Skip to main content
Join Trailblazers for Dreamforce 2024 in San Francisco or on Salesforce+ from September 17-19. Register now

Streamline Student Services

Streamline Student Services

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

  • Describe some student-oriented tools in Student Success Hub for Higher Education.
  • Discuss the Student Success Hub for Higher Education experience from an external user’s perspective.
Note

This module provides information about the managed package version of Education Cloud. As of March 2023 new or migrated customers use Education Cloud integrated platform solutions instead of managed packages. For information about the integrated platform solution, go to our Education Cloud Documentation.

As most people in higher education have experienced, the student population is ever-evolving. It’s no longer true that the typical higher-education student is 18 years old, moving directly from high school to a college campus. Today’s students are, on average, older, more experienced in work, and more socioeconomically diverse. 

When they embark on their academic journey, many students are also juggling things like full-time jobs, family members to care for, financial stress, health challenges, and more. 

Despite expectations of a clear path to success, the reality is that obstacles like mental health and employment gaps exist.

With demographics and technology constantly evolving, it makes sense that student expectations are changing, too. They’re looking for a more connected, proactive experience–one that makes it easy for them to find resources and support and engages with them on the channels they prefer. And students want personalization; they need to know that you hear, understand, and value them. 

Student Success Hub for Higher Education, with the help of Experience Cloud, lets you harness the same data that helps your internal staff members and use it to create a streamlined, engaging experience for your students. 

Note

Features that students use, like appointments and portals, require either a Customer Community Plus license or a Customer Community Plus Login license.

Student Portal

While your staff members are using Student Success Hub as the console where they manage their day-to-day support activities, students are experiencing it through an external portal where they can also manage their appointments, track their tasks, and connect with their success team. 

Student portals are fully branded, customized Experience Cloud sites with the look and feel students are accustomed to.

The portals are highly flexible and customizable. Student Success Hub installs a sample unpublished student portal, called Student Success Hub Portal, that you can explore and use for ideas for your institution. For more inspiration, check out the Experience Cloud Trailhead modules and Student Success Hub portals documentation linked in the Resources section.

Wherever the inspiration leads, Salesforce can meet you there. With access to our comprehensive suite of easily configurable solutions, your institution can help students do anything from scheduling their very first advising appointment to charting the entire course of their academic journey. 

Pathways

Pathways is an interface that visually summarizes the requirements for earning a degree or other credential from your institution. It gives students and advisors the chance to collaborate on planning for a semester, a year, or a full 4 years. They can see degree requirements, organize classes they’d like to take, and see the credit load they’d need to maintain each semester in order to graduate on time.

With Pathways, students can find their program more easily, picture their academic options more clearly, ask more informed questions of their support staff, and navigate decisions more confidently from term to term. Students can even create their own version of a program plan to map out which courses they'll take in each term.

Mobile Convenience

To be truly effective, student portals need to be as engaging and easy to use as possible. They need to meet students where they live: on their phones and devices. Salesforce intentionally designs our solutions with scalability and mobility in mind, and Student Success Hub for Higher Education is no exception.

The mobile version of a student portal includes localized messaging, quick action buttons, and intuitive navigation.

Mobile access lets students communicate and make updates at any time or place in their busy schedules. It also makes it easier for success team members to reach students. 

Student Chatbots

Since success team members can’t be everywhere for all students at once, your institution can use the Student Success Chatbot, an Einstein Bot, to send students helpful reminders and alerts. You can deploy the chatbot to a messaging channel (SMS), an Experience Cloud site, or another digital engagement channel. And students can decide which communication options they prefer.

A Foundation for Success

In true Salesforce fashion, just about every feature you’ve learned about in this module is compatible with another product to enhance your staffs’ and students’ experiences. As demographics shift and processes change, you can adapt and exceed expectations. 

With Student Success Hub for Higher Education as a foundation, Salesforce for Education empowers your entire staff with holistic, integrated solutions that can grow with you as your students and institution continuously evolve.

Resources