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The Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Request for Proposal
Addendum 2
Customer Relationship Management Software
RFP 11-CRM-1108
Issue Date:
November 8, 2011
Closing Date:
November 23, 2011 @ 3:00:00 p.m. (local time)
Submit Proposals To:
Perian Tebbutt, Manager Purchasing Services
Employee Services Building
Conestoga College Institute of
Technology and Advanced Learning
299 Doon Valley Drive
Kitchener, ON N2G 4M4
Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
www.conestogac.on.ca
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All work described within this addendum forms part of the RFP and is to be included in the value submitted on the tender form documents and noted therein. Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning will not be held responsible for any effects caused by exclusion of any kind of this document within the contract.
Description
:
Please see below for answers to questions that have been asked regarding the RFP.
1. Question: How many student prospects do you expect?
Answer: Annual estimate 25,000 - 35,000.
2. Question: How many users of the CRM system do you expect?
Answer: Ultimately estimate 25-35 users.
3. Question: Do you expect students to be able to login to a portal to see their
information?
Answer: Initial phases we are not expecting students to login to a portal to
see their information. Their primary interface will remain our Student Information System.
4. Question: Regarding the requirement to integrate with Conestoga’s current
SIS described in Section 2.2, is the current SIS a commercial off-the-shelf or 3rd party application, or was it built internally?
Answer: Originally off-the-shelf however, Conestoga has taken over the
intellectual rights to this production and are responsible for all future development.
5. Question: Regarding the requirement to integrate with Conestoga’s current
SIS described in Section 2.2, if the current SIS was internally developed, is the current SIS hosted or on-premise?
Answer: On-premise
6. Question: Regarding the requirement to integrate with Conestoga’s current
SIS described in Section 2.2, it the current SIS is on-premise, can you briefly describe the hardware & environment the SIS runs in (OS, Servers, DB, etc.)?
Answer: Windows 2008/2003, SQL Server 2008, virtualized application
servers and physical DB servers.
7. Question: Regarding the requirement to integrate with Conestoga’s current
SIS described in Section 2.2, if the current SIS was internally developed, please what database platform is in use, i.e. is it Oracle or MS SQL based?
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8. Question: Regarding the requirement to integrate with Conestoga’s current
SIS described in Section 2.2, will the CRM system be required to process Coltrane nightly downloads from OCAS, or will data from OCAS be entered into the SIS directly to be retrieved by the CRM through integration?
Answer: The Coltrane file will be imported into our SIS and plan to create a
dataview that the CRM can access. We have more than just OCAS applications to be accessed by the CRM.
9. Question: Regarding the requirement to integrate with Conestoga’s current
SIS described in Section 2.2, can you provide an overview of the table structure and data dictionary with some level of explanation on the SIS system
functionality as it relates to the integration you are looking for?
Answer: Initially we are looking at applicant (person) and program data to
be access, but this will be expanded in future phases.
10. Question: Regarding the requirement to integrate with Conestoga’s current
SIS described in Section 2.2, are you looking for SIS integration to ease the on-boarding process of new students or to try to drive closed loop marketing reporting…i.e. you want to reflect back into your CRM who actually became a student, perhaps what courses they signed up for?
Answer: Both.
11. Question: In Appendix D, Section A1, a multi-phased approach is described.
Please provide an estimated # of CRM system users required for faculties included in Phase 1, Phase 2, and overall annually for years 1-5.
Answer: Phase 1 – 10, Phase 2 – 25 – 30, Expect 30-35 in out years –
best estimate at this time.
12. Question: Considering the users, can you please describe the organizational
structure and roles/job functions of those who you would expect to be users of the new CRM system?
Answer: Student Recruitment Officers, Admissions Office Personnel,
Marketing Management, IT representatives.
13. Question: What if any security guidelines might exist for different
roles/faculties i.e. will everyone see everything? Will you require the ability to restrict access or visibility to data based on a user’s role or job function?
Answer: Will want the ability to restrict access/visibility in some cases.
14. Question: Considering the users, is there a requirement for users to access
the CRM system via mobile devices? If so, would mobile access apply to all users, or be limited by role/function? Additionally, please list the phones/devices currently supported.
Answer: Yes. Likely function specific at least initially – Student
Recruitment Officers.
15. Question: With respect to the initial priority to provide immediate response to
applicants in low-enrollment programs described in Appendix D, Section A, can you please briefly describe your application receipt process, how applications are received by Conestoga, and where applications & data are housed presently?
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Answer: Applications are received from OCAS as well as entered manually
within our SIS system. All data will be housed within SIS, however, we are looking at building a dataview which will allow the CRM to access the information in order to continue the recruitment process with these prospective students.
16. Question: Does the application receipt process differ from Full-time,
Part-time, and Apprenticeship programs?
Answer: Yes. Full time applications are primarily received through OCAS,
however, we have many non-funded programs where the applications are entered directly into our SIS. If a student is interested in studying part-time in our full time program, the application will mostly go through OCAS. Apprenticeship students don’t apply through ocas but rather the ministry. Students send their registration fees in order to be processed in a program within SIS. For part-time program registration, the students complete a college application form. For part-time course registrations, transactions are completed by the Registrar’s Office, or on-line via the student portal. Registration forms can be mailed, faxes, or
dropped off.
17. Question: Regarding the initial priority to provide immediate response to
applicants in low-enrollment programs described in Appendix D, Section A, please explain how you current identify low-enrollment programs?
Answer: The specific programs vary year-to-year. Low enrollment defined
as not hitting a pre-determined annual target/budget.
18. Question: Regarding the initial priority to provide immediate response to
applicants in low-enrollment programs described in Appendix D, Section A, how many low-enrollment programs are projected to be supported in Phase 1?
Answer: 5-10 programs are expected to be the focus as low-enrollment
ones.
19. Question: Are there programs of all types (FT/PT/Apprentice) currently
considered “low-enrollment” requiring immediate attention in Phase 1?
Answer: This would primarily apply to Full-Time programs.
20. Question: For the purposes of scoping and shaping lead nurturing effort in
the initial phase described in Appendix D, Section A, how many prospective students are projected from the identified low-enrollment programs for Phase 1.
Answer: 2,500 – 5,000 prospective students. However, we are requesting
that all applicants are acknowledged via the CRM solution for phase 1 - # of applicants estimated at approx. 30,000 students.
21. Question: For the purposes of scoping and shaping lead nurturing effort in
the initial phase described in Appendix D, Section A, how many communications or touches do you plan to send, through which mediums to the identified
applicants in support of Phase 1.
Answer: 5-10 touches for the average prospective student, 10 – 15 touches
for the low-enrollment program prospective students. Mediums will initially skew to email campaigns and phone campaigns.
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22. Question: For the purposes of scoping and shaping lead nurturing effort in
the initial phase described in Appendix D, Section A, what are you enrolment growth goals over the period of this contract for the identified programs?
Answer: 5-10% growth per year.
23. Question: For the purposes of scoping and shaping lead nurturing effort in
the initial phase described in Appendix D, Section A, what % of applicants are accepted?
Answer: 65 – 70%
24. Question: For the identified programs in Phase 1, do you need to identify,
track and communicate to students who accept but do not become students at the college?
Answer: Yes potentially.
25. Question: For the purposes of scoping and shaping lead nurturing effort in
the second phase described in Appendix D, Section A, please estimate the volume of email sent to prospective students / month at peak recruiting time vs. the period of lowest activity level.
Answer: 50,000 – 100,000/month vs. 10,000 – 15,000 (estimate)
26. Question: Considering potential use of portals noted in item 2 of Appendix D
section C, will portal accessibility be required for phase 1, or phase 2 as outlined?
Answer: Definitely not Phase 1.
27. Question: What if any existing data will need to migrated into the CRM
system?
Answer: Select student details from our SIS system to facilitate the CRM
function No migration of data to take place but rather a dataview for the CRM to access the data.
28. Question: How does Conestoga current track off campus school visits? How
are these reported on today for progress marking or effectiveness?
Answer: Manual tracking. OCAS - # of applicants per school/comparisons
to previous years.
29. Question: How does Conestoga currently capture and track campus tour
requests and events? How are these reported on today for progress marking or effectiveness?
Answer: Manual tracking. Measure year to year increases in numbers.
30. Question: How does Conestoga currently capture and track literature
requests? How are these reported on today for progress marking or effectiveness?
Answer: We currently have an application on our legacy system that we
are still using.
31. Question: How does Conestoga manage literature fulfillment (Viewbook,
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Answer: The requests are entered within our legacy system and students
assist with the mail out activity.
32. Question: Are there any key processes being supported with other systems
or spreadsheets that require CRM interaction? What kind of transition issues might be presented?
Answer: Phone call campaign tracking – currently a manual process.
33. Question: What email system is used by the College today to communicate
with prospective students, and is it the same standard mail system used at the college provided by IT Services?
Answer: We use Microsoft Outlook internally, 3rd party vendor Constant
Contact (EC)
34. Question: Does the college monitor its email servers for blacklisting and
spam blocking? Please describe today’s processes.
Answer: We use the Maia Mailguard framework to process all incoming
email before delivering them to Exchange.
35. Question: What technology platforms do recruiting users use and access to
today (i.e. OS, Office Suite)?
Answer: Microsoft Office Suite, OCAS information
36. Question: Has the College’s Privacy Policy been reviewed or updated to
support new website tracking and data collection through web-forms associated with this project?
Answer: Privacy Policy and standards are in place including need for data
to be hosted in Canada, use of encryption etc.
37. Question: Is the College open to review its timelines?
Answer: The desire is to implement in a quality manner as quickly as
possible. The new enrollment year is critical to us 2012/2013 academic year.
38. Question: Has Conestoga College previously implemented or attempted to
implement other CRM-related projects in administration or recruitment areas in the past?
Answer: We have an application in our legacy system and have a
recruitment module as part of our initial purchase of our SIS.
39. Question: Is there a plan in place for internal change management and
conflict resolution within Conestoga for Phases 1 & 2 and beyond?
Answer: Not currently however open to best practice learning here.
40. Question: Will Conestoga consider the purchase of software for this project?
Answer: The plan was for a subscription based solution. Purchase may be
considered. Please refer to page 22 of the RFP, under 4.8.6 Alternate Proposal.
41. Question: Could you provide a copy of the Appendices in a word format?
Answer: Yes. Please send a request by email to Perian Tebbutt at
[email protected] for a copy of Appendices A, B and C, and, the OFFICIAL BID DOCUMENT in word.
