Constituent Relationship Management | News

Miami University Implements CRM for Student Recruitment and Communications

• By Leila Meyer
• 10/20/11

Miami University in Ohio is replacing its legacy admissions software with a new customer relationship management (CRM) system, which will enable the institution to use a single tool to track students from recruitment, to application, and through to matriculation at the university. The CRM system will also assist the university with alumni relations and student, faculty, and staff communication. Miami University's current admissions system will be retired in October 2013.

The university selected Oracle CRM On Demand as its new CRM system and will begin implementing it for undergraduate admissions on its Oxford Campus this month. Deployment to the graduate school and regional campus admissions will follow. Oracle will host the university's Oracle CRM On Demand environment in the cloud at an Oracle high-security data center.

The latest version of Oracle CRM On Demand is Release 19. New features in this version include:

• Extensibility features that use dynamic layouts across standard and custom objects, enabling the use of custom Web applets, custom Web tabs, and global Web applets to render data directly from the CRM On Demand servers;
• Oracle Database Vault, which limits Oracle employee access to the CRM database using the principles of need to know, least privilege, and segregation of duties;
• Security features, including a centralized audit trail to view events on auditable record types, set maximum session durations, and define concurrent session limits; and
• Expanded integration, including Web services object coverage, named search support, and enhanced bulk data load.

"Our current CRM environment does not support cross-departmental communication," said Jen Herman, senior associate director, Miami University. "We use multiple software solutions to track and manage our students throughout their educational careers. After reviewing seven vendor proposals, we selected Oracle CRM On Demand because of its ease of use, ability to meet multiple department needs, and ease of implementation. This new solution will provide us with the tools to effectively track and communicate with our students from admissions to graduation, and monitor the effectiveness of our overall communication strategies."

Miami University is a public institution with a main campus in Oxford, OH; regional campuses in Hamilton, Middletown, and West Chester; and a European Center in Luxembourg. The main campus serves approximately 15,000 undergraduate and 2,000 graduate students.