Customer Relationship Management Archives - INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE

CRM Helping You Successfully Track Your Virtual University Open Days

John Nicholls — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 08:00:51 +0000

For the foreseeable future University Open Days are a no go. Thousands of prospective students gathering on campus to view facilities and attend subject talks is a social distancing nightmare. As a result, you’re having to come up with exciting, cutting-edge ways to deliver your University Open Days virtually. And you’re having to do it quickly, so you’re not left behind. With the right software running your virtual Open Days prospective students are able to take virtual tours of the campus. Plus, they can chat with Tutors as well as speak to existing and other prospective students. It can work really well. And it does. So well, in fact, that many are already adopting this technology on a wider scale to give prospective international students a good insight into their institution. The reality of making your Open Days virtual But it’s not all plain sailing and running Open Days virtually does present you with one critical problem – tracking attendance. You can carry on using your event booking system to allow prospective students to book onto events as normal. The confirmation and reminder communications you send out will contain the link to the virtual Open Day landing site. However, typically […]

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Why your approach to data migration matters and its impact on your CRM implementation

Gary Rooksby — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 09:00:45 +0000

Data quality is absolutely critical to a successful Higher Education Customer Relationship Management (CRM) implementation. It can literally make or break an implementation. On-going success is reinforced by clean and complete data. It also allows you to measure your Return on Investment (ROI) accurately, proving your success. Conversely, poor data can slow business processes, dilute benefits and reduce users’ confidence and compliance. Getting your existing CRM data into your new system can be tricky. But, there’s more than one way to peel a potato and different CRM systems and providers will offer you different data migration options. Where do you even start? You know you want your data imported in as complete and accurate a state as possible. To do that you’re going to need some help from your system vendor. After all, they’re the experts, aren’t they? Your CRM provider might supply a set of technical tools, leave you to use those tools yourself and take responsibility for your own data quality. Alternatively, they might offer a more customised (and expensive) service either including the tools or even doing the final data import for you. With each of these data migration approaches there are advantages and disadvantages. The key […]

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Protecting what’s important – safeguarding your data in your Higher Education CRM system

Sharon Williams — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 09:00:24 +0000

Welcome to the third part in our ‘Choosing a Higher Education CRM system’ series. We’re going to be discussing ways in which you can protect your data. In recent weeks there have been several data security breaches in UK Universities. Within your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, you’re recording – or want to record – a lot of personal data about your applicants and students. As well as capturing data and notes about your schools and partners. You need this information to make sure you communicate effectively, and make sure you do this in line with GDPR. So, how can you do this while making sure you’re safeguarding this highly personal and sensitive data in your Higher Education CRM system? And how do you make sure the system you choose will give you the protection you need? What’s meant by sensitive or personal data? Firstly, you need to clarify what you mean by sensitive or personal data. Most Universities will be capturing name, date of birth, email address, telephone and postal address details for applicants and students. This is probably classed by everyone as personal information. However, you may also be recording qualifications, family relationships, special requirements, conditional offers, and […]

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Protecting your data from potential internal security breaches

Sharon Williams — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 08:58:03 +0000

When it comes to protecting your data and systems you will have security in place to stop external access and attacks. But recent events show that a security breach can just as easily come from inside your own company. When thinking about your information security you should consider protecting your data from potential internal as well as external breaches. And these internal security breaches could come from people and users who have authorised access to your systems, such as IT teams, administrators and system users. How do you provide maximum protection for your data whilst still allowing your teams to do their jobs? Who really needs access to your data – and who can actually see it? When considering internal system access you will no doubt have thought very carefully about making sure you only give the relevant users access to the systems and data they need. You will have put password policies in place to make sure your users change their passwords regularly. And that the passwords they do use conform to some format to make sure they are strong. You may also have linked your systems to LDAP or Active Directory for secure user authentication. But what about […]

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Protecting your information in LIMS, Sample Management and CRM systems using rules-based data encryption

Sharon Williams — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 08:46:45 +0000

This week we saw another announcement in the news where personal data had been stolen. This time it was student data from a prestigious UK University. As discussed in our last blog, some systems such as those relating to healthcare or that hold medical records, encrypt data as a matter of course. But we questioned why other systems such as LIMS and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software applications don’t. These systems also hold sensitive personal and commercial data that you should protect using encryption. And systems providing rules-based data encryption can give you even more security.. Identifying your sensitive data Data that is deemed sensitive varies and depends on what information you are capturing. If you use a laboratory information management system, you may record personal identifiable information such as name and hospital numbers which you deem as sensitive. If you are a University using CRM systems to manage student recruitment, you may be capturing name, email address, address and date of birth which you consider sensitive. Additional data that you associate with a person such as their qualifications or treatments may not be identifiable in isolation, but if combined with other such data might still pose a risk. However, you […]

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Why don’t all software systems encrypt sensitive or personal data?

Sharon Williams — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 11:27:16 +0000

The scientific research and healthcare sectors are constantly being reminded that they must protect sensitive and patient confidential data at all times. These are ingrained in their standard operating procedures and they understand too well the potential consequences of any data breaches. The need to encrypt sensitive or personal data is at the forefront of their system requirements. In our Achiever laboratory information software, we encrypt patient identifiable data as standard. In fact, it was the creation of our laboratory management software that drove our encryption methods and enhanced data security capabilities. To meet the needs of the research community that was using human biological samples, it was imperative that our software could protect this very sensitive, and valuable data. Not just from external access – but equally from unapproved people within the same lab or team. But other businesses also hold personal and sensitive data in their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for example. How many of these systems hold your data in an encrypted format? Who has access to your sensitive data in your CRM system? We all know that our medical records are held in an encrypted format. But what about all the data that you hold […]

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To build or buy software? 5 common myths exposed

Sharon Williams — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 10:10:42 +0000

The question of whether to build or buy software can be difficult to answer. If you have a dedicated IT team the idea of creating your own system to manage your data and processes can seem attractive. The apparently long-winded process of sourcing software suppliers and products can seem time-intensive and expensive. Then, for off-the-shelf software, there is the associated time cost of your team gathering and documenting their requirements, software testing and training. This is all before you start adding in the cost of software licenses and ongoing support. Given all this, it is no surprise that many organisations choose to embark on building their own software. However, this is not the full picture. Many of the considerations and activities involved in choosing off-the-shelf software should also apply to creating your own systems. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and can lead to costly mistakes. Below we have outlined some of these common myths to help you make a balanced view when considering whether to create your own software. It is based on our 25+ years’ experience of implementing software, in many cases, replacing in-house built applications. Myth 1: It will be cheaper to build our own You already […]

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What a difference a day makes – the challenges of a university open-day event manager

John Nicholls — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 12:03:59 +0000

Never has the competition amongst the UK’s leading Universities been so tough. The ripples of recent political decisions have been felt by everyone. Compounding this are the rapid changes in technology and how best to interact with potential students. The pressure on University Marketing and Event departments to not only attract prospective applicants but keep them actively engaged throughout the application process, is challenging. That’s why the attendance on a University open-day event is often seen as a critical milestone in the student journey. How do you measure the success of a university open-day event? Measuring the success of a University open-day event consists of multiple components. These include the number of prospective students signed up to attend, the actual number who attended and the prospective students’ experience on the open-day event itself. As an Event Manager your responsibility is to ensure the maximum number of attendees are signed-up and converted to actual attendees. Therefore, your first measure of success is the sign-up rates and to achieve this you need to keep a close eye on sign-up numbers. How do you measure open-day event sign-up numbers? When comparing open-day event sign-up rates, you would usually compare this year with the […]

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