What is EMT Retain?   Retain is a CRM designed for current students.   It’s a lot different than the other Hobson’s EMT CRM’s that we currently use.  Retain has some interesting features that I’m excited to try out.  At Belmont, we plan to use the system as one of our primary modes of communication between the university and current students attending the university.  We currently use it to communicate with students in a variety of ways, the one flaw is that due to the current implementation, we are unable to adequately target communications, which can be a bit of a pain.  We also haven’t been able to implement the product’s early alert system, which allows us to target at-risk students, and help them.

Now, most of this is in the planning stages… Currently, we are putting together a planning team that consists of all the departments who will have a stake in the project.  This is typically how we build a CRM from the ground up.  However, the difference here is that Retain touches many more departments each with a specific need.  With the previous CRM’s we were focused on admissions, so many of the communications were based off of admissions information pulled from the student information system (SIS).  With Retain, the information is completely different and will come from more than just the SIS.  So we will see how things go.

Today we took the first intial steps, which involved setting our goals and identifying the stakeholders of the product.  We are also in talks with Hobson’s about how other schools have implemented the product, so we can get some ideas that might make this re-implementation go a little smoother.  I’m hoping we can get the system up and functioning and ready for the next full term.  We will see how things go.  As I jokingly like to point out, gremlins tend to be a serious issue.  Hopefully we’ll keep these things down to a minimum.   Right now, I just want to focus on the things we need, so we can build the system correctly the first time.

I’ll certainly keep everyone posted…  Let’s see how things roll.

Which I find rather humorous.

So now, I suppose I’m going to try and give back to the higher ed world, here in this blog, and chronicle all the ups and downs of this coming year.  This year is a big year.  Belmont’s enrollment has grown from 5,000 students to well over 5300 students.  I’ve gotten lots of new technology this year.  11 netbooks.  2 new laptops.  my first rack server.  We have some interesting initiatives that I am leading up this year.  As well as the continued development of EMT Connect, Grad Connect, ApplyYourself, and Retain.  I hope to talk about all of these things, and how I’m working to make the Higher Ed world easier for you and me  (but with a big emphasis on me)