Salesforce Consulting and Product Partners of the Year for Education team up to create superior solutions
This is a weird time for event management, some of us are back to running events the old-fashioned way, while others are still living entirely in a virtual world. Whichever way you prefer to run your events, Blackthorn and Attain Partners can meet your needs. With Attain Partners’ solution design and implementation expertise and Blackthorn’s superior product capabilities, your organization can easily establish a system to plan and run events with efficiency and ease.
Attain Partners was thrilled to have the opportunity to co-host a partner-led webinar with Blackthorn championing this collaboration during Salesforce.org Week of Learning!
Every implementation expert at Attain Partners has seen more than a few event management apps that integrate with Salesforce, and all of us can tell you that not all integrations are created equal. With most event management tools, you are limited to the features included in the tool itself; there is no app store to extend your event management functionality. If you are lucky, your event integration may include enough data to pull together some basic analytics and tracking information within Salesforce, but there is no guarantee.
Since Blackthorn Events is installed directly into Salesforce, it automatically benefits from the robust set of features and apps that comes with the ever-growing Salesforce ecosystem. Whether you are looking for advanced analytics and reporting available with a Tableau integration or a full 360-degree view of your attendees and their interactions with your organization/institution, Blackthorn + Salesforce can make it happen, and Attain Partners can implement the solution for you.
Automating Event Check-In Process with Blackthorn Events
In-person events have a great edge when it comes to checking in your event attendees. Blackthorn mobile check-in allows anyone with a smartphone to check in attendees as they show up. That means you can log in your volunteers via the mobile check-in app and let them handle the check-in, badge printing, and QR code scanning process without worrying about data security since the only thing they can see is event information from within the app. Not only is mobile check-in effective and simple—it is also included with Blackthorn Events at no extra cost!
Blackthorn Events and Zoom for Virtual Simplicity
If you have ever tried to set up a virtual event using an event management app, chances are you were at least a little frustrated by the experience. With Blackthorn, you can streamline the process to the point where you almost don’t even need to think about setting up your virtual event. By integrating your Zoom account with Blackthorn Events, you can instantly make any Blackthorn event virtual. While building your event, simply enable your Zoom integration, and as your registrants sign up, they will automatically be added to the webinar list and receive the event attendance link in their confirmation email. It is just that easy! Blackthorn even offers integration options with several other webinar providers if you do not use Zoom.
Attain Partners can make Blackthorn work for you
Attain Partners has experience helping clients make Blackthorn Events work for all types of events, and we can do the same for you. To give you an idea of the types of events we have developed Blackthorn solutions for in the past:
College recruitment events for multiple universities, each with unique needs and event configurations. Using the Blackthorn mobile app, it is possible to register and check in walk-up attendees at your event with ease
Orientation weekends set up as multi-day events with breakout sessions and speakers. With Blackthorn, you can create complex, multi-day events without needing to pay for any expensive add-on features
Charity galas that include table reservations, guests, underwriters, and sponsors. The number of out-of-the-box features included in Blackthorn makes it possible to cover your event management needs.
Training webinar series designed to support hundreds of attendees at once. The Blackthorn webinar integration ensures that if you can find the audience, you will never be limited by a maximum number of attendees unless you want to.
Success at Hoag Hospital Foundation
Why is Attain Partners the best implementation partner for Blackthorn products? Because we know their product and its many use cases inside and out. Recently, Attain Partners encountered a specific need that could not be met by what Blackthorn offers out-of-the-box, so we put our skills to work to produce a solution. Hoag Hospital Foundation selected Blackthorn as part of their Salesforce implementation project with Attain Partners, but the only problem was that Hoag hosts multiple gala events a year and needs to be able to manage seating charts for those events. Although out-of-the-box Blackthorn supports the data behind seating charts, the user interface that goes with the seating chart data was not designed for making multiple seating updates quickly. This was going to result in considerable time invested in seating management. Attain Partners stepped in, designed, and created a drag-and-drop user interface for seating management using Lightning Web Components that install on top of Blackthorn Events to extend base functionality and improve the quality of life for Hoag team members. As a result of the custom solution we created for Hoag with Blackthorn, Hoag can now manage their seating assignments in a fast, effective, and modern way, saving their staff multiple hours per event and allowing them to shift their focus to other important tasks.
Events Innovation
We are always looking for the next big thing in events, so if you think you have a unique-use case, we would love to hear about it! Learn more about our Salesforce Innovation services here.
About the Author
Jason Cook is a Principal Consultant at Attain Partners. Jason has worked as a Salesforce implementation expert since shortly after he first discovered Salesforce in 2013. Jason’s passion for database design and creative problem-solving has proven to be an essential ingredient to success for dozens of organizations since he first got his start as an implementation expert.
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https://attainpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/Blackthorn-Webinar.png9671813Olivia PychaOlivia Pycha2022-09-23 15:44:552024-03-26 14:33:38No matter your event needs, Attain Partners and Blackthorn have you covered
Key Considerations After a Salesforce Implementation
Congratulations! After months of hard work, you and your team have completed a successful Salesforce implementation. Now what?
Many nonprofits don’t have the staff or resources to hire a dedicated Salesforce administrator, and in reality, many nonprofits don’t need one! Chances are, someone on your team has really taken to Salesforce and is interested in taking an active role in helping the team learn the ropes and solving problems that might come up. These people are often called Super Users or Accidental Admins and can be critical to the success of Salesforce at your organization.
Support for your admin
Accidental Admins know the ins and outs of your organization and processes, which is an invaluable aspect of being an effective Salesforce resource for your team. However, no one person knows every facet of Salesforce—and that’s where Managed Services for CRM (previously AttainPlus) from Attain Partners comes in. Having the managed services team in your admin’s corner can help your staff solve problems, provide training, and make improvements. Working with managed services doesn’t just mean getting the support of one more Salesforce expert; it’s a whole team with deep Salesforce knowledge.
Building relationships
Working with managed services means ongoing support from the same team, which allows you and your team to build relationships and trust. Having a team your Accidental Admin can trust provides a safety net and allows them the opportunity to outsource trickier questions rather than expending their time and resources. Chances are, the managed services team has encountered the same issue before and can help resolve it faster than a solo admin could do on their own. Forming relationships with people on the team can make it easier for your Accidental Admin to reach out for help—and to ask for guidance on problems they may want to solve themselves. In addition to making changes to help improve your Salesforce instance, they can also help your Accidental Admin gain confidence and develop a deeper understanding of Salesforce.
Protecting your investment
Salesforce is an ever-evolving ecosystem with multiple platform releases per year, plus app and updates that could make any solo admin’s head spin. The best way to protect your investment in Salesforce is to keep up with these changes and make updates in a thoughtful and intentional way. Teaming up with Attain Partners can help you stay on top of these updates to make sure your Salesforce instance continues to grow with you.
Attain Partners – Salesforce Experts
No matter if your organization is beginning its Salesforce journey or 10+ years into development, we are here to help you achieve your goals. To learn more, check out our Salesforce innovation services and read case studies about our work. Contact Attain Partners today to learn how we can help you achieve your goals by harnessing the power of Salesforce. Explore blog posts from Attain Partners’ Salesforce team.
About the Author
Beth Hintze is a Senior Specialist in the Salesforce Innovation Group. Prior to joining Attain Partners in 2022, she was the Director of Development Operations and Data Systems at the Innocence Project, where she specialized in strategic growth, operations management, and leading Salesforce integrations. She got her start in Salesforce at Patron Technology where she led hundreds of data migrations. She holds an M.A. from NYU in Educational Theater in Colleges and Communities. She spends her time going to punk shows.
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Change Management Techniques to Ensure Successful Adoption
It’s go-live day, and after months of design, development, testing, communications, and training, your organization has finally been onboarded to its new, shiny solution. This means your change journey stops here, right? Not quite…
According to Prosci®, a leading organization in change management capabilities and research, while making a change is hard, sustaining a change can be even more difficult. Over the course of the software delivery lifecycle, change managers sequentially build awareness, desire, knowledge, and ability around the organizational and systematic changes associated with a technology transformation. But, what about the “R” of the ADKAR® model? Reinforcement is the final building block of successful change adoption. Successful reinforcement is the result of each individual in the organization practicing, and gradually mastering, the new system and operational processes following go-live.
Post-Implementation Activities Your Change Management Plan Should Include to Support Reinforcement
User Adoption
One way to assess reinforcement needs is to develop visible performance metrics and accountability mechanisms. Implementing user-adoption dashboards is a way to achieve this. The insights gained with such dashboards will be helpful to understand what is working well, what areas may require additional training or communications, or if management direction and intervention may be necessary. Adoption statistics should always be tailored to the end users based on their role and use case for the new technical solution.
Post-Go-Live Change Management Activities
Performance metrics and user adoption dashboards often highlight the business processes where additional training is needed. Indicators that suggest a need for additional training include low engagement for a particular activity (e.g., submitting an expense report), or frequent errors in a business process (e.g., incorrect data or skipped steps). When these indicators arise, change management professionals must be prepared to distribute stakeholder communications urging users to access available training materials. As needed, holding office hours with subject matter experts (SMEs) is also a helpful tactic, providing a forum for end users to get hands-on guidance. When possible, change managers should work with people managers and other influential leaders (e.g., executive sponsors or change network representatives) to help direct colleagues to the available training materials, as well as support their learning through knowledge transfer.
User Feedback
While quantitative gaps in user adoption are often identified through performance metrics, there are qualitative aspects of the user experience that require gathering input directly from users. We encourage change managers to collect qualitative feedback from as many operational stakeholder groups as possible. Effective channels for collecting feedback include interviews, town halls, and surveys. Consistent, qualitative feedback helps change managers understand why certain performance metrics are lagging, allowing them to counteract these challenges with targeted communications, training, coaching, and resistance management.
Reinforcement Matters
Successful change adoption requires careful data collection and thoughtful engagement from change managers long after the new technology solution goes live. Reinforcement of the change begins with establishing key performance indicators that show where users are lagging, tracking, or exceeding organizational goals. Reinforcement succeeds when change managers respond to pain points of user adoption by ensuring that training materials are accessible and utilized. Simultaneously, an open feedback loop with stakeholders across the organization should be maintained.
No matter where your organization is in its organizational change management (OCM) journey, we are here to help you easily navigate through your transformation initiative. Attain Partners has successfully worked with institutions across the United States to conduct a wide array of OCM activities. For more information, or to speak with one of our experts, please contact us here.
Learn more about our Change Management services here.
About the Authors
Kyle Cadieux is a Senior Manager in the Attain Digital practice and an IDEA Board member and founder. Kyle has a demonstrated knowledge in Organizational Change Management, Organizational Design, and Human Capital Management. Prior to Attain Partners, Kyle supported Organizational Transformation work for the Federal Government at various Consultancies. Kyle is a Prosci® Certified Change Management Practitioner and holds an M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
Ellen Herd is a Senior Manager in the Attain Digital practice of Attain Partners. Since joining Attain Partners in August of 2021, Ellen has served as the Change Manager on Workday HCM and Financials implementation for a consortium of public universities. Ellen began her career at Accenture, serving in many roles across the software delivery lifecycle, including functional design, configuration, security, testing, and post-production support. Ellen is a Prosci® Certified Change Management Practitioner and holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Duke University.
Being back in-person at this year’s American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Annual Conference in Nashville was a refreshing experience as we continue to navigate the world coming out of the pandemic. There were handshakes, hugs, and smiles abound. Still there were stark reminders of the world we hoped to be leaving behind including masks, sanitizer, and social distancing.
We look at this new world and have to map out a future that keeps changing and adding new opportunities. As I reflect on my time at this event, I want to take a deeper dive into a couple of these items.
Membership Recruitment and Retention
First, we can look at how to find new members as well as keep current members happy and engaged. One thing that remains consistent despite the quickly evolving pandemic guidance is that people want to feel appreciated and a sense of belonging.
Using a multichannel approach for your digital engagement can help meet both of these member desires. When adding new members, find where they are and go after them there. Remember that hope is not a strategy. Doing the research and investing upfront to find your key audience will pay dividends on the backend. Don’t be afraid to experiment and challenge the status quo to find what works best for you and your organization.
While the messaging will be different, use the same approach to keeping your members engaged. Do the research, use a multichannel approach, and experiment.
Delivering a Worthwhile Hybrid Event
Second, perhaps the biggest challenge is how to handle events. The challenges here are numerous and tough to navigate. The key question is how to plan and execute a hybrid event that is successful on all fronts AND drives the revenue to cover the additional costs?
To accomplish this, you need to begin with data analysis and understand the audience that you are targeting. Use the experience of your online events from the last few years to evaluate what was successful and what wasn’t. Data is your friend and to reiterate a previous statement, hope is not a strategy. Perform a ROI calculation and discover the delta that needs to be filled with the additional expenses of making it into a hybrid event. Finally, remember that not all events need to be hybrid. It may not be the right path for your organization and that’s ok.
Partnering for Success
As keynote speaker Safi Bahcall said at the conference, “Every new idea has potential AND is full of flaws.” When we are forced to adapt the way we do business there will always be pains as we work our way through to the correct path forward. One way to shorten and ease this path to success is to find a partner that can help. Partners can help you navigate technology, streamline change, and provide business process reimaging to optimize the way your organization works. By making the work easier and more effective, it will allow your staff to easily collaborate and focus on improve your membership experience. In the end, isn’t that the opportunity that we all want?
Learn More
At Attain Partners, we acknowledge the importance of choosing the right implementation partner. We have the knowledge, experience, and technical expertise to provide you with advice and guide you to ensure you’re getting the most out of your systems and business processes. We have helped hundreds of nonprofit organizations successfully implement solutions tailored to their unique needs since our inception.
Chad Simmons is an Associate Business Development Director at Attain Partners. Since 2013, Chad has helped hundreds of organizations implement innovative technology solutions designed to meet their complex needs. Chad’s focus is demonstrating the value of the Salesforce Platform and Attain Partners’ services to association and healthcare clients.
https://attainpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/ASAE.png9671834Olivia PychaOlivia Pycha2022-09-12 13:10:432023-01-06 10:29:56ASAE Summit—Moving Forward with the New Normal
Why should you get Lean Six Sigma (LSS) certified?
Imagine if you had the skills to continuously improve your organization’s processes and report real financial results to leadership.
Tackling complex problems at any organization is difficult, especially if everyone is solving problems in a different way. Having a consistent approach and toolset to drive improvements will make you more effective at solving problems and give you a greater chance of achieving repeatable success in attaining your goals.
Our LSS certification programs help create the capacity for real change in your organization. We ensure the methodology and tools you learn are fully understood and tested in your business environment. By the end of your program, you will have the skills to identify and begin solving the challenges faced by your business.
Five benefits of getting LSS certified with Juran, an Attain Partners company:
1. Learn a new skill set and take your Lean and Six Sigma knowledge to the next level.
2. Grow your career and earn Continuing Education Credits (CEUs).
3. Earn an LSS Certification that is highly accredited and globally recognized.
4. Receive 1:1 project coaching from one of the best Master Black Belts in the industry with over 25+ years of experience.
5. Become a highly valuable and sought-after problem-solving expert at your company.
After a few short weeks of personalized project coaching and self-paced learning, you will have the knowledge and skills to help your organization improve business processes, elevate the customer experience, and drive real financial savings by becoming an Attain Partners | Juran Certified Lean Six Sigma Belt.
Student Testimonials
“Great program! It took a lot of information and made it relatable and understandable.”
“Program contents are very effective and easy to understand. It was very useful learning.”
“The training program is great material, detail, and insight. The content structure and explanation is excellent.”
“Michael Stamp (MBB Coach) at Attain Partners | Juran did an excellent job taking me through consistent scenarios that are very relatable to my experience. The coaching he provided helped me save $100k for my company with just one project.”
Register today!
Ready to drive change at your organization? Registration for our next round of certification programs will begin on May 16, 2023—register here.
Learn more about Juran, an Attain Partners company, here.
https://attainpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/Five-Benefits-of-Getting-LSS-Certified-graphic.png7091344Joe DePalmaJoe DePalma2022-09-07 14:47:002023-06-16 12:08:14Five Benefits of Getting LSS Certified with Juran, an Attain Partners Company
Our experts are participating in several events this fall. Will you be attending any of these conferences? Contact us and let us know. We would love to set up a meeting to chat with you directly!
America’s SBDC 43rd Annual Conference
September 6-9
Attain Partners is proud to sponsor America’s SBDC 43rd Annual Conference in San Diego, CA from September 6 – 9! Our experts will be at the conference sharing expertise around Salesforce, their knowledge of the SBDC data and impact environment, and information about Attain Partners’ SBDC solution.
Cayuse Webinar: Transformation and Evolution—The Role of People & Technology in Research Administration
September 8
Attain Partners’ Shacey Temperly will be speaking during Cayuse’s webinar, “Transforming and Evolution—The Role of People & Technology in Research Administration,” on Thursday, September 8 at 8:30a EST / 11:30a PST.
Attain Partners Founder and CEO, Greg Baroni, will be hosting NVTC Morning Coffee on Friday, September 16 from 9-10a to discuss the Innovation Lab at KMPG Ignition with Keith Kaetzel, Partner, KMPG.
Our team members will be attending and sponsoring the aasp Summit in New Orleans, LA from September 19-21. In fact, they will be emceeing every event—so be sure to say hello! Check out this video for more information about how leveraging ascend by UC Innovation, paired with Attain Partners’ expertise, can help get real results for your organization. Visit Booth #208 to learn about Attain Partners’ Advancement service offerings and our work with Hoag and UC Innovation!
Attain Partners, Salesforce.org’s Consulting Partner of the Year – Education, will be at Dreamforce September 20 – 22 in San Francisco, CA, including Chris Pifer, Salesforce MVP! We are also proud to be the #1 partner of Vera Solutions, who will be speaking about, “Modern Technology to Tackle Today’s Global Challenges,” during the event.
Attain Partners will be sponsoring the CACUBO Annual Meeting in St. Louis, MO, from September 25 – 27! Our team members Andy Campbell and Sean Davis will be in attendance sharing valuable insights around their work in Higher Education including How Capital Equipment Inventory Can Save Your Institution Millions of Dollars.
Attain Partners is proud to be sponsoring Connect by Cayuse 2022! Join Attain Partners’ Shacey Temperly on Thursday, October 13 from 11:10-11:50a PST for an interactive discussion with representatives from the University of Wyoming and Cayuse as they discuss strategies for a successful eRA software evaluation and system implementation using a team approach during the session, “Taking the Pressure Off with an eRA Implementation Partner: Success at the University of Wyoming.”
Over the past decade, the rapid advancement in using digital technologies in most industries is known as the digital experience (DX). It has been developing quickly outside of higher education, and has only increased students’ expectations for digital interaction with their colleges and universities as a result. Unfortunately, higher education institutions have lagged private industry in the use of technology, and now the gap in DX quality will only grow wider. One cannot think about the DX unless one also understands the SX, or student experience.
The student experience is how students interact with the institution’s faculty, staff, and other students, irrespective of the mode of interaction (e.g., web, mobile, in-person, phone).
The student experience encompasses all aspects of a student’s life at an institution. Everything from admissions, onboarding, academic instructions, institutional facilities, and student activities programming to athletics and graduation (and more!) influences the student experience.
If you want your university to be competitive and attract the best students, your system must look at the level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction associated with the technology, processes, and interfaces between the students and the administrators and faculty. Although this is a new focus for most higher education institutions, there are five steps you should consider before making improvements to your student experience or moving towards a digital experience.
Step 1: Listen to the Voice of the Students
Listening to the voice of your students will enable you to focus on what matters most to them. Following along the lessons learned from other universities, Attain Partners has been working with higher education institutions to improve the student experience, which includes the multitude of ways a student interacts with an institution, such as:
Step 2: Assess Your Organization – Get a Health Check
Student services are compartmentalized, with students often viewed through the specific job functions faculty or staff perform. Business processes and systems are not often planned strategically and tend to lack integration, resulting in a disjointed and unsatisfying student experience. In other words, students become frustrated and disappointed! For example, students having to seek answers from multiple business units (e.g., admissions, financial aid) takes time and may not result in a satisfactory result.
Sources of student dissatisfaction are often overlooked. Once you begin to think about students as customers, you will find that every interaction they have with an institution can improve. To better understand where the dissatisfaction comes from, universities should consider conducting an independent review of the services and processes that impact students. Conducting a ‘health check’ will enable the system to identify and prioritize the opportunities for improvement.
An effective assessment must include stakeholder feedback, input from students, a high-level review of services, programs, and processes, and the value each brings to the student experience and to the university.
Step 3: Develop a Student Experience Strategy
Develop a strategy to determine where to improve the student experience and provide guiding principles for deploying that strategy.
An exceptional student experience strategy encourages meaningful interactions between students, faculty, and staff, which result in profound personal relationships that foster students’ academic, developmental, and career success.
They are seeing results in retention and graduation rates as business processes, students, and technology are integrated. Areas of continuous improvement have been to:
Enhance onboarding
Create a great first-year experience
Provide data to proactively advise students
Enable early exposure to career planning
Expand access to experiential learning activities
Enhance student support services (by removing wasted tasks and obstacles)
Foster a success-oriented mindset and sense of belonging
Remove institutional obstacles to success
The classroom experience is especially important. Students who succeed feel that their classes are relevant and engaging and that their professors genuinely care about their learning and success. Active learning is valuable not only because it can contribute significantly to improved skills development and better command of the material, but because it engages students in their own learning.
Step 4: Design or Enhance to a Digital Experience
Digital experience is not a panacea that can resolve every challenge with student experience. However, a well-crafted strategy that includes digital technology can dramatically improve students’ interactions with staff, faculty, and other students. To be effective, the planning must work with other technology, such as a CRM, to seamlessly tie together student interactions, both digital and analog. Therefore, digital experience planning should be managed within the context of the overall student experience.
In addition, it is important to consider business process changes and build a unified communication strategy that creates opportunities to maximize the effectiveness of digital interactions.
Undoubtedly, students desire easy access to their data and information with robust self-service capabilities. However, the institution must not view self-service as the goal; it is merely a tool that enhances the institution’s ability to build relationships with its students.
Digital experience should promote deeper relationships by:
Making interactions easier – Students not only have a relationship with faculty, staff, and other students, but a larger relationship with the institution. The easier it is for the students to interact and complete tasks, the more satisfied students will be with that relationship.
Creating seamless service – Higher education is typically heavily siloed and bureaucratic. This can create service challenges. Carefully planning self-service can break down those silos, thereby, improving the relationship between the student and institution.
Increasing staff time to focus on significant issues – Faculty and staff time is limited. Minimizing the amount of time spent on mundane interactions (i.e., routine questions or tasks) frees time for meaningful interactions that truly build a relationship with the student.
Step 5: Develop a Change Management Plan
The final step is to develop a comprehensive change management plan that can act on the opportunities to improve the student experience and make it more effective and more digital. This plan should include support from external experts to help manage the obstacles that often get in the way as well as engage students, faculty, and administrative staff. Another way to describe this step is, “How much can we make happen, and how fast?”
Are You Ready?
If your institution is looking to begin a transformation of the student experience or is interested in creating a new strategic direction, Attain Partners is up for the challenge. We can collaboratively bring our experiences working with Salesforce and Workday to life, helping your university engage students with the tools they will need. Contact us today.
To learn more about how other universities have improved their student and digital experience, read the full whitepaper.
About the Authors
Joseph A. DeFeo has been at the forefront of building cultures of excellence for over 35 years. With a career spanning education, training, consulting, and coaching, Dr. DeFeo has dedicated his life’s work to the pursuit of helping organizations across the globe improve the quality of their people, services, and processes. As one of the world’s leading experts on the development of organization-wide transformation to improve the overall customer experience.
John Knost has over 20 years of experience in higher education operations, compliance, and technology expert. Whether working at a university or as a consultant, Mr, Knost has a proven record of accomplishment in integrating business processes, technology, and compliance to increase efficiency, accuracy, and student success.
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You might have heard of the term “WIIFM,” or, “What’s in it for me.” At Attain Partners, we prefer to call it The Why. It is the fundamental, introspective question a professional contemplates when exploring a new opportunity in their career. While the question is relatively straightforward, the answer requires a thoughtful factorization of all the incentives at stake.
In this article, we aim to equip the reader with a complete understanding of what makes Attain Partners a top place to work and an answer to the penultimate question, “Why should you work at Attain Partners?”
The Mission
Attain Partners’ mission is to change the world by disrupting the status quo and improving the lives we touch. The work we do has a profound impact on the world, and you can come to work every day knowing that what you do makes a difference. Attain Partners seeks to equalize the playing field, partnering with higher education institutions and nonprofits to ensure they can operate at the highest level and stay up-to-date with modern practices. We are problem-solvers for organizations, and our work is designed to help them find success without jeopardizing their bottom line.
We specialize in serving organizations across the public sector, including education, nonprofits, healthcare, and state and local governments.
Our Clients
Career Advancement and Progression
Attain Partners is a place for the ambitious—we focus on promoting talent from within. We take pride in our colleagues’ achievements and place an emphasis on recognizing and rewarding such efforts. From day one, we set new employees on a path for success and encourage them to rise within our company, by:
Clearly defining career tracks, setting yearly goals, and holding quarterly reviews to track progress
Conducting annual employee performance reviews for the evaluation of salary increases and promotions
Providing a path to partner that is half the time as other, larger consulting firms
Benefits Package
Before listing the highlights, it is important to recognize our HR Department, a team that deserves proper credit for creating a benefits plan that arguably goes above and beyond conventional industry standards. They are subject matter experts who champion our employee-focused benefits and keep a keen eye on the future, continuously researching ways to improve our capabilities and resources.
Some of Attain Partners’ benefits that start on day one of employment include:
Above benchmark medical, dental, and vision plans
Immediate vesting within 401(k) program and a 4% employer match
Unlimited paid time off (UTO)
Extended paid parental leave
Cell phone plan reimbursement
HSA Account
Legal services
Training and education reimbursement
Work-Life Balance
In addition to our UTO policy, it is important to take note of the overall work-life balance at Attain Partners. While we value hard work, we also understand it is equally as important to focus on our life outside of our careers. To this end, we have established a work setting that allows for remote working options, flexible working hours, and eleven paid corporate holidays.
People-First Culture
Our people are at the core of who we are as a consulting firm. We are mission-driven individuals, passionate both in our work as well as to the clients we serve. Colleagues from many different backgrounds work together to create a warm, collaborative, and pleasant environment. We work together to solve problems and rely on each other for support. To reference one of our seven core values—Have Absolute Integrity—our word is our bond. We act with honesty, respect each other, and honor all commitments. No exceptions.
Values-Driven Leadership
While Attain Partners is experiencing an electrifying amount of growth, we should assert that at the helm of our success is excellent leadership. We are steered by tenured leaders who are widely recognized in their fields and have previous experience building successful companies. Our leaders have open-door policies, seeking to mentor and develop our talent while ensuring our business lasts for generations to come. Instead of directing from the top floor, you’ll find senior executives working alongside colleagues to ensure business needs are met and career achievements are unlocked, paving the way for future leaders at Attain Partners.
Join the Attain Partners Team and Take Advantage of Unparalleled Benefits
Want to take advantage of all that Attain Partners has to offer? We’re hiring for several positions. Check out our open roles and apply here.
Alex Nichols is a Recruiting and Talent Acquisition Manager at Attain Partners. Alex brings diverse experience in agency and corporate recruiting. He has placed top talent at every level—from entry-level to executive—and is adept at understanding organizations’ hiring needs. He takes a personalized approach to understand not just your business, but your industry and culture.
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In today’s rapidly evolving work environment, understanding how to navigate change is becoming increasingly important and integrated in organizations. According to Prosci®[1], effective OCM strategies enable organizations to be six times more successful when executing transformation initiatives and embracing change. Attain Partners has successfully led Organizational Change Management (OCM) efforts for over 20 various digital transformation initiatives across a wide array of industries. We help clients realize a return on their investments by ensuring an organization is ready to change, lowering the risk of a transformation initiative’s failure.
Risk Assessments: The first step to mitigating issues
Attain Partners recently led the OCM effort for a large-scale technology transformation initiative impacting over 1,000 stakeholders. Conducting a risk assessment was our first step in creating an action plan to mitigate and/or manage anticipated issues frequently associated with initiatives of this scale. A risk assessment considers the severity of an initiative’s degree of change/scope and whether an organization’s culture embraces or resists change. The resulting risk profile indicates whether the initiative has an overall low, medium, or high risk. In this case, the risk assessment revealed a medium risk score, mainly due to change-resistant behaviors amongst impacted stakeholders. Armed with this data, our change management team developed tailored change resistance plans to mitigate risk and achieve the desired business outcomes.
To manage resistance, we developed an action plan that integrated the Prosci ADKAR® model (described in the image below) which emphasizes the importance of individual change leading to organizational change. Our team developed targeted, strategic communications which raised awareness and generated desire for the change. We then conducted training and provided support resources to ensure stakeholders had the knowledge and ability to transition to the new solution with confidence. Finally, we planned and incorporated post-go-live activities to sustain reinforcement. Throughout the journey, this strategy resulted in stakeholder eagerness and excitement to transition to their new solution.
In addition to the resistance management plans, Attain Partners developed and implemented a Sponsor Roadmap which outlined the behaviors and actions organizational executives needed to employ to ensure they conveyed a unified leadership tone regarding the transformation. The roadmap was critical as stakeholders looked to senior leadership for assurances regarding the initiative’s importance and the organization’s commitment to the change. Our team’s detailed action plan successfully combatted change-resistant behaviors by improving buy-in across the enterprise, resulting in 92% of stakeholders reporting they felt confident that the organization was capable and ready to successfully transition to their new solution.
Risk of failure often associated with large-scale technology transformation initiatives may seem intimidating, but effective mitigation through tailored action plans is an invaluable and proven OCM strategy that helps produce the desired return on investment from transformational initiatives. These action plans have been shown to improve user adoption and contribute to overall project success.
Connect with our OCM Experts
No matter where your organization is in its OCM journey, we are here to help you navigate through your transformation initiative. Attain Partners has successfully worked with institutions across the United States to conduct a wide array of Organizational Change Management activities. For more information or to speak with one of our experts, please contact us here: [email protected].
About the Authors
Kyle Cadieux is a Senior Manager in the Attain Digital practice and an IDEA Board member and founder. Kyle has a demonstrated knowledge in Organizational Change Management, Organizational Design, and Human Capital Management. Prior to Attain Partners, Kyle supported Organizational Transformation work for the Federal Government at various Consultancies. Kyle is a Prosci® Certified Change Management Practitioner and holds an M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
Jessica Lee is a Consultant in the Strategic Transformation Services practice. She has supported organizational change and project management efforts for Higher Education Clients and is a Prosci® Certified Change Management Practitioner. Jessica brings with her strong attention to detail and is committed to achieving the best results.
Brooke Williams is a Consultant in the Attain Digital practice of Attain Partners. Brooke has a background in litigation and is currently pursuing her M.B.A. from Old Dominion University. Aside from Attain Partners, Brooke is a Certified Paralegal and leads a not-for-profit organization that is dedicated to molding middle and high school girls into leaders and innovative thinkers.
https://attainpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/Newsletter-Graphics_2022-05-May_Risk.png9671834Olivia PychaOlivia Pycha2022-07-15 21:07:002024-04-02 14:32:00Risk… Not as Scary as You May Think!
One of my favorite things about Salesforce is the AppExchange. It’s a goldmine for solving some of the challenges Salesforce may not have addressed yet. It aids in our efforts to get our customers up and running on Salesforce, speeding up our timelines and allowing us to stay away from customizations. There are so many choices out there—where do we start? The idea behind this blog series is to create a series of posts, leveraging our expertise on nearly 1,000 Salesforce projects, to help you identify which apps may be most beneficial for your organization.
As a starting point to this series, we’re going to discuss the top apps for Salesforce Knowledge and the Experience Cloud. When working with Salesforce Knowledge, there are three free apps on the AppExchange that are useful.
Article Rating/Feedback
One of the primary functions that Salesforce Knowledge provides is the ability for a user to give a rating on an article’s helpfulness. This allows for a feedback channel to be implemented and for knowledge editors to improve those articles that are not answering the users’ questions or giving the needed help required. Salesforce delivers the Article Thumb Vote component that can be added to a Lightning Page or an Experience Cloud Page:
After publishing the article to your users, they can easily click the ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ to indicate whether the article was helpful or not.
However, wouldn’t it be even better if we allow feedback to be given as to why the article was either good or bad; helpful or not helpful? That’s where Lightning Knowledge Feedback comes in handy. This app extends the capabilities to capture feedback by adding a Reason and Description field and allows users an option to give a general reason (good or bad) and then explain their choice.
The ‘Choose a general reason’ dropdown is a dependent picklist that displays only ‘good’ choices when the ‘thumbs up’ is chosen and only ‘bad’ choices when the ‘thumbs down’ is chosen.
Positive/Thumbs Up
Negative/Thumbs Down
Text feedback is allowed for any choice made, whether good or bad, but enforces a validation rule that ‘requires’ feedback to be entered if the feedback is ‘thumbs down’.
Submit without Description/Feedback
Error
The final item that would be very useful to add to this functionality is the assignment of the ‘feedback’ record to the owner of the knowledge article. This allows the article owner to correct and/or improve the article based on the feedback comments received.
We can do that via a record-triggered flow based on the ‘Article Feedback’ record creation. It would look something like this if you decide to implement it:
Assigning Topics
Salesforce provides a way to manage the assignment of topics to the Communities (Experience Cloud sites), but that requires going back and forth between the Internal Org and Community/Experience Cloud sites to manage topics in a specific site/network. However, the Assign Topics Unscoped app allows you to manage topics across multiple sites/networks in one place.
Placing the component onto the Knowledge page layout allows gives users the flexibility and usefulness of topic assignment for any/all networks:
Component
Functionality
Users can easily switch between sites/networks and view the associated topics assigned to each:
Select network/community
View topics assigned
By entering a topic into the ‘Search’ area, users can find a topic and associate it to a network. Or, if a topic is not found, it’s easy to create one and assign it to the network by clicking ‘Create Topic’.
Type topic into ‘Search’ area
If not found, click ‘Create Topic’
Knowledge Article Display in Experience Site
On the Community or Experience site, displaying knowledge articles in a user-friendly format is paramount. Unfortunately, some effort is required to hide fields that are not relevant to what a customer or user wants or needs to see in the knowledge article. Of course, Salesforce does allow you to hide most fields on the knowledge page layout, but you are still stuck with the Title and URL Name fields being required:
To solve this issue, another useful app, Knowledge Article Body Content for Experience Cloud, can provide a simplified layout to display to the user. After some simple configuration in the Custom Metadata Types for the Article Body Setting, simply drag the component to the Article Detail page in the Experience site and configure it with the preferred options:
Component
Configuration
Now, you can eliminate the Salesforce-delivered ‘Article Content’ layout and use the simplified layout provided!
These are just a few of the many apps on the AppExchange that are helpful in working with Knowledge. If we didn’t mention your favorite, let us know what you have found useful. We’d love to hear from you!
Maury Davis is a Senior Salesforce Specialist at Attain Partners. Maury has worked in higher education and nonprofit organizations for over 15 years, focusing his last 10 years on demonstrating the value of the Salesforce Platform to his employers and clients.
https://attainpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/Newsletter-Graphics_2022-07-July_AppExchange.png9671834[email protected][email protected]2022-07-06 12:46:572022-08-03 18:57:58Favorite AppExchange Apps when working with Salesforce Knowledge
