Blackbaud Tuition Management vs. Salesforce Education Cloud

The way Blackbaud Tuition Management handles the charges and how accessible it is makes my job much easier. I love that parents can see the same view of their account as I have when entering/reviewing an account so that it doesn't sound foreign when I try to explain something to them.

Well suited:

1. Groups that need to integrate their CRM with other partners: many education institutions use Salesforce!
2. Groups with huge student populations now, or expected in the future.
3. Groups that have resources for custom Salesforce development, like an in-house Salesforce Developer role.

Less appropriate:

1. If you expect your company/school will have a limited number of students.
2. If you set up Salesforce to use ONLY Leads or only Contacts, not both. What happens if you have a student re-enroll? How do you handle losing data when converting a Lead to a Contact? If you don't have good answers for these in advance, you'll want to use only Leads or only Contacts to track each student.

Incentivized

• Website is easy to navigate
• Customer service is very professional and helpful
• Multiple options for making payments and setting up accounts

Incentivized

• Great use of integrating across all aspects of enrollment.
• Easy to create tasks for counselors to remember to call prospective students and keep up to date on goals.
• Reporting is fabulous inside of Salesforce.
• All of the Apps in the App Exchange.

Incentivized

• Divorced parent log in access
• Split family contract processes

• Reports - Comes with no out of the box reports.
• OOB functionality may be limited - important to have folks with experience customizing EDA to an organization's needs.
• Upfront cost - Implementation services (either a hired team or consultants) is imperative to make it work.

Incentivized

It was really so easy to sign up and get going with the whole process

Incentivized

People will respond on time even though Salesforce is such a large organization. This also includes various methods of getting support beyond just calling - they have dedicated reps, chat, chatter, etc that all make the experience more pleasant.

Incentivized

I use FACTS in my role at work, and my children's school uses Smart Tuition. I am more familiar with Smart Tuition as a parent, but it seems to be a good solution for the high school. Since we do the financial aid in-house at my school of employment, FACTS works better for us.

Incentivized

Salesforce.org Education Cloud has many different functionalities that do not revolve around just the assignment and grading aspect of a student's education. They provide ways for staff to communicate with students in real-time and provide additional support, such as mental health resources, which is incredibly important. Not only is the education aspect important, but providing resources to help a student in every aspect of life is possible on Salesforce and is very useful.

Incentivized

• Online access is key
• Multiple payment options are great
• Since there are so many payment options we receive funds faster

• This is always awesome to find and have companies where you can educate yourself online.
• Even when you look at things such as FOREX, this is one of the biggest industries, so it is a tell tale sign that it is well on track to the future.

Incentivized