Credit: Microsoft
KPMG has streamlined Charles Sturt University’s customer relationship management (CRM) system, cutting down on the number of different sources used to look up student information.
The project saw the consultancy group step in to help it update its legacy CRM system, which was limited in scope, hard to update and wasn’t as secure as CSU would have it liked to be, Microsoft claimed.
Available through a dashboard, staff can pull up information on students, such as enrolled subjects, course coordinators, required textbooks, as well as submitted and outstanding work.
This is opposed to its legacy CRM system, which required multiple different systems to access this information, according to Phil Roy, CSU project director.
“One of our short-term objectives is to build more of a 360-degree view of our students, whether they are a student studying by distance or an on-campus student,” he said.
“The platform has allowed us to improve the environment with which we engage students and makes it easier for the students to ask things of us, to seek out support. It makes it more efficient for us to provide that support for students and hence improve their experience that they’re getting from the university.”
Partnering with Microsoft, KPMG helped CSU develop its technology strategy and priorities roadmap and then assisted with the deployment of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement as the university's core CRM, which took place over 18 months.
The system, according to KPMG director Shane Parsons, leverages the Microsoft Azure ecosystem, with Power BI supporting reporting requirements for transparency about the student body to executives and academics.
It can also manage student services through another dashboard, allowing for grade changes, appeals and special consideration requests, as well as including support channels and chat features.
Additionally, KPMG helped CSU develop a series of Power Apps to help students by using data integrated into Dynamics 365, which are being utilised in a number of different ways, some of which include displaying financial information and on campus residential status.
Other Power Apps are being used to automate workflows and processes related to sensitive personal data.
The next and final phase of the rollout will be targeted towards student recruitment, according to the project director.
“At the moment, the work that we’ve done supports campaigning and communications around admissions, and the engagement of students[, then] through to things like orientation when a student comes to the university,” Roy added.
