Salesforce.org Announces Higher Education Data Architecture (HEDA), Providing the Foundation for the Connected Campus

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.org, the philanthropic arm of Salesforce, today announced its Higher Education Data Architecture (HEDA), which provides the foundation for the connected campus—empowering institutions of all sizes to connect with students, alumni, faculty and staff in new ways. HEDA is an open-source data architecture and set of best practices tailored specifically for higher education institutions. Salesforce.org's HEDA enables universities to rapidly deploy Salesforce's industry leading CRM platform, enabling colleges and universities to gain a 360-degree view of students as they progress throughout their academic journeys and beyond.

Comments on the News:

• "We developed HEDA with our community—engaging customers, partners and industry leaders to help us create a solution that addresses some of the toughest problems facing higher education," said Rob Acker, CEO, Salesforce.org. "Now, our higher education customers will be able to better manage everything from recruiting to student success to fundraising."
• "Higher education is experiencing a period of unprecedented change. Colleges and universities seeking to thrive, or even simply survive, in this environment must find new ways to innovate and deliver high quality, highly-personalized services to students," said Nicole Engelbert, director, research & analysis, Ovum. "HEDA enables institutions to execute their student experience strategies more rapidly by leveraging a best practice data model developed by institutions and delivered out-of-the-box by Salesforce. Ovum believes that HEDA sets important standards that have the potential to transform how higher education manages the student experience across the entire lifecycle."
• "Higher Ed has been waiting for this type of standard data architecture, and we are excited to implement HEDA as part of our connected campus vision with Salesforce.org," said Jack George, deputy CIO and associate vice president, University of Miami Information Technology. "Leveraging this new, community-driven architecture on our campus will allow the University to collaborate more effectively with our peers and to drive innovation in this space."

HEDA: The Foundation for the Connected Campus
As the world becomes increasingly connected with cloud, mobile, social, data science and IoT technologies, colleges and universities must rapidly evolve the way they connect with their students. In 2015, Educause reported that student smartphone ownership exceeded student laptop ownership for the first time—with 92 percent of students now owning smartphones.¹Students today expect seamless, connected experiences whether they are on- or off-campus, and universities are uniquely poised to interact with this population of digital natives using the latest technologies.

With HEDA, institutions of all sizes can:

• Build the foundation for the connected campus: Quickly configure Salesforce to manage students throughout their university journey—from prospect to student to alumni.
• Get started faster than ever: Accelerate deployment of Salesforce by using objects and functionality created specifically for Higher Ed.
• Improve the student experience: Break down silos by creating 360-degree views of every student, developing the foundation for personalized communications across students' academic journeys and beyond.
• Join a community of innovators: Leverage the open-source, community-driven data architecture to collaborate on some of the Higher Ed industry's greatest technology challenges on the Salesforce.org Power of Us Hub.

University of Miami and other leading universities are already using Salesforce.org's HEDA to create connected campuses. In addition, leading systems integrators in the Salesforce ecosystem—such as ACF Solutions, Bluewolf and Sierra-Cedar—will extend the power of HEDA by building innovative solutions for the Higher Ed industry via its standardized data model.

Pricing and Availability:

• Salesforce.org's HEDA is generally available now and can be downloaded as a managed package from the Salesforce AppExchange: http://www.salesforce.org/appexchangeHEDA
• The open-source code for HEDA is also available on GitHub: Salesforce.org on GitHub
• There is no additional cost to use HEDA beyond pricing for underlying Salesforce subscription. HEDA requires subscriptions to Enterprise Edition or higher.

About Salesforce.org
Salesforce.org is based on a simple idea: leverage Salesforce's technology, people and resources to improve communities around the world. We call this integrated philanthropic approach the 1-1-1 model. Since 1999, Salesforce technology has powered more than 28,000 nonprofit and education institutions; Salesforce and its philanthropic entities have provided more than $115 million in grants; and Salesforce employees have logged more than 1.3 million volunteer hours throughout the world. For more information on Salesforce.org, please visit www.salesforce.org.

Salesforce, Salesforce1, Salesforce.org, HEDA and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

© 2016 salesforce.com. All rights reserved.

¹ Educause Center for Analysis and Research: ECAR Student of Undergraduates and Information Technology, 2015: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ss15/ers1510ss.pdf

SOURCE Salesforce.org

Related Links

http://www.salesforce.org