We find a lot of Colleges and Universities that have potential to utilize the Higher Education Data Architecture (HEDA) Framework for their instance of Salesforce.com. The first question I tend to hear from our clients in the Higher Education sector seems to always be, “We already have the Non-Profit Starter Pack (NPSP) installed in our instance of Salesforce.com, could we still install HEDA?”

If you’re a university using Salesforce CRM for your enrollments and if you’re not using apps like TargetX or Enrollment RX, you might be tracking your prospective and registered students using the native Salesforce objects like contacts, accounts and leads. With my experience in implementing Salesforce for more than 25 universities, I have seen huge issues stem from this kind of customization which could impact you sooner or later.

If you currently work in the marketing, enrollments or registration departments of a University and have just began using Salesforce, one of the challenges you may face is deciding the best way to store student information and track prospective and registered students. Here are some options to help you decide the best approach.