Indiana University
  •  
  •  
  •  

Project: Lifetime Constituent Communications/Talisma CRM Licensing Agreement

Primary UITS contact: Sara Chambers

Last update: July 7, 2009

Description: Indiana University views the constituent relationship management (CRM) process involving its students, alumni, and others as a strategic business process that involves multiple members of the university community operating in a well-defined data stewardship/management mode. IU's federated multi-campus nature adds some complexity, both at the initial stages of student relationships and as students move into alumni and possibly donor status.

Currently, we have several point solutions in place at various campuses and in various departments, and we have recently received requests from additional departments and campuses for similar solutions. Continuing the point solution model does not address the need for a strategic "lifetime" communication solution to help the university manage its relationships with prospects, students, alumni, and other constituents more effectively. Additionally, the point solution model is more costly to the institution as a whole with regard to licensing and maintenance fees. Finally, the proliferation of CRM products across the institution further complicates our ability to integrate this data with other university systems.

The Lifetime Constituent Communications project will address this problem through a six-year university-wide license agreement between IU and Campus Management, to provide CRM functionality for all campuses, the IU Alumni Association, and the IU Foundation at no additional fees at the user, campaign, or department level. IU's license agreement, providing unlimited use similar to its agreements with Microsoft and Adobe, is the first of its type for Campus Management.

Outcome: IU will be among the first, if not the first, major university in the nation to elevate constituent communications to a university-wide platform with a full lifecycle model of data management. By leveraging funds already being used for diverse and disparate CRM services, we will provide a common CRM platform to the entire university, with possibilities for added functionality and greater data integration with other IU systems.

Milestones and status:

  • Finalized license agreement Completed June 30, 2009
  • Published Knowledge Base documents; initiated internal communications Completed July 7, 2009
  • Establish project team and preliminary scope definition; scheduled for August 30, 2009
  • Upgrade to version 8.5; scheduled for September-December 2009
  • Implementation for first set of departments; scheduled for January-June 30, 2010
  • Implementation for second set of departments; scheduled for July-December 31, 2010
  • Implementation for third set of departments; scheduled for January-June 30, 2011

Benefits: As a result of this common CRM platform, IU will be able to manage its relationships including pre-admit prospect management; active student relationship management, including involvement from IUAA and possibly IUF; alumni status relationship management; potential donor/donor relationship management; and others as defined.

IU expects to achieve additional benefits as follows:

  • A flexible, effective governance process that minimizes duplicate contacts while maximizing the value both to the student and the institution
  • Reduction of duplicative systems and efforts
  • Ability to leverage support models across all campuses
  • Development and management of campaigns at the campus and or department that are securely isolated
  • Maintenance of a single consolidated database of contacts and campaigns
  • Ability to be more strategic with communication by knowing when and what other communications may be hitting common constituents
  • Enabling executive institutional management to have Business Intelligence (BI) capacities that cross campus and other boundaries
  • Enabling a governance process regarding management of contacts and communications

In turn, this project supports several elements of IU's strategic plan for IT, Empowering People:

  • Advancement of IU's IT infrastructure supported by sound fiscal planning (Recommendation 1)
  • Unlimited availability/philosophy of abundance (Action 5)
  • Partnerships and creative exchanges with hardware, software, and service vendors (Action 6)
  • Maintain and refresh IT infrastructure by consolidating university-wide scale (multi-campus) services for software systems (Action 7)
  • Collaboration and communication systems (Action 11)
  • Student success (Recommendation 10)
  • Engagement beyond (Action 52)

Related information

Implementation Project team:

  • Sara Chambers (UITS)
  • Laurie Sullivan (SES)
  • Chris Foley (IUPUI Admissions)
  • David Johnson (BL OEM)
  • Others yet to be determined

Communication Project Team:

  • Sara Chambers
  • Barry Walsh
  • Sue Workman
  • Sue Perin
  • Chuck Aikman
  • Julie Thatcher
  • Christine Fitzpatrick
  • Sarah Engel
  • Valerie Peña, PAGR
  • Larry MacIntyre, University Communications