SFDO Student Success Hub K-12 Customers

Hello Community!

We are evaluating if we should use a single record type for contacts for the entire life cycle of the student from recruitment, success, alumni and donations/advancement or use many.

We started with the high school and university recruitment process 5 years ago, however we have grown in Salesforce and now we have more processes such as advancement, student success, 360, continuing education, etc. Also this year we will include recruitment and admissions of postgraduates, masters, etc.

Our analysis starts to complicate when we think about an active high school student can be a college candidate and the same is true of a graduate college student. It can also happen that a former student requires a master's degree or that an employee is a former student and in turn a candidate for a master's degree. There are many combinations and many departments inside our institution that can share student information at the same time.

One idea is to use a single record type on contact, but on other objects such as opportunities, applications and others utilizing more record types. We are also using a custom field called “Role” that is a multipicklist where a contact can have N profiles such as career candidate, active student, employee, high school alumni, etc.

What do you think? Any best practice or something to take into account in the decision?

Thank you so much

Student Success Hub (Advisor Link) 2.56 is scheduled to begin pushing to sandboxes tonight, September 29, 2021. Look for the update in your instance this week. The push to production is scheduled to begin next Wednesday evening, October 5, 2021. 

If you tuned into the Education Cloud Keynote last week, you heard the exciting news: Advisor Link is becoming Student Success Hub. As you know, Student Success Hub for K-12 was built on Advisor Link. Bringing both of these products under the same name reflects both the growth in the product and a focus on holistic support across the student journey, from K-12 through postsecondary. This change reflects all of the amazing innovation we have seen from YOU! Now we’re bringing all of our global education customers, including postsecondary, under the Student Success Hub banner, and we'll continue to deliver unique org configurations to K-12 and higher ed customers.

With the Winter ’22 release we'll update our Trailblazer and Hub groups to reflect this change. Our Customer Success Group is sending your Salesforce admins an email this week with details on what the change means for you.

Now, back to Advisor Link 2.56. With this release we fixed a known issue that caused JavaScript errors for some customers with the Salesforce.com Winter ’22 release. The issue caused some custom Advisor Link components not to load. We also fixed an issue that caused the Release Manager component to function incorrectly.

REMINDER: If you haven't activated the Summer ’21 release, make sure to do so before the Winter ’22 release, which gets pushed to sandboxes on November 4. 

As always, let us know if you have any questions about this release. Do you have suggestions for future enhancements? Head over to the Advisor Link category on the Trailblazer Community Ideas Exchange. 

Student Success Hub (Advisor Link) 2.55 (SFDO 232.1) is began pushing to sandboxes last night, July 21, 2021. Look for the update in your instance over the next couple of days. The push to production is scheduled to begin Tuesday evening, July 27, 2021. 

We have a few minor enhancements, bug fixes, and documentation updates for you this release. Nothing is gated and no action needs to be taken on your part.

• We added feature telemetry to Student Success Hub. Feature telemetry allows us to know whether and when customer orgs have activated a major release. No personal information is collected. For details, see Student Success Hub Feature Telemetry.
• We published an article on using Program Management Module (PMM) with Student Success Hub. PMM, a framework from Salesforce.org that comprises managed and unmanaged metadata, provides a powerful and flexible data model for managing and delivering programs and services to many constituents. Add it to your Student Success Hub org to manage programs and services such as group interventions, enrichment activities, and after-school tutoring. Learn how by reading Use Program Management Module with Student Success Hub.
• We updated how the Student Success Hub installer checks for licenses. This should have no impact on your production org. Depending on the last time you refreshed your sandboxes, you may need to match production licenses to ensure components load correctly.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions about this release. Do you have suggestions for future enhancements? Head over to the Advisor Link category on the Trailblazer Community Ideas Exchange. 

The solstice was last week, but Summer '21 starts now! Student Success Hub (Advisor Link) 2.53, our Summer '21 major release, is scheduled to begin pushing to sandboxes tonight, July 1, 2021. Look for the update in your instance over the next couple of days. The push to production is scheduled to begin Tuesday evening, July 13, 2021.   We have two major new features for you, as well as some enhancements and bug fixes. Let's start with the major features, which are behind the new Summer '21 release gate.

 Summer '21 Release Gate 

First, there's the release gate itself. To activate features that are gated, go to the SAL Settings page and use the Release Manager component. In order to see the component on the SAL Settings page, you must add the ReleaseGateController Apex class to your system administrator profile. Do that now, and you'll be ready to roll.  Note: Don't add the ReleaseGateController Apex class to your support staff profile or permission set. Only you, as a Student Success Hub admin, need access to the Release Manager.  In the Release Manager, you'll find information about new features, links to the documentation, and a button to activate the release. Remember to set up the features in your sandbox first, then in production, and then activate the release to make the features available in your org. 

 Flexible Student Snapshot

Second, we've completely redesigned the Student Snapshot. Headline fields are now displayed directly under the student's name. Also, instead of three static item counters—Tasks, Alerts, and Appointments—two of which (Tasks and Appointments) don't make sense for Student Success Hub users—you can now customize the counters that show in the Snapshot. We recommend you configure the Snapshot to show Alerts and Success Plans.  You can now also add student photos to the component, giving your support staff a photo to show with the student's name. Finally, you can now place the component on record pages for other Case types.  There are no new objects or fields with the redesign; no perms need to be updated. To customize the counters, add photos, or include the Snapshot on other Case pages, however, you'll need to do some configuration. For details, see Set Up the Student Snapshot and Student Details. Even if you don't customize the new flexible Snapshot, you must activate the Summer '21 release in order to see the redesigned component in your org.

 Program Management Module - New Article Coming Soon!

 We are so excited to share the Program Management Module (PMM) with you. A free and open source add-on, Program Management Module can help you extend your tiered support model to better track programs and services across your school or district. Closely following our summer release, we will be adding a new article to our documentation about using Program Management Module alongside Student Success Hub. In the meantime, you can go to the Program Management Module documentation or the Program Management Trailhead module to learn more.

Release Readiness Live

You can view demos of both of the Flexible Student Snapshot and Program Management Module, plus all of the new innovations across Education Cloud, in our Release Readiness Live video.

Other Enhancements and Fixes

We made the following enhancements and bug fixes. These fixes aren't gated, and you don't have to do anything. They take effect automatically in your org.

• We fixed a known issue that caused the Add Success Team Member window to be too small to show the list of advisors in the search list. Now, the window is larger so that users don't have to scroll to see all the names.
• We fixed a known issue that allowed support staff to create and apply an inactive Success Plan Template to a student. Now, only active Success Plan Templates are available to apply.  As always, please let us know if you have any questions about this release. Do you have suggestions for future enhancements? Head over to the Advisor Link category on the Trailblazer Community Ideas Exchange.