Status History

Status & Accomplishments

Sprints 9 (Aug 13 – Sept 2) and 10 (Sept 3 – 23) drove major progress on tools that make processes smoother, communication faster, and the Aggie experience even better. Here’s what’s new and exciting:

• Recruitment & Admissions: The final two build sprints wrapped up! The team has now shifted to shorter weekly sprints to resolve issues found during testing and prepare for formal user testing in late October. Graduate Admissions saw big improvements, including new supplemental forms, easier document uploads, conditional acceptance options, added test score integrations, better recommendation tracking, and enhanced committee management.
• Marketing & Events: Blackthorn Events officially launched and has already registered over 3,000 attendees. In Marketing Cloud, 18 new always-on journeys went live, sending more than 10,000 emails on day one. These journeys now run daily, ensuring prospects and admits receive personalized, timely communication.
• Integrations & Skills: Banner and Utah Transcript Exchange Integration (UTREx) integrations are now live in the testing environment. At the same time, the team is building new expertise in Mulesoft, which will expand our ability to integrate systems seamlessly.
• Advancement: Discovery sessions kicked off, covering 10+ key areas with more scheduled. Advancement leaders are helping prioritize the processes used most often and with the biggest impact. This ensures the Salesforce Professional Services team can dedicate the right time to the top priority: Planned Giving. Scope is being refined now, with the first phase minimum viable product (MVP) to be defined by the end of October.

Accomplishments

• Recruitment & Admissions: Final build sprint complete, a huge milestone! Graduate R&A stories wrapped up and showcased.
• Advancement: Kickoff underway with leadership scope reviews and 10+ Discovery sessions completed (more to come!). Draft agendas are set.
• Marketing & Events: Blackthorn has registered 3,000 attendees, and 18 always-on Marketing Journeys launched, sending 10,000+ emails on day one.
• Integrations: Banner and Utah Transcript Exchange Integration (UTREx) testing in progress with positive results.
• Team Growth: Welcomed Scott Guthrie (Advancement) and Thinesh Ramakrishnan (QA).
• Ongoing Progress: Steady story development, defect fixes, and Salesforce Winter Release opening doors for new features.

What's Next

• Mark Your Calendars
• Based on stakeholder feedback, we’re pressing pause on our upcoming product showcases so the team can focus on user testing and final polish. Instead of three smaller demos, we’ll deliver one big, final showcase of the polished R&A learner portal and application on Wednesday, November 19 at 3:00 p.m.
• You’ll get the best view possible, the same smooth, finished experience our students and staff will enjoy. It’s going to be worth the wait!

Status & Accomplishments

Another sprint wrapped, and wow, there’s a lot to celebrate! The team has been busy building, testing, and launching, and we’re seeing huge momentum across the project. Here’s what we’ve pulled off together:

• R&A Marketing Cloud and Event Management (Blackthorn) is officially live! Admissions emails are going out, and IP warming has begun, meaning more students are starting to see real messages in their inbox. Learn more about the R&A Phase 1 launch by reading the full article on Utah State Today.
• Undergraduate application is nearly complete! We delivered the final big features:
  • Application Fee Payment Gateway
  • Territory Assignments & Reassignments
  • Action Plans to guide next steps
• Graduate application build is in full swing! Major pieces are already in place, including:
  • Letters of Recommendation
  • Decision Letters
  • Supplemental Forms
  • Document Uploads
• User experience improvements like USU branding and photos are now live.
• Phase 2 preparations are underway! Work on Advancement has begun and will progress alongside Recruitment & Admissions.
• The project is now officially IN THE GREEN (good standing status), a major milestone that closes out several big risks.

Accomplishments

• R&A Marketing Cloud & Blackthorn Events are live, sending admissions emails.
• Undergraduate application is nearly complete with fees, assignments, action plans, and yield tracking.
• Graduate application build is underway with recommendations, test scores, decisions, uploads, and UX improvements.
• Phase 2 preparations for Advancement have started alongside Recruitment & Admissions.
• Project status: IN THE GREEN, closing major risks.

Phase 1 is Live: Marketing Cloud and Event Management for Recruiting & Admissions

Status & Accomplishments

The OneUSU CRM team has been hard at work wrapping up the final core features for the Undergraduate Recruitment and Admissions application. Here’s what we’ve been up to over the past three weeks:

• Application Process Enhancements: We’ve delivered several key updates to make the application experience smoother for students and more efficient for staff. These include:
• A streamlined process for students to pay their fees
• Improved tools for uploading supplemental documents
• Smarter assignment and reassignment of applications to recruiters
• A new process to close out completed applications
• A dashboard to help recruiters track their progress and workload
• Preparing for Marketing Cloud Launch: We’re also getting ready for the August 15 launch of Marketing Cloud, which will support personalized, timely communications to prospective students. Final touches are being made on audience groups, automated message journeys, and data integrations. We’ve also started testing systems like UTREx and Banner to ensure everything runs smoothly together.
• What's Next: In the upcoming sprints, the team will wrap up a few remaining items for Undergraduate R&A and begin focusing on building features for Graduate Recruitment and Admissions. Testing and validation for the Marketing Cloud setup will continue in preparation for launch.

Status & Accomplishments

Here's what we've been up to over the past three weeks:

• Timeline Update: We’ve updated our go-live strategy to a staggered, phase-based approach to help teams adopt changes smoothly and give us space to improve as we go. Here’s what’s new:
• Marketing & Events for Recruitment and Admissions is now going live on August 15, ahead of the original September 1 launch date
• Undergraduate and Graduate applications will go live on January 1, 2026
• Advancement phase discovery has been moved up and is already underway
• The Academic Enterprise phase will now kick off this fall, earlier than originally planned
• New Recruiting & Admission Features:
• A secure system for students to pay their application fees online
• Automated decision letters to quickly let students know their admissions status
• Options for students to defer their start date or enroll in multiple programs at once
• New tools to help admissions and recruitment teams work more efficiently
• Test Score Access Coming Soon: We’re testing a system that will automatically pull in ACT and SAT scores, making it easier and faster for teams to review applications.
• Student Record Integration: We’re also continuing to connect everything with Banner, USU’s main student information system.
• Marketing Cloud Update – Ready for Launch: We’re on track for the August 15 launch of our new Marketing Cloud tools. So far:
  • Student interest data has been loaded
  • Criteria-based email automations are being built
  • Personalized messages are almost ready to go
  These updates will help us reach students with the right message at the right time.
• Change Network Launch: The Change Network is a core strategy for engaging stakeholders and supporting a successful Salesforce rollout. It includes three groups: Change Champions, Facilitators, and Executive Sponsors. Each group plays a vital role in sharing updates, reinforcing training, and helping teams adopt the new system with confidence.
• From Sprint Demos to Product Showcases: We’ve transformed sprint demos into Product Showcases, concise, focused sessions that spotlight tangible progress and the student/staff experience. Held every Wednesday following each sprint, these showcases provide early access to new features, invite valuable feedback, and promote cross-team visibility. Our inaugural showcase featured highlights from Sprint 6 and was a great success.

Status & Accomplishments

• Sprint Success: Sprint 5 (a focused 3-week period where the team works to complete a specific set of tasks) focused on building key features like admissions decision letters, deferment options, application stages, PayPal application payments, a new Marketing Cloud preference/opt-out center, communication journeys for prospective students, and supplemental items.
• Building the Application Experience: We’ve been working on key parts of the application, like pages for contact information, test scores (ACT, SAT, TOEFL), and a fun digital confetti celebration when a student sees they’ve been accepted to USU. Applicants will be able to respond with their decision about whether they’re coming to USU, deferring, or declining. The important form where students can share information about any past felony or misdemeanor, a key part of the application process, has been built.
• Tech Advancements Behind the Scenes: The team made great progress on major system integrations:
• Banner integration continued moving forward
• UTREx, the tool that helps USU collect student transcript data from the state database, completed its technical design and moved into development
• Common App connection design also advanced steadily
• Change Management Strategy Delivered: The Change Management team finalized the OneUSU CRM Change Management Strategy, which serves as our game plan for helping people successfully adapt to the new tools and ways of working. It includes detailed plans for communication, stakeholder engagement, training and enablement, adoption, long-term success, and a clear roadmap to guide change efforts through the rest of the project.