What does HEDA mean for higher education institutions using Salesforce.com?

Michael Bene, Lauren Halloran

Foundation is everything. In every field, and every facet of life without a solid foundation you've built a house of cards. 

We're excited about the prospects of Salesforce’s newest product, Higher Education Data Architecture (HEDA), and what it means for higher education users of Salesforce.com. For a long time Institutions have grappled with the architecture of their data model. Do we use person accounts or not? Relationships, how do we handle them? What is the ideal structure to truly gain a 360-degree view of my constituents? These early questions and decisions have an impact on the overall success of projects and an institution’s ability to scale its solution. 

That's why HEDA is important. It's a foundation that lets you get started with Salesforce faster than ever. The best part is that it's simple. It provides basic elements that customers and partners can build and it extends to meet their needs, ultimately assuring that all parties are moving in the same direction at the same time. 

HEDA will allow our customers to realize the following benefits:

• More easily structure data that is often siloed within various units at a home institution
• Provide flexibility to view students with multiple lenses, connecting all pieces of their experience with and at your institution throughout their lifetime, allowing for a true 360-degree view
• Create a common language for institutions to discuss various institutional data that may not be as deeply understood outside its “home” location
• Share best practices on utilizing student and constituency data with a common language
• Realize a faster return on the Salesforce investment thanks to the ability to save time and people resources typically used on data cleanup and migration 

Huron plans to be an early adopter of the current architecture and a design partner for the next evolution of HEDA. We expect Salesforce.com to become a key strategic component of the information architecture in the Higher Education landscape.