Now that you and your team are Slate Certified, it’s time to 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.

Your task: create a catalogue of your current data requirements.

Creating a data requirements catalogue

The power of Slate lies in automated, data-driven operations.

Many of your business operations are likely to change once you transition to Slate. The more effectively you can use record data in queries and rules, the more efficient your new database operations will be.

For each data requirement in your current process, get answers from your team and stakeholders for the following questions:

Why it’s gathered in the first place

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

• How do your prospective, current, or future students interact with this data in an ideal world?

Where it starts

• Where is the data point created? In your SIS? Your LMS? On paper?

• Why collect information in this manner?

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

• What are you looking to achieve with this data?

Where it goes

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

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

Documenting your processes

Write down the way you do things now. This kind of documentation serves you in two ways:

• It gives you something concrete to fall back on when you’re in the weeds of implementing the new system

• As you write it, you’ll find areas of your process that can be either improved or done away with entirely

That said, don’t treat your current process as sacrosanct: be willing to start fresh when Slate tools present a simpler way of doing things.

Next up: Phase II: Roadmap

Once you have:

• Established your Slate Admin team and steering committee (Step 1)

• Taken Fundamentals of Admissions and Enrollment (Step 2)

• Clarified the goal and the data required for each process (you are here)

You’re ready to work through the Roadmap!

➡️ Next: Phase II: The Roadmap