurate information is published consistently in one place - including courses on offer, application opening and closing dates etc.
- Maximising Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) by ensuring that traffic is not diluted by being directed to multiple competing versions of the same content.
- Ensuring that marketing information is captured only once from relevant marketing professionals at university, college or school level as appropriate.
A working group comprising key internal stakeholders has been working to review the content, functionality, and design of existing UCD course catalogues and to propose the optimum content, functionality and design of the new catalogue, which is being developed by EAG.
User testing will commence in May 2024. It is proposed that the new version will go live in June. Existing content will roll over automatically
Please contact Lisa Flannery, Head of Marketing, if you have any queries.
Future Phases
Once this project is complete, there are many other uses which our new CRM platform can support with the next priority being the support of global partnerships. Potential future projects may cover alumni relations, research & innovation, student support and many others.
The project is supported by the POST Programme.
CRM Intranet
Training resources referred to in eLearning offerings and in-person workshops will be available via the (opens in a new window)CRM Intranet.