This project is guided by the vision of OneUVA and also takes into consideration the broad range of user perspectives and requirements across our community. We will continue to engage business partners and stakeholders across Grounds to participate in scoping work, testing periods, feedback, communication, and adoption of and socializing new business processes. All stakeholders are welcome. Have specific ideas? Please contact us at AdvancementCRM@virginia.edu.
One of the opportunities this project provides is to reexamine and refresh our business practices to take advantage of what our new CRM offers in the context of our community culture. As part of this project, SMEs engaged with building our new system will also work on developing recommendations for new business practices. Our CoPs and leadership will play a key role in finalizing and communicating these. Some recommendations may be implemented prior to the new CRM go-live date, and some will wait for the new system.
Remember this: the work we are doing now is to get us to a system cutover in August 2025, at which time you will switch your work processes to the new system. After a period of stabilization, we will further develop and enhance the system in order to continuously improve your work experience. You will experience many changes in how you work--many good changes! But we do not expect to unleash the full power of every Salesforce or ascend feature in Phase 1. Remember, we are making this change to support you for the long term, and the work of developing UVA's advancement system of record does not end at go-live.
Our go-live plan takes into account the current campaign and regular fiscal year end gift processing, accounting, and reporting work. As we get closer to the August 2025 cutover, we will communicate any blackout periods, down time, or shut-off plans. If you have annual work processes that we need to know about, please contact AdvancementCRM@virginia.edu.
Salesforce has a mobile app that works with ascend.
Data in Salesforce is structured differently than Advance. Since the new data structure requires some focused time to learn we recommend reviewing some of the resources from Salesforce. Learn how to create a Salesforce Trailhead account here, and then start with Data Structure Overview.
We think about ascend as our new 'database of record' meaning it will be the primary source of data similar to Advance. There will be some exceptions to this where supplemental data provided by vendor partners is housed in their tools. Part of our project involves identifying our information delivery tools and building a new data warehouse that will support information delivery, reporting, and analysis. Just like today there will be different levels of access to data, based on your role, and our goal is to have a data glossary/dictionary to support our work.
Timely integration of data sources is important to us and is part of the reason we chose Salesforce. Data integration work is just beginning (January 2024). Our focus for Phase 1 go-live is to establish integrations to replace existing data loads to our database of record; then we will look towards integrating with other systems. We will always maintain a mindset of providing the best tools and resources for your work, and part of that is whether or not a tool or resource has (or will build) an 'out of the box' integration with Salesforce. We expect better, more timely data integration in the new system, which will enhance data quality and decision making.
There will be several information delivery methods in the future state. Some native reporting is available within the platform (Lightning Reports); and we plan to keep Tableau. Final decisions regarding additional reporting tools will be made by the end of this fiscal year. Once we have enough sample data in our test database, we will start building sample reports. As of February 2024, we have a limited set of biographic, demographic, gift and pledge data in our test environment. Like the rest of this project, reporting will be an iterative process. We understand that having adequate reporting at go-live is imperative, and we will communicate as soon as we have information to share and how you can support this work.
To get started learning about Lightning Reports, create a Salesforce Trailhead account and start with UVA Info Delivery 101: Lightning Reports & Dashboards.
ascend will have various permission levels and the ability to control access to any data that should not be available to all.
Artificial intelligence integrations are not part of Phase 1 go-live. Our first concern is converting and stabilizing our new database of record. That said, AI will be part of your future. We are staying informed of the power of both Salesforce's and UC Innovation's AI offerings and their development plans; we will evaluate tools for their efficacy, security, and impact. Stay tuned: you will hear more about this.
ascend is a modern, user-friendly platform designed to be as intuitive as possible. To support everyone adopting and maximizing the new system and our new business practices and processes, we will have recorded demos and provide "tours" of what is being built, a training sandbox, a data dictionary and nomenclature translator, user guides, in-person training, quick sheets and how-to guides, videos, in-platform help, and access to generic training via Salesforce Trailhead and the UCI User Community Portal. We are just starting to build out our training, but you can begin learning now.
We will provide learning paths and guidance to end users and managers. Training will be available well in advance of going live with the new CRM.