5. Slate CRM Portals Best Practices

Give the best first impression of your school with Slate Portals

Among Slate features that you can implement in your work, Slate Portal is one of the most student-facing ones. While Slate queries, reports, and forms help you to optimize your work, Slate Portal can assist applicants and students in checking their application status and understanding what’s their next steps.

Since Slate Portals need to be configured, it is highly recommended for practitioners who do not have a computer science background to work with the Slate/Technology team to build any portal.

In this light, I will share how I collaborated with the IT department on campus to build the portal that the office needed.

Before we dive in, let’s look at the beauty of Slate Portals first.

Slate CRM Portals Best Practices
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Real case scenario- Benefits of using Slate Portals:

*Before the CRM (BC) and after the CRM adoption (AD)

  • BC: The office followed up with the students individually when they were missing documents to be accepted or to be issued immigration documents.

  • AD: A visual checklist is available in the portal for applicants to see what they are missing to be issued immigration documents. This visualization is helpful for staff members to check the status of each candidate as well.

    What is more, applicants can click each item to complete the form if it is available online. Instead of sharing information on each step, staff can share the link to the portal where students can find the exact steps to complete the application.

  • AD: Slate allows staff members to impersonate the view and see what the portal looks like from the student’s view.

    This is especially helpful to advise international students as staff can take a screenshot of the portal and share it with them. By doing so, students can clearly understand what they need to look for.

  • AD: Just like Slate Mailings or Forms can be personalized based on certain fields, Slate Portals can be personalized based on their majors, home countries, and education level, just to name a few.

    For example, students who got admitted into the MBA program can see the MBA advisors’ information only in the portal. In the same light, students from China can see testimonials from Chinese students in the portal.

  • BC: A lot of information was sent to accepted students via email.
  • AD: Students can take a look at the portal at their own pace and explore campus resources, visit office web pages, and whatever the portal provides.

  • BC: There was no single place for internship applicants to check the internship application process and all of the communication was 100% email-based.
  • AD: Internship applicants who meet the eligibility can access the Internship Portal where they can check the next step and learn what to expect at each stage of the process. Having a portal makes it easier for staff to follow up with students as well.

In addition to the current Slate Portals that we have, here is the list of portals that I would like to have in the future. Hope this inspires what you can do with Slate Portals!

When it comes to International Education, agents play a critical role. That being said, there’s no centralized platform where they can check each student’s application status. Currently, all of the communication is based on the email.

With Agent Portal, agents may be able to see the update for each applicant in real-time. By doing so, the International Office does not need to perform the repetitive job of providing updates for each international applicant.

Similar to the Agent Portal, a portal for partnered universities can be built for exchange students. From there, each partnered overseas university can nominate students for the upcoming term’s exchange program, check updates on the application process, notify the withdrawal, and download necessary documents including the transcript.

The portal provides a platform for external stakeholders to access real-time data which will increase efficiency and accuracy.

With the Alumni Portal, alumni can sign up for the mentoring program and be connected with current students. They can also be invited to alumni events based on the region which could increase the participation rate.

How to create Slate Portals

Slate Portals require advanced knowledge especially if you are building it from scratch. For administrators who are not in the IT office, the best way to create a customized Portal is to work with the Slate/Technology team on campus.

It is also possible to work with the Slate consulting agency where Slate professionals can work with you to develop whatever you need if this is something your office is interested in investing in.

Luckily, I was able to work with the dedicated and knowledgeable Slate professional on campus. One thing that I learned from the Slate Portal development project is that communication and documentation are the key.

I will share how I led the Slate Portal development project which is rated 4.5 rating from real users (students).

Working on Slate Portal is an opportunity to put your knowledge of Slate features- Mailings, Forms, Queries, and Reports- together.

Whether your institution just started using Slate or you are a seasoned professional, hope the How to Automate Repetitive Tasks with Slate CRM series helped you to envision what Slate CRM can offer for your office and students.

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