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As the sector continues to evolve, so does our commitment to empowering schools with the necessary tools to meet their objectives. This month, we’re delighted to unveil a series of feature enhancements and updates that are poised to redefine how international and independent schools engage with admissions, cultivate relationships, and drive advancement. Join us as we delve into the exciting details of these new developments:
CRM Enhancements
Email Campaign Scheduling
There are cases where schools may want to schedule a campaign for the future, so families receive relevant emails at the intended time (neither too early, nor too late). Aligning with key enrollment periods and local cultural nuances to resonate with diverse audiences is of critical importance. This is now possible with email campaign scheduling and deadlines for all email drips. As well as specifying when a campaign should begin, schools are able to set an end date at which point no further emails will be sent. This ensures timely delivery, maximised engagement and communication effectiveness.
More Granular Campaign Analytics
School admissions and marketing teams can optimise their recruitment and communication efforts by reviewing email statistics for individual drips within a campaign, not just broadly looking at the figures for the campaign as a whole. This allows them to pinpoint which messaging and tactics are most successful, with greater accuracy. Open, click and unsubscribe rates were previously displayed for the whole campaign, as a calculated average, but it is now possible to view the individual metrics for each email drip. When users click on ‘more stats’, a modal pops up, showing the granular breakdown.
Manual Lead Scoring
As discussed in our recent blog post (Striking the Right Balance: Exploring Lead Scoring Dynamics), despite the many advantages of automated lead scoring, there are instances where manual assignment of lead scores becomes indispensable. Human intervention allows schools to consider qualitative factors, such as a phone call with a parent, that the automated scoring algorithm which tracks digital engagement, may omit. This is now possible on OpenApply, through a drop down of available lead scores for each user group (Contact, Applicant, Alumni, etc). The newly added lead score will show on their profile as a priority, overriding any older lead scores that were previously attained.
Advancement Updates
Earlier this year we announced the exciting launch of our new Advancement module. This included the Alumni Dashboard, a centralised, user-friendly interface from where the exit questionnaire form and information update forms could be sent, as well as view statistics relating to these forms, and send reminder emails and notifications.
Alumni Dashboard and Roster Filtering
‘Max’ users of OpenApply can now view the full list of alumni on the dashboard, complete with pagination and filtering. By clicking on the completion status of the Exit Questionnaire and Alumni Update forms, the relevant list of alumni are immediately displayed below. This allows for visibility of the individuals in each respective group rather than a mere breakdown of statuses.
Aside from the dashboard filters, users can also head to the Alumi Roster (as well as the CRM roster) and filter for Exit Questionnaire and Alumni Update form completion.
Alumni Data Exports
Advancement professionals and school marketers may want to export alumi data to a spreadsheet for a variety of purposes, such as advanced data analysis and segmentation for hyper-personalised communication strategies. This is now possible via the Alumni Roster, and adds another layer of flexibility and potential to the module’s growing list of use cases.
New Alumni Fields
We have added two new fields to the alumni profiles. The first gives advancement professionals insight into the year levels (UK) or grade levels (US) that the alumni were enrolled at the school, and how long ago they were a student at the school.
The second new field captures the alumni’s graduation date, which can automatically be applied when the individual is moved into the Graduated status. Equally, when the Exit Questionnaire form is sent, this field will be updated accordingly. Sending a newsletter to the ‘Class of 2018’ for example, is now possible with OpenApply!
Other Improvements
Our development team works tirelessly to not only bring powerful new modules and features to OpenApply, but also make numerous smaller improvements and enhancements in the background on an ongoing basis. These updates contribute to a more streamlined and efficient admissions process, as well as a superior user experience for staff and parents alike. Below are just a few of the most recent updates:
- Trusted IP addresses can bypass Two Factor Authentication (2FA) for 30 days after a successful 2FA log-in.
- 5 German titles for royalty/nobility added to the global prefix field, similar to what was done for UAE and Bruneian titles previously.
- Schools can export specific checklist item(s) or file upload field(s), rather than the previous default of all photos and files.
- A student’s grade (e.g. Year 6) is included in parent notification emails (useful for schools where different team members are responsible for different grades). Staff will no longer have to log in and check the student profile to see whether the email is relevant to them.
- Improvement to the Checklist Analytics speed when pulling the pending list of students.
- Schools using OpenApply’s Feeder School feature can now clear the students’ feeder school reference forms and statuses in bulk, so that they can collect new references for those students whose reference was completed previously, but who were not successfully enrolled.
- Schools can now send CRM emails to different users by selecting a checkbox: Parents, Applicants, Agents (previously the only option was Parents).
- Schools have the option to send CRM campaigns to new recipients who do not yet meet a criteria set (e.g. campus), to avoid sending the campaign to current students if the content is not intended for them.
- It is now possible to filter for individuals who have given financial donations or volunteer hours, so schools can quickly see a list of these individuals.
To learn more about any of these updates and enhancements, whether you are an OpenApply customer or not, book a free demo with a member of our team:
