Educational institutions have a lot on their plates: tracking student progress, managing alumni relationships, and coordinating course registration and scheduling, to name a few. The complexity of managing this data can lead to significant mishaps with real-world consequences.
The FAFSA blunder that was recently in the headlines is one glaring example. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Education sent inaccurate financial aid assessments to colleges for roughly 200,000 students because of a vendor error in data processing. The error led to processing delays and incorrect financial aid offers, impacting students' college plans and dreams.
This incident clearly depicts the importance of robust data management systems in education. As databases grow more complex and diverse, traditional CRM systems often struggle to keep pace with educational institutions' unique needs. Unfortunately, schools face many challenges in effectively managing their data, such as adapting standard record types to education-specific requirements or ensuring compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Let’s explore the complexities of educational data management, common challenges, and the impact of data management issues.
Educational institutions are information hubs, and keeping all that data straight in traditional CRM systems can be difficult.
Here’s an overview of the data educational institutions are responsible for:
All of this data piles up quickly, and institutions need to be able to organize and keep it tamed. But this can be difficult, as there are many challenges that can get in the way.
|
Related articles One Size Fits All vs. Configurable CRM Data Management: Why Your Company Needs Flexibility Data Unpredictability Holds Organizations Back: How To Regain Control |
Educational institutions face numerous data management challenges that can significantly impact operations, student success, and effectiveness. Let's explore some of the most pressing issues.
Many educational institutions struggle to adapt standard CRM record types to their unique needs. Traditional CRMs are often designed for business sales cycles, not the complex, multi-year journey of a student.
For example, a university may need to track a prospective student from initial inquiry through application, enrollment, academic progress, and ultimately, alumni status, but this lifecycle doesn't neatly fit into standard CRM objects. Failure to adapt CRM systems effectively can lead to fragmented data, inefficient processes, and a lack of holistic student insights.
The Dilemma: Custom Fields vs. Custom Objects
Institutions often grapple with whether to use custom fields within existing objects or create entirely new custom objects. A recent interview with Olly Kenyon of HubGem focuses on this exact topic: how to decide which direction is best for each individual data point.
For instance, a college may debate whether to add major and academic advisor fields to the standard Contact object or create a new Student object. This dilemma can result in inconsistent data structures across departments, making it challenging to generate accurate reports and maintain data integrity.
Many CRMs lack built-in features to handle education-specific data structures such as academic terms, course catalogs, or degree requirements.
A high school, for example, may struggle to efficiently manage data related to class schedules, extracurricular activities, and standardized test scores within a standard CRM. This limitation can hinder the institution's ability to track student progress comprehensively and make data-driven decisions.
Educational institutions must navigate strict data privacy regulations such as FERPA. The 2024 State of EdTech Leadership report found that cybersecurity is still the #1 priority for K-12 EdTech leaders.
This makes sense—a university or grade school must ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive student information such as social security number, grades, or financial aid details. Failure to maintain FERPA compliance can result in severe penalties, loss of federal funding, and damage to the institution's reputation.
Seamless integration between your CRM, student information system (SIS), and learning management system (LMS) is crucial for a comprehensive view of student data. But this can be easier said than done.
For instance, a community college may face challenges in syncing enrollment data from its SIS with student engagement metrics from its LMS and with the CRM. This lack of integration can lead to data silos, inconsistent information across systems, and inefficient administrative processes.
Monitoring student progress and taking timely action can be a challenge using a traditional CRM out of the box. Lapses could result in a university struggling to identify at-risk students early enough to provide timely intervention. And this is a significant problem. In 2022, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported that the six-year completion rate for students who started in the fall of 2017 was 62.2%. Such problems will only be exacerbated when institutions lack robust tracking and analysis capabilities.
Educational institutions must manage complex networks of relationships. But this can be difficult to achieve when your CRM is outdated or lacks key features for effectively tracking and maintaining these intricate connections.
Effective relationship management requires capabilities such as:
A K-12 school district, for example, may struggle to maintain accurate records of guardian relationships, emergency contacts, and authorized pickup individuals for each student. Failure to manage these relationships effectively can lead to communication breakdowns and potential safety concerns.
Generating meaningful reports and analytics from educational data is crucial for decision-making. Unfortunately, a recent report found that 98% of superintendents feel they don’t have access to the information they need to be confident in making decisions for their district.
Some may find it challenging to create comprehensive reports that combine admissions data, academic performance, and post-graduation outcomes. This limitation can hinder the institution's ability to assess program effectiveness and make data-driven improvements.
Failure to ensure consistent use of the CRM across departments from admissions to alumni relations will lead to incomplete data, inconsistent processes, and a failure to realize the full potential of the institution's data management investments.
Allowing CRM issues to persist will only make matters worse. Here’s a look at the problems that can arise if you don’t nip your data management problems in the bud.
Educational institutions face unique data management challenges. Insycle offers powerful solutions to address these issues, streamlining processes and improving data quality for schools, colleges, and universities.
The problem: A university struggles to maintain data quality across various departments, leading to inconsistencies and errors in student records.
The fix: Insycle's Customer Data Health Assessment automatically scans your database for over 30 common data issues and allows you to create custom templates for school-specific data problems. This proactive approach identifies and resolves issues before they impact operations. The following image shows an example of the health assessment.
For example, a school could track graduates that are missing contact information and use a data enrichment service to fill in the data gaps. Regular monitoring of data quality in this manner ensures accurate reporting, improved decision-making, and enhanced overall student experience.
The problem: An admissions department needs to segment applicants based on various criteria, but struggles with the limitations of its CRM's reporting capabilities.
The fix: Insycle's Group and Update module allows you to analyze and segment data using any field in your database. This flexibility is crucial for educational institutions dealing with complex data structures.
With Insycle, you can easily create reports on student demographics, academic performance, or any other relevant metrics, regardless of how your CRM stores this information. Explore how to create clean, reliable school district organizational hierarchies for improved analysis and reporting.
The problem: K-12 school districts may experience struggles with maintaining accurate relationships between students, parents, and staff across multiple schools.
The fix: Insycle simplifies the process of creating and managing complex relationships within your CRM. So, whether you use default record types or custom objects, Insycle can help you establish and maintain these critical associations.
Schools can ensure that all stakeholders are properly connected by automating the association process and improving communication and data accuracy. Learn more about managing HubSpot associations in bulk.
The problem: Your CRM database contains many different types of records that you’d like to deduplicate, but you require advanced customization to match and merge duplicates in a variety of ways.
The fix: Insycle's Merge Duplicates module allows you to deduplicate any record type in your database, with advanced ways of matching duplicates using any field and full control over how data is retained during the merge, down to the field-level.
This flexibility is essential for educational institutions dealing with complex data structures.
Insycle gives you complete control over how the data is retained during the merging process down to the field level, ensuring that you never lose critical data when deduplicating.
By eliminating duplicates, schools can improve data quality, reduce storage costs, and ensure more accurate communication with students, alumni, and other stakeholders. Discover how to deduplicate records effectively with Insycle.
The problem: Direct mail campaigns are a critical marketing channel for many schools, powering fundraising, recruitment, and parent education. But unstandardized address data leads to low delivery rates and errant deliveries.
The fix: Insycle's Group and Update module allows you to analyze and segment data using any field in your database, then standardize selected fields to your preferred format.
Clean, standardized address data ensures high delivery and response rates. Using Insycle, you can standardize any text field, including addresses, in your database, ensuring consistency across all records.
This is particularly useful for educational institutions dealing with varied data input sources.
Schools can improve data quality, enhance reporting accuracy, and create more effective segmentation for marketing and outreach efforts by standardizing key fields. Learn more about Insycle's data standardization capabilities.
The problem: A large university needs multiple departments to collaborate on data management tasks while maintaining data security and access control.
The fix: Insycle allows you to invite unlimited colleagues to your account, with granular permissions settings to ensure data security and compliance.
This collaborative approach enables schools to distribute data management tasks across departments while maintaining oversight and control. Explore how Insycle facilitates team collaboration on data management projects.
Using these powerful features allows your school to overcome common data management challenges, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the overall quality of its CRM data.
Effective CRM data management isn’t just a luxury for educational institutions—it's a necessity. From managing diverse stakeholder data to ensuring FERPA compliance, schools face unique challenges that traditional CRM systems struggle to address.
Insycle offers a comprehensive solution tailored to the education sector's unique needs. By providing tools for data quality monitoring, complex relationship management, and flexible analysis across any record type, Insycle empowers institutions to overcome common data hurdles. Its deduplication, standardization, and collaboration features further enhance data integrity and operational efficiency.
Don't let data management issues hold your institution back. With Insycle, you can reshape your data management processes and use your CRM to its fullest potential. Ready to transform your institution's data management? Learn more about how Insycle can help you navigate the complexities of educational data.