Salesforce.org Summer ’21 Release Helps Education Institutions Put Students at the Center

As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, institutions like yours continue to evolve. While you’re busy preparing for the fall and working to maintain the health and wellbeing of your faculty, staff, and students, we also know that you’re continuing digital transformations across the campus. That’s why we continue to innovate and enhance our offerings to drive learner and institution success — from anywhere.

Salesforce.org delivers the latest product innovations over three times a year. Below, discover the newest education offerings in our Summer ’21 Release.

This blog details the newest education offerings in our Summer ’21 Release.

Admissions Connect Chatbot

We’ve expanded functionality for Admissions Connect by providing a chatbot supporting students with application questions. Taking a conversation-first approach, we’re leveraging Salesforce Einstein Bots to provide a highly engaging way for prospective students to connect with their institution. Our chatbot enables schools to provide front-line assistance anytime, so that students can ask questions about their application 24/7.

Features in Admissions Connect’s new Chatbot and Applicant Experience Portal.

Admissions Connect: Applicant Experience Portal

Admissions Connect is now closer to the core audience we serve: the applicants. Supported by Salesforce Experience Cloud, the Applicant Experience Portal provides an easy and transparent view into application materials and checklists. These enhancements allow prospective students to view the status and content of their application, and upload any required documents.

For more info, watch this Admissions Connect demo.

Advisor Link: Third-Party Scheduling Support

Our customers rely on student-facing staff and student workers who provide frontline support at the front desk and via phone. Advisor Link’s new Third-Party Scheduling Support feature strengthens support for front-desk staff and managers to book appointments for students and advisors. To learn more, watch this Advisor Link demo.

Advisor Link’s new third party Scheduling Support feature.

Advisor Link & Student Success Hub: Flexible Student Snapshot

The student snapshot is now fully customizable for Advisor Link and Student Success Hub, giving users the flexibility to select what matters most and gain a 360-degree view of each student.

New features include the Flexible Student Snapshot.

Student Success Hub: Program Management Module

Schools and districts can now use the Program Management Module alongside Student Success Hub to easily connect, organize, and scale their programs and services designed to support the whole student. Learn more about the Program Management Module.

Student Success Hub now works with the Program Management Module to help connect, organize, and scale programs and services.

Education Data Architecture Enhancements

We’re excited to introduce a new Education Cloud Settings page allowing administrators to launch their settings, tools, and resources from a single page. Each section of the Education Data Architecture (EDA) settings tab has been rebuilt using Lightning Web Components. This work provides the framework for other products like Admissions Connect and Advisor Link to add in their settings in future releases.

A look at the Education Data Architecture settings page.

Accounting Subledger Enhancements

We’ve released new functionality for institutions with large data volume with our Accounting Review for Custom Objects feature. This keeps track of transactional data that changes in your org and speeds up processing for accounting. There’s also a redesigned Accounting Settings page that helps provide a more intuitive user experience.

And in an upcoming release in August, you’ll be able to take any piece of financial information within Salesforce and share it with an institution’s accounting system — all you need is Sales Cloud or Service Cloud. No other data architecture is required. This works with both standard and custom objects. This allows institutions to aggregate financial data, such as housing fees, tuition, and student service fees, and share it throughout the entire institution. Learn more about Accounting Subledger.

In our August release, Accounting Subledger will work with any data architecture, as long as you use Sales Cloud or Service Cloud.

To learn more about these innovations, watch our Release Readiness Live for Summer ‘21 to see these features in action.

And please share feedback via the Power of Us Hub, our online community of education Trailblazers.

DISCLAIMER: Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other posts or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. For more information please visit www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-667-6389.

About the Author

Susan Morrow
Vice President of Product Management, Education Cloud at Salesforce.org