A successful implementation begins with good preparation. Complete these three critical preparation steps to lay the foundation for your implementation:

Step 1: Establishing your Slate team and steering committee

First, establish your Slate team. The Slate team builds out new functionality and transitions records from your previous system into Slate.

Your Slate team should include:

• up to three database managers, also known as Slate Admins

• staff in roles like event management, marketing and communications

Your Slate team should meet regularly. Frequent collaboration helps your team cross-train and monitor implementation progress.

Selecting your Slate Admins

A good Slate Admin understands your current admission and enrollment processes to depth.

But despite this deep understanding, they aren’t hidebound by how things used to be done: they should value creativity and flexibility when translating legacy operations into new Slate-based functionality.

Ideal candidates include:

• Directors of Operations

• Associate or Senior Admissions Directors

• Admissions Coordinators

Selecting your steering committee and stakeholders

During implementation, the Slate steering committee promotes your Slate mission, aligns it toward institutional goals, and provides strategic guidance.

After launch, the steering committee continues to provide governance that shapes the development and use of Slate going forward.

The steering committee typically consists of:

• Leadership: Defines your mission and expedites critical decisions

• Admissions staff: The primary builders and ultimate end-users, admissions staff lead the implementation and provide insight into current processes

• IT: Define current data collection and usage beyond admissions and support integration processes with other external and campus systems

• Marketing: Synchronize with campus initiatives and maintain institutional brand

• Other Departments: Representatives from departments such as Financial Aid, Registrar, and Student Services to develop new processes that benefit applicants and enrolled students

• Preferred Partners: Although third parties are not required for implementation, institutions that desire deeper project management resources and technical expertise benefit from engaging a Slate Preferred Partner. Slate Preferred Partners offer on-campus and remote dedicated services, including implementation, consulting, and support services for your Slate projects and priorities.

📝 Note: Slate is not a conventional IT project. Slate is designed to be administered by its primary users, namely admissions and enrollment staff. The majority of implementation tasks are focused on business processes and are completed directly by Slate Admins with minimal intervention by IT staff.

Collaboration between Slate Admins and the steering committee

Slate Admins should meet with the steering committee to provide functional advice and gather input. Steering committees often meet on a monthly or quarterly schedule.

Step 2: Taking the Fundamentals of Slate for Admissions course

Familiarize yourself with basic Slate functionality, key concepts, and best practices before building out operations in Slate. The Fundamentals of Admissions and Enrollment course in the Learning Lab provides a complete overview of Slate. While each Slate database includes three waivers for core team members to attend at no cost, additional users can attend for a nominal fee.

To make sure your team gets the most out of the Fundamentals coursework, plan on meeting at least twice during your training and again at course completion. Training together fosters teamwork and provides a great opportunity to share ideas about the implementation.

➡️ Take Fundamentals of Admissions and Enrollment

Step 3: Reviewing your current processes

Undertake a comprehensive review of all your current operations.

Focus on the purpose and the data requirements of each legacy process. Use this review to assess critical needs and develop an implementation project plan.

Create a catalogue of your current data requirements. The power of Slate is rooted in automated, data-driven operations. How you carry out many business operations will likely change once you transition to Slate; however, the more effectively you can use record data in queries and rules, the more efficient your new database operations will be.

When auditing your current processes, ask your team and stakeholders the following questions about necessary data points:

• Is this data point accurate? Is it necessary to do our job?

• Where is the data point created? Our SIS? Our LMS?

• Who uses this piece of information? In what capacity?

• Is this value something that can change? Or is it purely historical?

• Why do we collect information in this manner?

• What are we looking to achieve with this form, event, or report?

• How do our prospective, current, or future students interact with us in an ideal world?

• What do we care about? What is ultimately necessary to address those desires?

Next: Roadmap and project planning

Once you have:

• Established your Slate Admin team and steering committee

• Taken Fundamentals of Admissions and Enrollment

• Clarified the goal and the data required for each process

You’re ready to build new operations in Slate.

➡️ Next: Phase II: The Roadmap and Project Planning