University of Maryland

As one of the nation’s top research universities, the University of Maryland (UMD) is devoted to competitive excellence, innovation and continuous improvement. In 2016, UMD launched its ambitious Administrative Modernization Program (AMP) as a centralized problem-solving unit aimed at finding new revenue opportunities, achieving new cost savings, and enhancing all aspects of the constituent experience, including student support.

Understanding that having the right technology in place was crucial to their mission, AMP turned to Salesforce for a reliable, powerful, and scalable customer relationship management (CRM) solution. It used Salesforce to develop TerpEngage, a holistic engagement platform that:

• Connects all of UMD’s 40,000+ students and 14,000+ faculty and staff
• Helped upgrade processes, integrate disparate systems
• Reduce costs
• Deliver timely data and insights to stakeholders along the way

To power TerpEngage, the AMP team knew they needed a best-in-class technology solution that could standardize processes and data, improve and automate workflows, and quickly connect users to the right information. It was critical that any platform they worked with needed to be able to fully support UMD’s business objectives.

“Without being fully aligned, we knew that we couldn’t realize the gains or the outcomes we were seeking,” said Ira Levy, Executive Director of UMD’s Administrative Modernization Program. “We needed a comprehensive platform to ensure that we could achieve the goals of different business units in line with the university’s overall mission and vision.”

The AMP team underlined several key criteria in their decision-making process, with scalability and flexibility emerging as top priorities, followed closely by reliability.

The TerpEngage platform quickly transformed the experience for students, while delivering new efficiencies and improved workflows to administrative staff. It also has provided UMD with powerful insights and analytics into its programs and initiatives.

Through TerpEngage Advising, AMP dramatically improved how students accessed and received support. Salesforce helped consolidate 15 different advising tools into one, making it faster and easier for students to access the Salesforce for Education and connect with their success team. Advising appointments jumped by 141% in the first two years of implementation, from 10,593 to 25,533, and the adoption of advising notes increased by 215%. As a result, advisors now spend 25% less time on case research and administration and more time advising students. The improved connections between advisor and student have greatly helped improve student engagement.

“The coming together of siloed advising units, appointments and other components put everyone in the same space together,” said Jason DeSanto Jones, Senior Project Manager, Office of the Provost. “It really helped us create a journey that was a lot clearer for students in terms of them being able to find their way to success.”

The TerpEngage Enrollment Management tool integrated information about prospective and new students into one system and has equipped staff with dashboards and real-time data with which they have improved services. UMD’s Student Success Office was able to merge several disparate systems and streamline the application and review process so that re-enrollment students can now get the decision they depend on significantly faster.

At UMD’s Graduate School, the TerpEngage admissions system streamlined and added new efficiencies to the application and review process for over 300 programs. In the first year of implementation, over 37,000 applications were processed and the experience was noticeably more convenient and expedient for students. For staff and faculty, automation and new efficiencies have eliminated time-consuming manual tasks, improved workflows and enhanced the overall experience.

“We’ve been able to take disparate processes that were done by hand and systemize them so users can just go in and do their work,” said Teddy Wu, Director of Graduate Information and Systems. “It’s really exciting that users are starting to think about ways that they can save time and be more efficient and effective in their work.”

The Graduate School is also one of several business units at UMD using Marketing Cloud to enhance and automate its communications. With TerpEngage Marketing Cloud, several Graduate School programs implemented multiple journeys for prospective and current students. With custom emails and personalized messages, these business units helped to increase the overall number of applications submitted each year.

The TerpEngage Marketing Cloud implementation for the Office of Strategic Communications worked to unify communications across campus and amalgamate a number of competing email platforms. The team was also able to establish live data extensions (audiences) that integrate with CRM data in real time and do not need to be refreshed or updated. It decreased email production time by 20% and increased the deliverability rate from 96.5% to 99.9%. Marketing Cloud also helped reduce the amount of time it takes to distribute UMD’s campus newsletter, Maryland Today, from 45 minutes to 6 minutes and raise the deliverability rate to 99.9%.

In addition to an enhanced experience and efficiencies, Salesforce has also equipped AMP and UMD with critical insights and analytics about their programs and processes. It’s provided AMP with the ability to track, monitor and measure the actual impact of its initiatives across campus. AMP has been able to bolster support for its mission from across the university, from the president to the provost, and push through the changes they need to make.

“We not only have a system that can give us insights and allow us to be aware of the places where we can improve, but it also gives us the support and backing to get the resources we need and the alignment to act on them,” said Levy.