Harris Connect

INTERNET SERVICES DELIVER STREAMLINED EVENTS MANAGEMENT, SEAMLESS DATA UPDATES TO QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY

Quinnipiac University has leveraged the power of two key components of Harris Connect Internet Services to enhance events registration and reporting, and upgrade the way vital alumni information is updated.

“With Harris Connect, we can now capture more events-related data, and create spreadsheets and reports based on select criteria,” said Amy Rosen, Assistant Director of Alumni & Parent Relations. Rosen explained that previously, her office used a very basic online events registration tool, which required information to manually be entered into a spreadsheet. “Now, all our event registration forms are exclusively online, which is a huge time-saver, and reduces the possibility of keying errors. We also send out far less mail, which saves printing and postage.”

Rosen explained that events promotion is done via a postcard mailing directing alumni to go directly to the website to register. A broadcast email is sent out in conjunction with the postcard mailing. “Alumni love it - it’s easy, quick, they can register at their convenience any time. The ‘Who’s Coming’ display is a great marketing feature that we’ve found to be very effective. Alumni are very interested in seeing who’s already registered for the event.”

According to Rosen, the broadcast email has been incredibly valuable. “It’s a quick way to notify alumni of an event, and it’s great to be able to segment by class year, state, and other specific criteria,” she said. “The tool has also become quite helpful for quickly alerting alumni of last-minute changes. For example, recently, we’ve had a time change for a Saturday basketball game, and we were notified on Wednesday, which isn’t enough time to send a mailing. Broadcast email is the best way to pass that information along to ticket-holders.”

It’s been wonderful,” said Rosen. “As Harris Connect continues to add features and enhancement, we will continue to take advantage of them.”

The University has also used Internet Services to custom-tailor the way that crucial alumni data is updated. They’ve developed a unique process that meets their specific needs, and provides a seamless, easy flow of data, according to Janice Johnson, Director of Advancement Services.

“We use a combination of manual entry - daily updates to our in-house database - and a weekly automated process to update the online directory - and it works very well for us, “said Johnson.

Johnson explained that each morning, Harris Connect sends an email with any updates that were made to the online directory the previous day. The email is reviewed and the database is manually updated where needed. “We prefer to use this manual method of updating to check and edit the data, to meet our formatting standards before it’s entered onto the database,” she said. Data updated collected from returned mail, alumni phone calls and emails and news clippings are also updated on a daily basis.

According to Johnson, the online directory is kept in sync with the in-house database by uploading changes on a weekly basis. “We run a program from our system which picks up any records that had a demographic change within the time frame specified and upload that data to the old using the Harris Secure File Transfer site,” she said. “We receive an email the following day which lets us know whether our updates were successful. We use this same process to add new records to the online directory when a new class graduates.”

“We feel confident that the data on both databases is being kept in sync and that the data integrity of both databases is being preserved.”