Queen’s University: Smith School of Business Uses Salesforce to Support the Entire Student Lifecycle

In the highly competitive and turbulent higher education market, Smith School of Business at Queen’s University was successfully using Salesforce as a marketing tool for their award-winning MBA program. Ultimately, though, student recruitment was only the beginning. How could Smith School of Business utilize Salesforce to help build stronger links between each student and the university?

To optimize this relationship, Smith School of Business would need to expand and optimize the way they use Salesforce to better manage each touchpoint along the student lifecycle – from the very first student inquiry to alumni and donor management.

Wave6 built a multi-faceted Salesforce platform for Smith School of Business, including:

• Migrated 35 different databases into a single Salesforce org.


• Automated the application process into a streamlined online process that connects all data into Salesforce.


• Configured Affiliations to link students with awards (such as scholarships or internships) and groups (such as departmental programs or student councils).


• Enabled Cases to better manage all aspects of student life, from general counseling or support requests to academic probations.


• Configured the system to track student exchange programs with other schools; Pardot and web-based forms automate communication and connect everything within Salesforce.


• Constructed Alumni relationships to be tracked and managed, including alumni career history and donor history; records now link to a central alumni database.

Smith School of Business now has a single, unified system for recruiting, application process, data consolidation and reporting. The result is a true 360-degree view of prospects, applicants, students, alumni and donors. Salesforce has allowed Smith School of Business to accurately target their marketing, customize their approach to student communication, and optimize alumni and donor management.

“Wave6 has been instrumental in our implementation and helping us at several stages through getting us on board with Salesforce,” said Jeff Dixon, Associate Director of Salesforce at the Smith School of Business with Queen’s.