Objectives
In the first stage, the team will be implementing software that will improve the QUT communication tools. Salesforce 1 for Higher Education is the software that will be implemented for the QUT. The software will help to enhance the communication between QUT and its students. Currently, QUT is using Blackboard, Emails and face to face meetings to communicate with students. Therefore, by using Salesforce 1 for Higher Education, QUT shall connect the entire university by linking different tools of communication, such as QUT Blackboard, Emails, and Social media applications. Such will be a great opportunity for staff and students to communicate in a better and easier way. It is because students can receive notifications from their lecturers and tutors through their Facebook and Twitter accounts by using a computer or mobile phone.
Such a move will not only facilitate easier access to daily announcement that has posted by lecturers or tutors, but also shall enable the students to receive alerts about final exams, assignments submissions, grades review, and emergency alerts as well sent by the institution administrators. In addition, the software shall also help the both the students and the staff in that the information shall be received on real time basis through direct notification in their phones other than the use of the face to face or blackboard.
Deliverables
Better communication
This service will make communication better between the staff and the students since they will be always connected through their mobile phones. Due to this, messages from the tutors will be surely delivered to the students in the best way.
Easy to use
This service is very simple and easy to use where Salesforce will work as a normal application. It has many services that are provided to the students, such as connecting to all social media applications and sending alerts about QUT email.
Personal benefits
This service does not have to be only used for the university reasons. The students can use this service to connect all their social media applications, and any application that they may like, such as currency conversion.
Help Students and staff
The main objective of using this service is to make sure that students and staff in the university are updated with all the information that they need such as emergency alerts. Therefore, it is highly useful software to both students and staff.
Cut cost of communication
The traditional communication channels use a lot of resource. The use of this software shall reduce the cost of communication among the students and the staff greatly. For example, the use of blackboards from messages shall reduce greatly and hence save money from tools used in writing.
Save time
The face to face communication is not efficient since some of the students may not be present, therefore, the time spend waiting for them or even gathering them is saved. In addition, the students shall save time since they are not required to find time to go and read notices on the blackboard.
Time Allocation
This activity will be spirited into 3 stages within a span 7 to 8 weeks. The first stage is that of installing the software and connecting it to the university tools and applications such as email and blackboard. It shall take one week for this process on installation and connection. During this process, the IT consultants will make sure that the service is totally secured and totally user-friendly to the students. The IT consultants will then test the application for bugs before releasing the service to the students to use.
Second stage is the feedback stage whereby after releasing the service, QUT needs to know how the students and QUT staff is working with the application. For example, how easy and simple is the application to the students and how it helps them to be connected with the university. The feedback will be sent by the students through Salesforce. It may take two to three weeks since this is the longest process where QUT needs to make sure that all of the students have experienced the service. The final stage of the implementation is teaching the staff how to use the service and how to deal with any problem that may occur on the system. This stage will take approximately two weeks.
COSTS
First-month cost
The reason of choosing the Salesforce is the new offer the Salesforce is offering to the customers. In the first month, Salesforce is free; therefore, QUT can offer the application without paying anything to Salesforce team. During the free months, students can use all of the functions that Salesforce is offering such as Email integration Outlook, Gmail, mobile access, Integration via Web Services API, etc.
After first-month cost
The cost of the service will be covered by the university and will be offered to the students as a free service. Full-service price of Salesforce is not known yet. However, as a team, we have tried to discuss with Salesforce costumer care, and they told us that prices cannot be discussed unless one has a company.
Distribution of time
As shown in the Gantchart above, the activities during the business improvement plan have been organized well. There are activities for exploring the problems, detecting the errors, sending, and receiving feedbacks, and lastly training the staff in the university how to deal with it
Overview
In all, there are a total of eleven activities that will last for twenty-one weeks. It will contain three phases with the first one being detecting the problems and bugs and fixing them. The second phase is receiving feedbacks from the students and staff, and last phase is training the staff how to use and deal with the service.
Salesforce for higher education
The Salesforce activity will last for 5 weeks. It will contain 3 phases. Phase 1 will contain the debugging section which will help the IT consultant to find any problems that may face the students and staff while using the service. Phase 2 is receiving of the feedback from the students about the service. Phase 3 is teaching the staff how to deal with the service.
Phasing out Unnecessary platforms
The phasing out activity will last for six weeks; it will contain two phases that will be each three weeks where checking of all the three processes of implantation shall take place. First phase prepares for the phase out. The Second phase is for monitoring problems of the 3 applications processes.
Staff Retraining
The staff retraining activity will last for eight weeks. This activity has 3 phases. First phase is for training the head faculty in QUT. The second phase is training all the staff in the university. The third phase is training the staff that missed the first training.
References
Sales Force Foundation: Hired Product (n.d). Retrieved on October 22, 2014 from http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/highered_product/sales- cloud/
Sales Force 1 for Higher Ed-YouTube. Retrieved on October 22, 2014 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCgmCedFlQQ#t=32
