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New Education Cloud Innovations to Support Lifelong Learning

By Salesforce.org November 14, 2019

Higher education technology

Now, more than ever, learners expect a connected education journey, and today’s world demands it. Given that 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 have not been invented yet, the need to consistently re-skill and up-skill throughout one’s lifetime will be crucial. In order to support lifelong learning, education needs to evolve to create connected experiences throughout the student journey, as well as transition from K-12 to higher ed and beyond.

With a data architecture designed to support K-20 education, Salesforce.org Education Cloud is making it possible for higher ed institutions and K-12 schools/districts to achieve a connected view of the student. That means having the flexibility to track dual enrollment, universal learner profiles and more, all with a focus on lifelong learning – where education doesn’t start at one chapter and end at another, but is continuous, engaging, and highly personalized.

We’re excited to announce new Education Cloud capabilities for thousands of higher ed institutions and K-12 schools focused on the lifelong learner:

Learner Profile

Create a foundation for lifelong learning

With Education Data Architecture (EDA) Objects for Recruitment & Admissions we’re further investing in the foundation of Education Cloud for a holistic view of the lifelong learner. Starting with the beginning of the student journey, we’re adding new application and test score objects to EDA to supercharge K-20 recruitment and admissions. Both K-12 districts/schools and higher ed institutions can leverage these objects on EDA’s standard data model. So, whether you’re working with a partner or building on your own, you can confidently manage application and test score data to capture items including academic program, application type and status, as well as test scores and the source of the information (e.g., The College Board).

Admissions and Enrollment Management Software

Education Data Architecture (EDA) Test Score Object

The launch of K-12 Architecture Kit brings the power of Education Cloud to K-12, providing K-12 schools with a foundation for connecting people, processes, and data. This open-source framework builds upon EDA to help schools get from idea to implementation faster with pre-built page layouts, customizable reports and dashboards, plug-and-play third-party apps, and simple app development. With K-12 Architecture Kit, schools can collaborate around 360-degree views of student needs and outcomes, better engage families, and operationalize improvement efforts.

K-12 Architecture Kit Student View

K-12 Architecture Kit Student View

Admissions Experience

Make it easier to engage and prepare students

Using EDA as the foundation, the Einstein Analytics Template for Recruitment & Admissions provides pre-built datasets, widgets, and dashboards to make visualizing and analyzing recruitment and admissions data easy for both K-12 and higher ed. Empowering teams to get started right away with Einstein Analytics, the template provides intelligent insights into your next class, making it easier to understand who your prospective students are, where they come from, and what they intend to study throughout their journey of lifelong learning.

Recruitment funnel analytics

Einstein Analytics template for Recruitment & Admissions: Dashboard View

Salesforce Advisor Link now supports all advising departments and models scale. We’re introducing Salesforce Advisor Link for Onboarding to optimize yield management, reduce summer melt, and make sure every student is prepared to succeed on Day 1. By reducing potential barriers of transition from K-12 to higher ed, every incoming student can be put on a pathway to success with a connected and personalized pre-advising experience.

Guided Pathways software

Salesforce Advisor Link for Onboarding

Student Success

Guide every student with a connected, personalized experience

Salesforce Advisor Link Pathways provide proactive guidance to help keep every student on track to graduate. Pathways can be used for degree planning, managing program plans and plan requirements so students and advisors can collaborate together to build a clear roadmap to completion.

Guided Pathways

Salesforce Advisor Link Pathways

Salesforce Advisor Link Queue Management now supports front office and appointment management with queuing and check-in. Queue Management simplifies advising and office tasks by entering walk-ins into a queue and assigning them to the next available advisor. It also helps advisors manage cases by surfacing a centralized view of requests and enabling them to seamlessly check-in students without manual handoffs.

Academic Advising Software

Salesforce Advisor Link Walk-In Queue

Finally, we are announcing our intent to build a K-12 Intervention Management solution for schools and districts. This solution will be used by student support staff to triage student caseloads, collaborate around student support, develop personalized success plans for students, centralize communications with families, and track student progress.

School Resource Management Software

K-12 Intervention Management

Lifelong Engagement

Strengthen alumni, volunteer relationships & giving operations

Engagement shouldn’t end after a student graduates or after a donor gives back. With new enhancements to Education Cloud, institutions will be able to better strengthen alumni, donor and other constituent relationships at scale and deliver a more connected experience.

With Education Cloud Engagement Hub as well as our intent to build out Alumni Volunteer Management, institutions can more easily personalize content, curate volunteer opportunities, and grow their impact on their broader alumni community. Further, we’re excited to offer brand new capabilities such as Giving Pages and Salesforce.org Payment Services to support Engagement Hub. And with Insights Platform, your advancement and marketing teams can more effectively utilize your donor data to communicate with supporters. Insights’ rich data analytics not only helps you build more effective segments for online and offline marketing, but it can also empower each individual to have better one-on-one communication with your supporters. With our planned capabilities in Accounting Subledger, institutions can ensure greater pledge and payment consistency across fundraising and finance systems.

We want to thank our incredible education community and partner ecosystem for working alongside our Education Cloud product team to drive these new innovations to support lifelong learning. We’ll be sharing more about these announcements, as well as many more innovations, at Dreamforce.

Make sure to attend the Education Cloud Keynote on Wednesday, November 20, 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM and the K-12 Kick Off on Wednesday, November 20, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM.

For more on how to maximize your Dreamforce experience, check out this blog and follow #DF19 on Twitter!


At launch, certain features of Salesforce.org Payment Services, Engagement Hub, and Giving Pages may be limited to United States-based customers transacting in U.S. dollars. 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 https://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.