The Salesforce.org Higher Ed Community Sets Sail on Their Inaugural Open Source Sprint!

The first ever Salesforce.org Higher Ed Open Source Software Community Sprint took place July 27th and 28th at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was truly an AMAZING 2 days! With over 90 participants across 10 Universities, 3 K-12s and 8 Partners, the community used the power of the Sprint to help build an even stronger set of solutions as well as advocate for new solutions that can be delivered through community open source contributions in Github.

You can read more about the importance of Open Source in Higher Education via the Salesforce.org blog “Welcome to the Higher Ed Open Source Software Community!”

Let’s start with the amazing location!

Harvard University – Harvard Law School

I couldn’t imagine a more perfect location for our first Sprint than Harvard University.

I arrived to Cambridge a day prior to the Sprint, along with Chloe Morel (Salesforce.org Field Marketing & Events Associate), to ensure Sprint preparations were in place and to get a general layout for the event. This was my first time to Boston, let alone Harvard University, and the weather was just perfect. The city of Cambridge was beautiful. The areas surrounding Harvard were abundantly overflowing with signs of equality, diversity, and inclusion. I felt right at home and felt our community of customers and partners would too.

As Chloe and I walked through Harvard Yard that first day we both felt this amazing sense of history, beauty, and inspiration.

So many faces, both young and old, either walking along quietly, or laughing whole heartedly in groups, met us as we strolled north through Harvard Yard. We noticed students lounging on benches, leaning against trees or sitting in chairs that were formed into small and large circles to support community discussion and dialog. I wanted so very much to go sit with them, introduce myself, and ask to hear their stories as well as to share mine. Community was at the heart of all things in the Yard that evening and this put huge smiles on both our faces.

But I knew I had stories to tell – the stories of my own community. And I had 2 days to do it!

The location of our Sprint took place at Harvard Law School inside of Wasserstein Hall – just a quick walk north through Harvard Yard and just past the Harvard University Science Center. This location was beautiful both inside and out.

Besides the amazing architecture and beautifully decorated interior, the walls inside of Wasserstein Hall were filled with pictures representative of 180 Harvard Law School Faculty. These pictures are a testament to the chronological changes in Faculty diversity since Harvard’s inception. How awesome is that?!

We also had access to a beautiful outdoor terrace easily accessible across the hall from where the Sprint took place (where we would eventually have our post-sprint Happy Hour hosted by OwnBackup).

In the hall leading to our room (2nd Floor – Room 2036 Milstein East B) we were greeted by inspirational messages written on the walls by names that include Martin Luther King, Hillel, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Nelson Mandela.

These inspiring messages reminded us both of the importance of what it means to not only to progress forward but to also be mindful in that progress and allow for differences in perspective, experiences, and personal stories. This was, indeed, the perfect place to bring our community together for our first ever Sprint.

After dropping our Sprint materials off at Wasserstein Hall, Chloe and I headed over on foot for an amazing Venezuelan lunch with Corey Snow and Anne Duperault at the Orinoco Kitchen in Harvard Square before finishing the last of our pre-Sprint preparations. It was an amazing 1st day in Boston!

The Sprint! (aka: The “Unconference”)

Before I go any further I want to thank our host, Harvard HEDA-nist, Corey Snow, who did a tremendous job facilitating the Sprint and leading our community. This was Corey’s first time taking on the role of MC/Cruise Captain and he wore that title with style! (Corey’s the one with the hat. I’m the one excited to be taking a selfie with Corey – and his hat!)

Corey embodied authenticity throughout the entire Sprint (as he always does!) and made everyone in our community feel welcome, at home, and part of our Ohana. The laughs, shared experiences, story telling, and the spirit of Community permeated the entire Sprint.

Great job Corey! And thank you Harvard for allowing us to have him to ourselves for 2 days!

SO WHAT WAS OUR SPRINT LIKE?

You know those events where a room full of people listen to a few people talk on stage? This is *not* that type of event. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

It’s a participatory event, in that those attending are participating, and fully present, so that the community receives all of the potential goodness that each participant brings.

There are no panels. There are no keynotes. There are no PowerPoint presentations.

Attendees aren’t going to learn something from a quiet corner of the room. Instead, the community makes time for sharing and goal setting and then breaks up into small groups and gets to work. #Unconference

There was plenty of fun, laughs, connections, and inspiring stories too!

Besides the fun Ice Breaker exercise on Day 1 that asked Sprinters to state their name, their University and/or Company, and one daring thing they’ve done recently we also shared a Beach Ball Challenge on Day 2 where each Sprinter had to answer one question listed on the beach ball.

This exercise was hilarious as the questions ranged from: “Would you rather be trapped in a cave with a bear, a dragon, or a swarm of bats?” to “If you were granted one magical item what would that magical item be?”

We also had a chance to hear an inspiring lunchtime session from Jhonaikel Soto, an 8th grader from a Boston Public School in Roxbury who built an app on Salesforce to collect feedback about school performance from students.

I’ve included a Periscope video of Jhonaikel Soto (mentioned above) taken by Vala Afshar (Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce) that has had over 30k views since the Sprint!

We are so proud of Jhonaikel for wanting to share these 2 days with our community! His passion, innovative spirit, and ideas surrounding a Trailhead for Teens was extremely contagious with our Community and we wish him nothing but the best as he goes on to do great things!

And let’s definitely not forget #OhanasaurusRex (the almost-official Higher Ed mascot) who makes his rounds at Salesforce.org Higher Ed Events. Why? Because our community is so inclusive that even a T-Rex is welcome!

Hey! The NPSP Community has a Penguin! Don’t Judge! 🙂

SO WHAT DID THE SPRINTERS WORK ON?

Usually for an “unconference” no topics are predetermined ahead of time. However, as this was the first Sprint experience for the Higher Ed community (unlike the Salesforce.org NPSP community), we felt it valuable to plant some “seed-ideas” to get folks talking. Who knew they would actually take root!?!

Topic Themes (i.e. seed-ideas) for the Sprint were identified by the Higher Ed community as part of a GetFeedback survey sent out by Salesforce.org back in early March. The Topic Themes that received the most support for inclusion in the Sprint include:

• Best Practices – lead conversion, merging contacts, flows vs. process builder, etc…
• HEDA Tools – let’s identify the “things” we all need to make life simpler
• Mock University Project – building out HEDA based on areas of interest

The Survey also included a section to identify a Topic Focus (i.e. think “seed” again here) for each Topic Theme. These Focuses were based on community conversations taking place in the Power of Us Hub as well as through Idea submission created by the community in the Power of Us Hub surrounding HEDA.

The Topic Focuses that received the most support for inclusion in the Sprint include:

Best Practices

• NPSP vs. HEDA

HEDA Tools

• Accommodating a community-submitted dataset
• How to go about adding an Advancement component that would work with HEDA core?
• Banner Integration
• Data Migration
• Data Integration/li>
• How to go about adding a Contact Merge component that would work with HEDA core?

OTHER

• How to manage and automate recruitment records with the Student Recruitment Success Pack

Our fearless Topic Leaders (those responsible for leading the discussions surrounding the Topic Theme and Focus) include the following members of our Higher Ed Community:

NPSP vs. HEDA

• Anne Duperault (Huron Consulting Group)
• Justin Barss (https://twitter.com/justinbarss) (Now IT Matters) – Salesforce MVP!

Accommodating a community-submitted dataset

• Kathleen Lueckeman (Maryville University of Saint Louis)
• Amir Tejani (Lehigh University)
• Cameron McCoy (Lehigh University)

How to go about adding an Advancement component that would work with HEDA core?

• Cheryl Cerny (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
• Anthony McMahon (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
• Zak Landrum (Westmont College HEDA)
• Alisa Cliff (Sierra-Cedar)

Banner Integration

• Jim Kimmell (Harvard University Division of Continuing Education)

Data Migration

• Buyan Thyagarajan (Eigen X) – Salesforce MVP!

Data Integration

• Buyan Thyagarajan (Eigen X) – Salesforce MVP!

How to go about adding a Contact Merge component that would work with HEDA core?

• Jim Hubert (Modacto)

How to manage and automate recruitment records with the Student Recruitment Success Pack

• Florence Parodi (University of Miami)
• Nina Gomez-Fernandini (University of Miami)
• Kara McIntyre (Sierra-Cedar)

WHAT ABOUT SPRINT DELIVERABLES?

Each Sprint Team worked tirelessly during these 2 days brainstorming, coming up with ideas, reworking those ideas, and creating documentation outlines (i.e. “goodness” – as Corey would say!) in order to deliver to Salesforce.org for review and consideration.

Power of Us Hub groups were created post-Sprint so that community collaboration that took place at the Sprint would continue to gain momentum through delivery. Once the Sprint Team deliverables are finalized by each individual Team they will go through a review and consideration process by Salesforce.org.

So how does all this “goodness” get processed by Salesforce.org?

We are always eager to hear ideas from the community. Every day we engage in conversation in the Power of Us Hub and invite customers to submit suggestions that can be voted on by their peers. All of this input helps us prioritize the HEDA roadmap so we can deliver meaningful new features that will benefit everyone.

The sprint is another input mechanism that helps guide our path forward — and we couldn’t be more pleased with the quality and quantity of ideas that our customers generated and shared with us. Post-Sprint Community Contributions (i.e. Ideas) are captured and tracked inside of Salesforce.org and then reviewed for consideration by the HEDA Product Manager and the Higher Ed Industry Solutions Director via escalation by the Higher Ed Open Source Community Manager.

Ideas coming from the sprint generally fall into three categories:

1. Ideas for product improvements that should be considered for the HEDA roadmap. These are features that are aligned with the scope and priorities identified in the HEDA SRS and serve to strengthen HEDA as a foundational building block for any higher ed use case.

2. Ideas that touch areas where additional documentation, not code, will help satisfy customer requirements. This could mean adding a trailhead module, publishing a white paper, or editing some existing docs to make them easier to understand.

3. Ideas that are outside of the scope of HEDA but still great ideas. These ideas are promoted back to the Sprint Community and we encourage customers to contribute open source code through GitHub as a separate open source complement to HEDA, giving more options to schools who want to add to the core HEDA package. This way the HEDA package is preserved and a customer who wants something extra for a specific use case can download community created code to support their work.

Be sure to join the HEDA Release Announcements group in the Power of Us Hub to stay updated on HEDA releases!

Pre-Sprint Happy Hour Hosted by FormAssembly at Beat Brasserie!

Many thanks to FormAssembly for hosting the Pre-Sprint Happy Hour at Beat Brasserie in Harvard Square on Wednesday, July 26th!

This was an awesome opportunity for those arriving early to mix and mingle.

The FormAssembly Pre-Sprint Happy Hour crew then headed over to Red Bones in Somerville for some BBQ! Who knew Boston had BBQ?!

The Salesforce.org Partner Reception at the Cambridge Queens Head!

The fun didn’t stop at the Sprint on Day 1! Oh no! It continued that evening with the Partner Reception at the Cambridge Queens Head.

Many thanks to all of our Partners who sponsored this amazing event the evening of Thursday, July 27th! Here are some pictures to show you just how awesome it was.

AMAZING FOOD!

FUN AND GAMES

INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY

The Higher Ed Open Source Software Community Post-Sprint Happy Hour sponsored by OwnBackup!

The fun didn’t stop at the Sprint on Day 2 either! It continued outside on the Wasserstein Hall Terrace with the OwnBackup sponsored Happy Hour.

Many thanks to OwnBackup for sponsoring this relaxing post-Sprint Happy Hour on Friday, July 28th! Here are some pictures as many of us were parting ways and saying our goodbyes.

To Conclude

I can confidently say that the Inaugural Open Source Community Sprint was a HUGE success. I say this because I saw more smiles, heard more laughs, saw genuine connections being made than I have anywhere else in just 2 days time. As there is always room for improvement I know our community will continue to help shape future Sprints so they just keep getting better and better and better.

I am so very grateful to our community for coming together for these 2 days, spending their time, energy, and passion to fuel this experience. I am excited that this new “unconference” Sprint format was so well received.

As Corey would say “SPRINT ON!”

As I would say “Mahalo!”