The Contact Management System (CRM) provides a complete record of communications between University service providers and their clients. The CRM is made-up of one central and versatile interface for all users needing to communicate to their clients. This interface provides a standardized data entry process regardless of the user.
The CRM home page has two major divisions:
- Contact Management Processes
- Communication Dashboard
The CRM home page is navigated to from the e-Services home page. The Contact Management link is located under the e-Services Options/Admission heading on the left column of the page.
The Contact Management Processes contains four modules. These modules are used to process and record the various mailings.
- Regular Mailings
- Prospective Parent Mailings
- Miscellaneous Individual Mailings
- Individual Communications
The Communication Dashboard displays the logged on user's Regular and Miscellaneous mailings that have been sent in the past 10 days.
The purpose of the Regular Mailings module is to coordinate mass or standard communications from campus departments to their constituents. Another purpose is to capture a log of the communication activity for future reference and strategic evaluation. The module includes the following sub modules:
- Who. The Audience menu and form are used to build audiences that will receive the Regular mailings.
- Audiences are date-tracked. The specific client can be end-dated once they are no longer to be sent the Regular mailings.
- You will only be able to view the audiences for which you have been granted access.
- You will only be able to edit audiences entered by someone in your organization.
- The maximum size of an audience is 16,500 recipients.
Suggestion: If you have an audience larger than 16,500 recipients, you will need to segment the audience into smaller groups.
- Knowledge of Structured Query Language (SQL) is required. WHERE snippets are available in a drop-down list that greatly reduces the time to build the SQL statement.
- What. The Content menu and form are used to specify the content that will be sent to the selected audience.
- Content is date-tracked. The content can be end-dated so that it will not be used past the desired date.
- Records can be created to hold information about the letter, postcard, etc. Most content will be stored outside the database.
Note: While this module does not normally store the content, it does have storage capability.
- Max Jogs (number of times the content, can be sent to one client) can be specified.
- You will only be able to view content that is part of your department.
- Knowledge of SQL is required when producing a list to be used for mail merge. SELECT clusters are available in a drop-down list that greatly reduces the time to build the SQL statement.
- When. The Regular Mailing Send menu and Schedule Send form are used to specify when the content is to be sent.
- The date to be sent is specified.
- The mailing, with a send link, will appear on the main menu on the day it is to be sent.
- Goals and desired responses for the mailing can be entered.
- The communication type can be entered.
- Once an item is sent, the record is locked and cannot be re-edited.
Note: The mailing can be resent.
- The Regular mailing send log is not date-tracked.
- Who. The Recipient List menu is used to review Regular mailings. This review contains:
- Recipient
- Content
- Date sent
The Prospective Parent Mailings is a separate module due to the special logic necessary to combine partners. Once the record is entered, the program selects the parents and merges the partner information into one record per address.
- Mailings. The Parent Send form is a scaled down version of the Schedule Send form.
- Content is specified.
- Audience is specified.
- Date to be sent is specified.
- Audiences can be excluded if they have already received the mailing.
The Miscellaneous mailings are standard letters or post cards that are mailed to individuals rather than large audiences. This module allows the user to identify items a client should be sent and then adds them to a queue. The mailroom or mailroom agent for the department can then send a "bulk" mailing by assembling all of the individual requests.
- Enter Requests. The Miscellaneous mail menu and form are used to:
- View information related to a communication.
- Add recipients and content to a Miscellaneous mailing.
- Store information relative to an individual mailing.
- Process Miscellaneous Request. The Miscellaneous Mail Send Page is used to process the request.
- The Send Page is run only once a day.
- Instructions are embedded on the page.
- Allows for resending.
The Individual Communications allows for logging individual communications such as face to face meetings and phone calls. This module makes it possible to log these communications with a description of the exchange.
- Enter Notes. The Communications form is used to record the pertinent data concerning the communication.
- Sender and recipients.
- Type of communication.
- Follow-up information.
- Summary and comments concerning the communication.
- The person doing the communication and their organization (within DePauw).
- The contact information can be made private or public.
- Review. The Individual Communication form is used to view information related to a specific communication.
- The information can be edited.
- The communication can be removed (expired) from the report but still be in the database.
- The communication can be deleted (purged) from the report and database.
Miscellaneous Communication Menu
Miscellaneous Communication Form