In 2023, the Advancement Department at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) decided the limitations of their ERP system, Banner, had become problematic enough to seek a new solution. Anyone in advancement who has worked with Banner is familiar with challenges like the system’s rigidity when it comes to making lists and reports. PCOM’s Advancement Department Director, Connie Ennis, carried the burden of running reports, which with Banner’s limited options, was a difficult task. Connie and her team had to spend a lot of time on data fixes in spreadsheets and on manual entry, including booking 125 monthly payroll deduction installments by hand.

Sleek’s conversion experts are familiar with the shortcomings of Banner, and more and more frequently, they’re converting advancement shops out of it and onto Salesforce. Candy Hamblin, Solutions Architect at Sleek who focuses primarily on database integrations, reflects on her experience using the system:

Banner doesn’t work well with advancement offices. Advancement works more like sales, but there’s no easy way to generate lists or reports, you have to jump through hoops to make reports. It’s very utilitarian and holds a lot of data but is not flexible. With Salesforce you can add fields, create reports, and have lots of flexibility with your database.

What do you do when not everyone is ready for change?

As PCOM’s advancement team looked to Sleek and the industry-leading QSS™ for Salesforce implementation solution, they encountered a dilemma not uncommon in the higher ed technology space. There were departments on campus that needed to remain on Banner so as not to disrupt long-standing business processes. With a typical implementation, you move everything from one platform to another, migrating or reinventing business processes and, eventually, ending your contract with the legacy system provider. With some important business process owners resisting change and the advancement team ready for a new system, PCOM needed a way to make everyone happy and keep disparate systems aligned.

This is where Sleek’s expertise comes in. Salesforce’s open API infrastructure means that with the right know-how, custom integration with external systems can be designed to suit an organization’s unique needs. Both Salesforce and Banner have their own unique parameters and specific database protocols. To set up constant communication between the two, you need a “translator” who is fluent in two languages—a systems and industry expert with extensive knowledge of both Banner and Salesforce. And that person needs to know the industry, too. With decades of experience in advancement, direct experience working for a university, and Salesforce prowess, Sleek’s Solution Architect, Candy, was suited for the job.

You can’t get rid of code in Banner or change it. Once it’s created it can’t be changed. You must have a database programmer to do it for you. A lot of the time these changes are low on the totem pole for IT. Banner data entry is very intensive, and not very flexible. Salesforce is empowering to the end user, not requiring so many loopholes to get things done.

-Candy H., Lead Solutions Architect, Sleek 

Candy worked closely with PCOM’s programmer analyst, Rimma Grinberg, to make the impossible possible. Candy wrote code and put it into Banner’s database so that it would play nicely with Salesforce, establishing procedures and staging tables so that it would work with the integration, not against it. Candy collaborated with Rimma every step of the way to ensure not only that the integration worked as it should, but also so that PCOM could confidently take ownership of an integration that would set them up for success in the long term.

So, what does the Banner-Salesforce integration do?

The custom-built data transfer between Banner and Salesforce automatically rolls students from Banner over to Salesforce weekly. Student records are kept up to date in Salesforce, covering both updates of existing records and creation of new entries for students not yet migrated to the advancement system. When a student graduates, their alumni status is quickly reflected in Salesforce. A new donor category code is assigned to these individuals, making sure their contributions and engagement are accurately tracked within Salesforce. This automated and comprehensive approach means the PCOM team doesn’t have to worry about disparities between the two databases and they can trust the data that they depend on.

Candy built around each department’s requirements. With students it was straight to Salesforce, but others, like finance, it was back and forth from Banner to Salesforce. She perfectly understood what PCOM needed. Our scholarship project improved, which was better for advancement and saved hours of manual data entry, along with cutting time spent modifying Excel spreadsheets.

-Rimma Grinberg, Programmer Analyst, PCOM

The integration of new alumni into the system proved critical for PCOM’s advancement efforts. Newly graduated students seamlessly transition into the college’s fundraising system on Salesforce. Sleek was able to configure the integration without disrupting active processes in Banner, meaning that PCOM could continue day-to-day functioning without any interruptions while the advancement team got accustomed to Salesforce through QSS™ trainings with Sleek Business Analysts.

Sleek’s Jason Long also came up with an novel solution for managing tables and guest seating. The best part about it? It didn’t involve a third-party app that would add extra costs to the project. Instead, Jason created a collection of reports and displayed them on a dashboard so that the IiO team had a visual representation of their tables and could see how many attendees were assigned to each.

Salesforce is a big system. But I will say that with the Sleek team I never felt like I was alone. I would never go a day without being answered, and I think that is really important, because new systems always come with learning curves.

-Connie E., Director of Advancement 

PCOM is on a roll