Berklee Online Salesforce Integration Success

Implementing Jitterbit Harmony as its connectivity hub, the online educator can seamlessly incorporate new systems without additional IT spend

Background

Berklee Online offers credit-based courses, certificates, and bachelor’s and master’s degree programs for aspiring musicians and performing artists worldwide. Founded in 2002, the institution provides direct access to the same instruction and curriculum offered at the Berklee College of Music campus, delivering expert instruction in music and the skills to succeed in a creative industry.

Challenge

Growing infrastructure requires a modern approach to connectivity

One of the world’s largest online educators, Berklee needs to keep its IT infrastructure up to date and seamlessly connected to serve students, faculty, and administrators effectively.

“We’ve just started to need more technology to solve the needs of an online degree student,” says Luke Stevens, Director of Technology for Berklee. “And we adopted Salesforce for our admissions group to use as a CRM rather than using a legacy homegrown system. Overall, the number of systems we have has doubled in the last few years.”

With its infrastructure expanding and growing more complex, Berklee struggled with inefficient processes, siloed data, and a lack of visibility across its operations. To address its challenges, the institution sought a modern, agile approach to digital connectivity.

Solution

Easy, rapid integration between mission-critical platforms

Experimenting with different system integration techniques, a Berklee developer discovered a promising solution. After creating a custom integration proved difficult and time-consuming, the developer used Jitterbit Harmony technology to build an integration in a matter of days.

“We were really beginning to invest in Salesforce at that time,” says Stevens. “We didn’t have a lot of expertise with that in house and it made the decision pretty easy to move forward with Jitterbit.”

With the Jitterbit Harmony platform, Berklee’s IT team connected its Salesforce application with Ellucian Colleague ERP software and internal databases to provide a 360-degree view of its student data. The group also created integrations connecting its Salesforce instance with Informer business analytics software, Marketo marketing automation application, and an FTP platform.

“We use Jitterbit to centralize and manage multiple integrations between multiple systems without having to increase our technology spend for our infrastructure every time we add a new system.”

— Luke Stevens, Director of Technology, Berklee Online

Benefits

Best-of-breed digital services, greater efficiency, and metrics for student success

The Jitterbit Harmony solution allows Berklee to easily incorporate new systems in its expanding infrastructure while keeping costs low.

“We use Jitterbit to centralize and manage multiple integrations between multiple systems without having to increase our technology spend for our infrastructure every time we add a new system,” says Stevens. “We’ve got Jitterbit at the center.”

With Jitterbit technology serving as the connectivity hub, Berklee offers best-of-breed digital services, providing students, faculty, and staff with a seamless digital experience. Plus, the automation across platforms enables the institution to create new process efficiencies.

“It used to be that it was the job of an instructor to identify in their gradebook which students were at risk,” says Stevens. “They would create a note that would go to an advisor for follow-up. [Now] we create tasks for them in Salesforce and the advisors know who to call—it requires no intervention by the faculty.”

Ultimately, Berklee anticipates that greater connectivity and data visibility will provide useful metrics to further encourage student success.

“We’re going to end up in a place where we’re capturing with better granularity what sort of data predicts that a student is going to have a good outcome and is going to be successful in their education,” says Stevens.

Summary

• Struggling with inefficiencies and data siloes that developed as its IT infrastructure expanded and grew more complex, Berklee Online sought a modern, agile connectivity solution.
• With the Jitterbit Harmony platform, Berklee quickly and easily integrated its Salesforce application with its ERP software and internal databases, creating a 360-degree view of its student data. Additionally, the IT team built integrations connecting business analytics, marketing automation, and FTP platforms.
• Now, Berklee seamlessly incorporates new systems in its IT infrastructure while keeping costs low. Plus, the educator offers best-of-breed digital services, creates new process efficiencies, and anticipates tapping into key metrics to encourage student success.