Dive Deeper with Carnegie : Cap'n in a Crunch: Navigating Your Instance Without a Slate Captain

Perfect.

Hi, good morning, good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining everyone. We're so glad to have you here for yet another dive deeper as our quick little question of an ice breaker. Go ahead and pop in the chat and let us know where you're tuning in from, city or state or institution, and let us know what the weather is outside. I am tuning in from Technologies headquarters in New Haven, CT, and it's very bright and sunny. You can't see it, but the sky is beautiful and blue and it's really lovely here, albeit a little bit chilly. But how about you guys? Logan, Daniel, what's your weather?

Yeah, we're almost the same. It's bright and sunny. I'm it, I'm I think it's like almost 50 something 60 something like it's a good fall day. It was really windy yesterday, one of those like just Moody kind of days, but now it's sunny, umm, loving like I should probably get outside sometime today.

Logan, how about your son?

That's balmy.

It's it's super nice here. Yesterday was even better. Yesterday the high was like 67. It was gorgeous. It's a little chillier today, but it's like perfect blue skies. I have the best view if you can't tell, like I can see it all out there.

I love that. I think your window and my window are doing the same thing, which is like brightness and no blue, but there's a lot of blue back there.

Correct. The whole sky is just straight blue, you just can't see it.

Take our word for it.

So again, thank you so much for being here. I was just giving us a little bit of time to get started and allow everyone to log in. I'll introduce myself first, go over some housekeeping notes and then turn over the dive deeper to Logan and Daniel to finish off and get to the content first, my name is Sarah Brown. I am the Assistant Director of Strategic Partnerships here at Technologians. And I'm going to go over some housekeeping notes before we get started. So first, it's important to note that this webinar is going to be recorded. So at the completion of the webinar, I will release it to your home slate. You can.

To look and rewatch it and share it with your colleagues in the recording segment of the Dive Deeper tab. So I want to also Orient you with a couple icons that are up on the right hand side of your screen. The one all the way to the right with all of the arrows pointing outwards is going to make this full screen if you'd like to see things a little bit bigger.

The icon with two chat bubbles will toggle on and off the chat if you find it to be distracting. We hope that you don't though. We hope that you engage with us and ask some questions along the way or give us some reactions, so feel free to be active in the chat. The next icon with two CS will toggle on or off closed captioning that will also populate inside the chat box. I will be in the chat through the entirety of the webinar today, so any questions that you have, I'll be compiling for our presenters to answer in a quick session at the very end and last.

But not least, if you have any sort of abnormalities with the audio that you're hearing, generally a refresh of your browser will take care of any of that. So if anything sounds weird, if it's laggy or if you hear an echo, just go ahead and give your browser a refresh and reconnect and everything should be taken care of. So without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Logan and Daniel, and they will be your hosts for today's Dive DEEPER. Thank you for being with us.

Thank you Sarah, I really appreciate it. Uh, as she mentioned, I'm Daniel Ramirez and I am a Slate staff augmentation strategist with Carnegie. Uh, and I'm coming to you live from the remote Internet, but I'm also in Dayton, OH. So, uh, hello to my Midwest neighbors. Uh, I've bopped around quite a bit, uh, across the country. So, uh, I can, uh, you know, attest to, uh, Mallory said about that main cold day. I was definitely, umm, in, uh, Boston for a few years at a previous institution.

A private liberal arts school, which there's one or two of those in the Northeast. Umm. And then now I find myself with Carnegie. But yeah, today, UMM is all about captain in the crunch, navigating a slate instance without a captain. Umm. So I'm going to try not to lean too heavily on the seafaring or serial puns, although they are a part of this presentation. But I'm so happy to see so many of you because this is what happens in this day and age because so many people are moving around.

And so many people find themselves in that space of like, where do I go next?

And I thought it would be great, you know, if Logan and I can share our story a little bit more about me. Umm, I am the eclectic and humorous thrill seeker. If any of you have ever gotten the chance to, uh, be a part of Carnegie's chem personality, I highly recommend it. Uh, basically it means that I'm going to be the one who makes a joke in a, in a group of people and that's what I'm in. Umm, my wife though, likes to point out that thrill seeker doesn't feel that accurate just because I don't like roller coasters, but it's calculated risk in thrills. So I.

It doesn't matter. It's it's one of whichever kind of thrill it is. I love to get the heartbeat racing a little bit. Uh, I'm a cat dad of two. You can see their toys and stuff that are just thrown around around my house. Umm, I absolutely love going to the movies and I do improv comedy on the weekends. There's some little fun facts about me. Umm, But Logan, more about yourself for the fans.

Absolutely. So hi everybody, I'm Logan Pendleton. I'm the Director of undergraduate admission at NKU. Been in higher Ed for a little while now. I was previously at a private institution and a flagship institution, both in admissions land and started my career in residence life. So been around for a little bit. Umm, been in slate for quite a while now, which is umm, it's now my requirement if I go to a school, it has to be a slight school.

Uh, I.

I've only been in NKU for about two years though, so still kind of new ish here. Um, few little fun facts as you can see. My side hustle. I have a a fun little side hustle of baking. So now it's about to be my busy season for the holidays, which is great. I am a Broncos football enthusiast. I am born and raised in Kentucky, but the Denver Broncos are my team, for better or for worse, even through all the bad years.

And I'm an extra proud mom of two of a three-year old and a nine month old.

So part of this presentation is going to also hit on, you know, what to do if you go on maternity leave and without a slate captain, it's great. So.

That's a sad fact.

Thank you so much, Logan. Umm, I didn't want to put a fun fact as me being a Jets fan because it's not a fun fact. It's just a fact. It's a very sad fact. Umm, But hey, we're making moves as of the trade deadline. Umm, I've also been at Carnegie. I don't think I mentioned this, umm, since March. So fresh to Carnegie, but also not fresh to slate. I started in admission counseling and before that had bopped around in a lot of different areas of higher education. So, uh, thank you all for joining us.

Today and today it's really simple, gonna kind of take you through a little bit of the stories of, you know, where our college is finding ourselves. I know there's a million articles out there, umm, but there's a few things that I want to bring to light. If you haven't heard about them yet. Umm and then of course, let Logan kind of take you through that timeline. How did they find themselves? Where did they get here? All the things that David Byrne writes stories and music about, like umm, all of those big questions of how you could potentially see yourself there if you're not already close to it, umm, or how you can kind of find.

Places before you get to that point and then of course, what happens whenever we're able to bring in a slate captain or what can you leave behind for them as they continue on? And then just kind of a quick wrap up of where we're going and where we've been. And so here we are, umm, higher education. It's kind of in the news. It's been bopping around, but I don't want to, you know.

Make a pancake that's already done. I don't know. I don't have any good euphemisms, but I don't want to drill down into too much more of what you already know and are already experiencing. But I do want to bring to light that there are some things that were already starting before the pandemic and that are continuing through that would have been exacerbated. And then of course, through administrative changes at the federal level have really expanded on those things. Uh, the Bureau of Labor Statistics First off and foremost says that for post secondary administrators.

The growth for new jobs projection predicted all the way to 2034 is about 2%, which is fine, but it's also a little bit less than what we're seeing in other, umm, industries across the country. So if you're already trying to grow and change, you know, we've already kind of a little bit of a plateau for colleges on what's going to be the new space out there.

Also, I don't think this personally, and I think it's a weird word, but what's being tossed around for those who maybe get the opportunity to manage the the books more than us is an idea of administrative bloat. Basically, we're now at a point where colleges for the last couple years have been moving through and adding administrative positions up to over, I think.

Uh, I think from, what was it from in the last, from roughly the 70s to today, right before the pandemic, at least, umm, about 200% of full time staff members have been added for full like exempt positions. And on top of that, we're hitting a point where there's too much administration, but because of our decreases of enrollment, it's going to maybe sway the people who have those, uh, tying strings to look elsewhere.

Makes those decisions a little bit harder. And on top of that, this statistic from a Fidelity survey said that of those over 1000 faculty that have been polled, 55% of them would consider a change. And I know that's like faculty, but if the faculty who are the ones who are supposed to be holding down the institution and continuing that growth for a long time or considering changing institutions or retiring, then surely that's going to trickle through that too.

And also, uh, the competition and the retention out there is just really hard, right? Uh, according to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, umm, a lot of that change is continuing. So before the pandemic, retention and turnover was around 7-8 percent for full-time exempt staff. But over the last couple years after the pandemic through 2023, it's gone to 1214% for non exempt of staff members.

From a nine to 15% increase. So it's tough to say like if, if this is what's really going to be working out for, for, for administrations and also those three reasons that people are leaving other reasons we all kind of look for pay and salary increase, uh, the work remotely option and promotions. But there's also as we're seeing with that gap in remote work, employees are saying, yeah, I could do my job remote, but.

But there's about, of those 80% of people who say that they can do their job remotely, only about half of them are getting the opportunity or even 60%, if you're looking at a different lens, are saying that their institution thinks they can do so. And I found myself in that similar situation when I moved from the Boston area to Ohio. And so this just happened, right? It's, it's, it's known that people are going to move, they're going to change. And today is about kind of taking all these bigger picture items.

And lending in on our partnership with NKU. So for that part, how do we get here? What's going on? I'm going to turn it over to Logan.

Awesome. Thanks, Daniel. So yeah, welcome to Northern Kentucky University. We are, if you don't know where we are, which I assume none of you in the chatter from Kentucky according to your location, so you may not, we are in Highland Heights, KY, which is the northernmost tip of the state. I can see downtown Cincinnati from my office window. So that's how close we are to Cincinnati.

We are one of the public institutions in the state, one of the regional public.

We have a lot of different things going on, but our undergraduate enrollments of around 10,300. As you can see, we are a direct admit school. So that's one of the things that we are.

Kind of doing a little differently than a lot of other places in our state. We are rolling in mission and so we do not have any firm deadlines on when you can apply, when you can be admitted. We are considered an access institution for our state.

And every year we are trying to grow enrollment as I'm sure most of you all are as well. So our freshman enrollment goal hovers around the 1500 area.

So how did Daniel and I get to become best friends, right?

Welcome to Nku's timeline of slate. Umm, so NKU implemented slate in 2017 and I use the word implemented loosely umm. So when they started slate, they brought it on umm because they needed a new umm, communication and events tool. The one that they were using at the time was uh going away and so they had to pick something and so they.

Picked sleep. So when they implemented, they only implemented the, uh, e-mail functionality basically, and the events. So they weren't hosting a slate application, They weren't using the schedule or any of those kinds of things. It was really just a communication tool. Umm, and we were running at the time our application out of our student information system, umm, which is SAP, which I know a lot of you don't know about because I think there's like six of us left in the world.

Umm.

So that was going on until September 2023 when I came to NKU, and we still didn't have a slate application at that time. So my first goal was to start getting some slate people to start getting some slate knowledge on campus. At the time, they had gone through probably 7 or 8 slate captains. Again, I used that term a little loosely. Nobody at NKU at the time really had.

A history with slate or knew a lot about it. They were given slate as a other duties as assigned if you will, at that time. So they had made the best with what they could.

So October 2023 is when we hired our first actual.

Slate captain. So she's actually somebody that I stole from my previous institution because she's fantastic. So we started and we were working towards a new life in Slate.

We went on. We weren't getting a whole lot done because we were just trying to stay afloat. I know some of you probably know that when you're in the middle of a system that making big changes while trying to keep the rest of the ship still going. I'll keep your metaphor going, Daniel.

Sometimes it doesn't work right. You can't really make a whole lot of innovation when you're just trying to keep it going. So then January 2024, our original Slate person had left.

And then we finally got a new one and we were so excited, Um.

And we?

Still, UMM ran into several issues with our Sis and Slate not being best friends, and UMM change management across campus, which I know a lot of you probably know is so fun UMM.

And so we just kept kind of butting heads across campus about how we could use slate, how we could make the improvements that we needed to make until July of 2024 when our president said, I want you to use Slate and I want a slate application and I want it in two weeks. And we said.

Cool. OK, great.

So at that point.

Our instance that we had was kind of bogged down with like 7-8 years of previous data that didn't have an application that was built to kind of mimic our Sis. And so our slate captain, myself and some others at the institution said, you know what, we're going to start over and we re implemented slate and got an app up and running.

In two years or in two weeks, Sorry. And so then it was a.

OK, great, we finally have an app. Now let's continue to build the ship as we float across the water and hope we don't drown.

So we made it through that first semester. We were a little slow getting out of the gate with different areas across campus. As you can see on the timeline, January 2025 is when we finally get.

Our transfer review process. I brought back our original slate captain that had left for personal reasons. So then we finally had two slate people. Umm.

And then I went on maternity leave in January of 25. So the other fun piece of this is when our slate captain wasn't here, I was the backup. Poor Daniel probably knows at this point. I know enough about what to do in slate to be dangerous.

That's it. Don't ask me to build complicated things. Configurable joins still hurt my head. So I was not the great person to be the backup, but I was the backup. So then when I went on maternity leave, our slate captain also quit. So he left us and I was gone, and we had nobody.

And then enters Daniel.

So just kind of there's the timeline of where NKU was, how we got to where we are.

So then you know what, what other things were going on at the same time. So as we talked about, we had a really incomplete implementation. Obviously the first several years of our implementation, the first implementation of Slate barely functioned. So we didn't have much robustness in our system. We didn't have full campaign set up. We didn't use the event system.

We actually.

This hurts my soul. My very first day I went into our events and I was like, OK, great, they're using events and not a single field was mapped to anything. I was like, Oh no, what are we doing? And so we had to really start from scratch. Even though the school had been using it for like 7 or 8 years, we had to start over.

And starting over is, is really hard scrapping something seven years, 7-8 years of data scrapping that having to remake the connection between slate and our sis, knowing that NKU is also getting a new SIS in the next year and a half. So making all these changes to then know that we're going to make it again. Again, the the gaps in slight knowledge. There weren't a lot of people at NKU that knew much about Slate.

And like I said, I know enough.

To get what I need and that's about it.

And.

Again, the, the connection between NKU admissions and the rest of campus is also really deep. So we are not a campus where only admissions uses slate. Umm, the whole campus uses slate umm, in a lot, a lot, a lot of ways. Umm. So we are a single instance with undergrad and grad. Thanks Daniel. Just launched our grad this week. That's so exciting.

Uh, we have our dual credit programs in there. We have campus partners in there.

Where we have current student programs in there, so it is a very busy instance.

And we have 1.5 slate people, not including Daniel. So we have 1.5 people that are fully dedicated to doing slate work. And so the overwhelming bandwidth is a real, real struggle for us.

And that is kind of where we realized, hey, we can't keep doing this. Umm, we were, you know, again, I was going on maternity leave and my slate captain announced he was leaving and my boss called and he said, what are we going to do? And I said, I don't know what we're going to do. I just popped out a baby. I don't know what you're going to do. And they said, OK, can we do we need to call somebody? I said, you have to call somebody.

And so lucky.

For us, Carnegie was on the list with some other state schools for Kentucky. Uh, and so we got to start working through that and trying to find what those solutions could be.

Umm, and again, we did a lot of manual processes at the point because we didn't have enough people. And so we had all the things that should be automated, that should be rule based, that should be a simple thing that you can set it and forget it. In Slate, we were doing as a manual process every single day with many different people that really didn't have a lot of slight experience that I was saying, Hey, you want to learn this one quick task so we can keep the ship afloat.

Uh, so functioning without a slate captain for the entirety, pretty much that NKU has had slate. Umm, left us in an interesting location. And then inter Daniel and the joys of Carnegie.

Yeah, that's where we came along. Um, and y'all have been an amazing partner and have not felt like it was shrinking, sinking as much as it was. So that's where we came in and that's where we were able to dedicate some time and really structure a plan ahead. So in March this year is whenever that full-time partnership began as a full time another embedded slate captain and it was really.

Uh.

Uh, a fantastic partnership really of a project management, umm, and prioritization and making sure we've brought enough people to the table. So really, as soon as we got in there, umm, with help from another project manager who's no longer with NKU, Nick Pearson, if you ever see the name, know he's a legend in our hearts. Umm, truly. But it was really about getting devoted time for myself to get in there and to start messing around, getting, getting clicky with it, if you will. So I'm in the fields.

Database, we're looking at what goes to where we're finding the bits of the pieces of which queries are heading to. Sis is we're really orienting ourselves with NKU without having to go through all of the other onboarding that being a member at NKU, uh, takes on. I had plenty of that with Carnegie, but really it's like we had that dedicated time where I am learning just as much about NKU as I am about my own role.

Umm. And so it's, it's I should, I don't know if I could, if I could sign my name in the instance somewhere, I totally would.

It's one of those kinds of things, but we really want to identify some of those top priorities. What was left to continue on that was starting off with our dual enrollment programs because we're right in the thick of it of our, you know, it's the spring, students are looking forward to the fall, they're setting their class schedules. So that's why dual enrollment really floated to the top for us. YSA and SBS are young scholars Academy and school based scholars. So just kind of highlighting that.

And then the other part of that was their international processing. So students who are coming in, who need visas, who need the extra things attached to the admissions process. As Logan was mentioning, that is another campus partner, umm, that included a complete workflow overhaul. Umm, it was looking at different rules and I'll get to more of like other pieces that we played in the sandwich, uh, that was finishing out their transfer review process. And so those three top priorities were really workflow.

Management, not only was it workflow management and building, but it was a lot of like learning and educating along the way. And then in between all of that other time where, you know, I maybe ask Logan and her team a question that then has another branch of other questions and ideas that I need to wait to get more information on. Let's use our time wisely. Let's see what else is out there. If we have events that are not mapped properly, let's look at all of them. Umm, same thing with queries, mailing.

Sub any area of the instance that we can look at.

That is pretty much looking from the ground up. And then from then on, it was any ad hoc troubleshooting that kind of came up and once again, specifically training. And I'm going to continue to lean on that quite a bit that, that is another piece of how do you continue to build trust in other slate users and for your instance moving forward. And then of course, establishing a meeting cadence. What made sense? Uh, for us, that was daily check-ins and we still to this day do them and expand on them because of the scope of work that we.

Have well, we're just checking in. We're trying to see from a lot of different parties, umm, who's involved and one of these was involved a lot and you're going to have to go over there. Sorry, Kitty.

But when we're breaking down how to function each of these projects, it really goes like this. It's like building a bowl of cereal. And I for the for, for all the respect and purposes, I'm a cereal first kind of person. So that's the diagram we're using. If you're a milk first person, no harm, just mentally switch it and don't judge me for it. But that's how I attest to it. But First off, we're going to prioritize, you know?

Who decides where the focus is? That's a huge piece of the conversations we had is who is going to, who do we need, umm, some of that information from first is our biggest student body from dual enrollment? Is it from international? It turns out it was a little bit of both. So how can we get the, the wheel moving on both of those? Uh, how long do we have to work on a project? Are decision releases a part of that? Do we need to get, uh, students in because there's an event coming up, anything that.

Kind of goes into that timeline. It's established there at the beginning. And how can we break down some of these long term projects, uh, when we're in a workflow, Umm, for those of you that maybe have not billed one or have worked in one, uh, it's everything from the binge structure and then from the bins to the automation and from the automation to the review forms and the review forms to how people see information. So really kind of taking a step back.

And spending that quality time that I get to have not answering NKU emails, but getting to anatomy like from NKU, but I mean like any institutional emails, umm, that I can focus solely on Slate.

And then of course, resetting any priorities when a subtask becomes more important. So if we have, I think there was an instance where even just getting out specific decision letter for international students became of more importance. We need to shift focus and find out the right information and then we need to double check everything else from there. So it's having hard conversations about language, it's about having some conversations about student type and then of course, using Slate to our best capability to look at the whole picture.

And think about, well, what if a student comes in with this kind of, uh, demographic? What if they're coming in with this intention for study? What if they have this? And so kind of building for a larger 80% when we can then focus in on some of those more unique cases. Once we have our priorities aligned, we're going to build in, we're going to add in some milk. We're going to get our hands a little bit dirty. We're going to find out some more pieces of the puzzle. So we're going to bring in stakeholders. That check in was a great time.

For us to bring in a couple people here and there to get some quick answers, maybe with some troubleshooting, maybe it was finding out what they already have and don't, uh, what they have and what they don't need. And maybe we're also where they need and where we're trying to get to may not be the same place because of gaps in training or anything like that.

Um, documentation is a huge piece of that. So for Carnegie, we have Google shared folders for, for, for NKU, where if we're doing a lot of work, especially with our graduate work right now, we're working off of spreadsheets. It's, it's a spreadsheet kind of world. And then we're dumping it into Slate at the last, last minute whenever we can. Umm, but basically it's that great chance as an embedded Slate captain to say this is what your data looks like whenever you're not behind different, umm, modalities.

And what's great about that too, is if you're thinking about, well, I don't necessarily need, uh, so and so to have access to do this in Slate, but I do need them to understand and give me the right information that it's going to be there. So leverage your shared Google Docs and Sheets because that's a huge piece of what, uh, helped us get these projects moving along. Also along the way is adjusting for any best practices, best practices and what those downstream effects are, umm, for those.

Of us who are on this call, who have been on Slate much longer than even Logan and I have been or just about as long as this. Sarah, you know, we things are constantly changing and we need them to and we want them to. And with that comes how to maybe do things different. I know this is kind of a little bit more ahead of where we're talking about right now, but period and round structure was one of those big things as we started about graduate implementation because that's changed. And with that, everyone else is screaming to their to their batch queries and wondering.

The best movement here for us.

And then the last part here of discovering is that what they get, even though I am just one measly soul who's had some slate experience, umm, I also get the satisfaction of working with my Carnegie friends and coworkers who bring in loads of experiences from all over the country and who are one of the, I think the second biggest slate team out of a preferred partner, which is amazing. Umm, on top of that, we have our slate squad. I've sent, and I'm actually getting ready to send some more auditing, uh, tasks to those.

Members so that way they can look at some new ways to folder queries to folder mailings without having to lose step on all the projects that I need to work on. It's the little things that I can continue to task out.

And then building, umm, this is how and it's what's worked for us is to get really dirty in the test environment. Use it to your greatest ability, import fields, import prompts, do whatever you want to do and then try it out. I usually have made like an A option in AB option. And then those check-ins will bring them to NKU to say, hey, this is the pros of this one. This is the pros of the other one, the cons and the upkeep. Because once again, now we're luckily not at that point.

Where NKU doesn't have a dedicated slate cabin because they do, it's not me, but because they now have that person. It's always in mind of what's going to be the most Evergreen solution moving forward. What's going to maybe use the less kind of upkeep? Are we not filtering on entry term for a rule or something like that? Is there a different way to make the business process just as smooth as the slate process?

And then educating on any best practices, building on call and going through there and honestly fostering an environment that lets us ask the tough questions. Uh, I can't, uh, you know, stress enough how the last one has really been a huge task or not a huge task, a huge, umm, treat for me as a strategist, uh, for NKU, because I think that we've really gotten to peel back some of the, the what and the why of, of implementing certain fields and processes.

And datasets into an instance, umm, 2 weeks is a very short amount of time to get an application up and running. And it was up and it was working and it's been tweaked a little bit along the way. But obviously at that point we're trying to bridge that gap between what was usually resting on the shoulders of one individual to then kind of spread it out. So there's lots of times where I'm, you know, describing how a rule is supposed to work. What are the pros of moving this to maybe a form based process?

Um, maybe it's how we are collecting data a little bit differently and then the last piece is auditing. We've got to get that spoon in and realize if the milk is or the cereal is too soggy, which.

Usually it is, and that's why I go cereal first. But that's what we're looking at, not only auditing the work that we've created, but anything else. So we looked at scope, we've looked at rules and checklists, umm, and then queries, queries, queries. I mean, they are the information gathering tool for you and their campus partners at large. So how can we use our time right now and still is 40 hours a week dedicated to NKU? I have no idea. I don't know what it's like to work at another school. It's, it's well, with my previous one in NKU.

And it's been a lot of fun. The only thing that NKU doesn't give me is a parking pass, and that's fine because I don't need it. But.

Trying to find ways once again create those Evergreen solutions and then leveraging our support squad staff. How can we continue to take little pieces of our time while we're within KU UMM and find the best way to move forward?

Turns out if you ask Google to make a picture that resembles the back of a cereal box, it's really, really good. So that's what that's what that is. Umm, But you can see there by the map that we are all over the place. We're in workflows, decision letters, umm, we're in the source format. We've looked at source uploading, we've looked at common app integrations, common app payments integrations rules, umm, fields and prompts, which are the nuts and bolts of the Slate instance, right? We're going to find out how.

Capturing this data, who it's related to, what's being used down the line? Umm.

Once again, queries and reports of evaluating that data and then getting into the applications. Do we need to look at that application editor, the structure periods and rounds everything around there. So we're like really getting ourselves in there. The only thing that we have not really touched as some of our front facing, uh, portal work, umm, because that usually happens is handed within my colleagues who are much better at JavaScript and CSS than I am, although I know where to find some 80 pieces where I can, but.

It's, it's a full operation for what I'm able to go into and discover. But the thing about it is, is that when we're there and I'm in a query, when I'm in a role, when I'm in someplace else, it's that NKU still a part of that conversation, right? It's, it's, it's, you know, what is this information being used for? How can we move forward? And we've been able to move forward through all those projects and deliver them in timely fashion. Maybe they've been small fixes along the way, but been able to get to where we're.

Now, so we are still continuing, umm, I have lots of calls added to my calendar for our graduate implementation. Umm, we're sharing an instance, which I'm sure many on this call can attest to the woes and the excitement and also the head scratchiness of how do we do this? Umm, and it's a little bit semi expedited. We usually like to, if we're starting with the clean instance, we're going to start at the inquiry level with all of our fields, prompts, anything we need, build out an application interview process.

But because we're kind of moving instances, we move that around. We've got the grad app running last week or, um, at the beginning of this week. It's been a long week. That's crazy. Umm, and now we're moving on to our review process. And at that time, still asking the same questions that we were. You know, who needs to be a part of this? Who are our stakeholders? How can we share documentation? We've been doing, umm, some Slate 101 training with our grad program directors because they've never been enslaved before.

In that slate 101 as a part of a slew of trainings that we offer that we can go to, including a configurable joins training, which we got to do with NKU whenever we're UMM, or when we were, when we were more working on the undergraduate side of the admissions. And that's what we have planned ahead. Umm, we're also going to be bringing in reader and workflow training, just dedicated time. It was so freeing to UMM now that we're working with their assistant, uh, director of graduate admissions.

Umm, to say, hey, this is probably better if I send you my availability where I'm not available and you can just go from there because that time is dedicated and we can get really creative with whatever that time looks like. Is it, you know, segmenting out between maybe you have a super user of Slate who is is good at a lot, but we're not quite sure we're there yet to moving on.

But anyways, graduate implementation is where we're currently at, getting mailings up and running, decision letters, and then continued improvement of life fixes because we're sharing an instance and I don't have kids. Umm, but I imagine whenever, if you're ever in a spot where they're sharing a room, it's chaotic. I have two cats and sharing a whole house is still chaotic. That's why we have litter boxes everywhere. Not everywhere, but in designed secret areas.

Umm, and it's just about finding what's going to work, what's not going to work.

And what's amazing about my ability to come in is that I'm not getting pulled around to any of their other internal processes. I don't have to focus on those things. And then if our time allows and if we're able to do it, some of our graduate data set creation, that's that's all the rage with grad schools. We're, we're getting a really creative with fields with application logic and everything there. But what's amazing is that I'm still following the framework that we are setting for a lot of other schools to kind of drive that.

Before I move on to questions, uh, Logan, do you have anything to add about any of that, how that's helped with, with your, with your team?

I would just say that.

The ability of.

A fill in slate captain has been a lifesaver for NKU. UMM. Like I talked about in the beginning, there weren't a ton of UMM slate people on campus, next to none UMM, and then suddenly we had more than one. We had a whole team that if Daniel couldn't necessarily find a solution he wanted, he had a whole team, a whole set of resources that we could go through. UMM the training pieces has been great.

Umm, because?

If any of you are like myself and that you work in Slate every day, but you're not the Slate person when somebody says, hey, can I have Slate training, you're like, OK, let me find time in somewhere and I'll do that. And so having those abilities to tap in somebody else and say, listen, you're going to be my Slate content expert when I have to do the rest of my job has just been hugely helpful for us.

Awesome. I'm going to go through some of the questions that we had pre submitted and I'm going to drop them in the chat. If anyone else here has questions, feel free to also drop them in, but I just want to drop them in while I say them. So this first question says I took the position of a previous Slate captain, but I have little experience with Slate moving into the position. I'm looking to take more leadership of our Graduate School instance of Slate and thank goodness you are because.

Slate is about building and growing on the knowledge of where you're at. Umm, and knowledge and knowledge base is like, it's my Bible. If I, if I were to say so, umm, if you haven't taken learning labs or any of the other continued umm, questions that you may have or, or any trainings at technolutions provides, umm, they're an amazing framework for umm, moving on up, getting more experience, uh, for being able to test some of these theories and.

He is out in the clean instances that are provided with the testing, with the knowledge base and learning modules. Umm, a little bit more about my isolate background. I was an undergraduate admissions counselor. I was like, OK, John Doe needs to turn in their resume. Let me e-mail John Doe. But then.

What really launched me from there was then building queries, getting curious, umm, utilizing the quick query. If you have a question, if you're like, hmm, I'm not sure why I can't get anyone from Geomarket, uh, NL 203 or whatever. I don't know. Whatever kind of geomarket you're looking at to answer my emails, then that kind of questions for is the curiosity. And with that spurring of curiosity, umm, it builds up even more so in the technologies training, I think.

If you're also looking like, how do I navigate those, uh, conversations between whoever may be in that other position, then I think definitely poisoning it as I'm taking dedicated time to learn about a thing and then we're going to see how we can apply it, uh, to our current instance. But I would definitely, definitely utilize, umm, that as well.

I also, if you haven't looked into it, the Slate certification programs are super helpful. So if that's something your institution is willing to financially support. Now every instance comes with some freebies. Your institution may have already used those, but the Slate certification programs are so helpful. We have had we actually paid for several more certifications for.

Some of our frontline staff to say, listen, NKU, we currently don't have a whole bunch of slate people to do all the things. We don't have a full slate team, right?

But we do have people that are completely capable. So maybe I teach you how to do the queries, how to understand the rules so that you can do a little bit of problem solving. So that has been a big help for us as well.

Awesome, I dropped in a question. We'll skip over that and come back to it. I just want to address Jessica as it popped in. Are there any guidelines through technologies or others that provide an overview of XYZ? Are the most important skills someone should know to be a slate captain for an instance? I am not familiar with any technologies guidelines, umm.

Just in general, the knowledge base articles over specific topics, it, it really depends, umm, in being able to define what a slate captain is for your school is kind of like the first step. Uh, there are jobs that I've looked for in the past and people who I've met were the slate captain was more bridge of their IT department as it was for, uh, as as opposed to what Logan's situation in my own situation was. Is there a part of that admissions, uh, enrollment management?

So First off, figuring out what is the responsibilities of that slate captain, Are you, umm, in consolidate records? Are you, umm, maintaining the application year to year? Are you the security access? Uh, my previous institution had kind of security access as a committee type of, uh, person between, uh, an IT and enrollment management, umm, and I think those needs of the role for your institution will then kind of feed out of like, these are the guidelines.

For that slate captain umm.

I don't know if Sarah if she has any or Logan, if you have any other ones that come to mind, but that's just kind of what I would start with.

Now, I don't know of any specific from technologies, but I also know this goes with another one of the questions that was submitted ahead of time. You know, what is what's the most important piece to know?

My little.

MMM.

Tidbit on that is queries. That is, in my opinion, the single most important thing to know how to do. Umm, if your slate captain leaves, that's the first thing that I told my previously captain. I was like, you have to teach me how to understand configurable joins before you leave because I started in a slight instance where configurable joins didn't matter. We had the slight template library. It was a beautiful thing. I'm, I'm still a little bitter. It's fine.

But everything that happens in Slate happens based on a query, right? Your delivery mailing, it's going to be on a query. If you need a report, you got to have the query knowledge. Like all the things, and I don't know about anybody watching, but every time somebody needs something from me, I need a query to get it right. I can't pull you information. I can't run the numbers. I can't tell you anything about our student population if I can't run a query.

So I always say that is job number one. Love, love CJI. See the CJ Darkside. I'm getting there, I'm getting there.

But I grew up in Slate template library and I like it.

I'm hopping on just to do a quick little roundup. As you can see, I'm dropping a bunch of links in the chat. I think if you're new to Slate, it can be overwhelming because we have a lot of resources that are designed to help you and a lot of resources dependent on what type of learning you do best. So I linked a few things. Our certified Fundamentals course that Logan and Daniel both refer to, I would say it's designed for folks who are looking for a broad overview. We also have the ability for you to be a little bit more specific in terms of life cycle if your admissions versus advancement or student.

Depending on what type of lens you'd like your learning to adhere to, I also linked a YouTube playlist that is for Slate Bites. Slate Bites are meant to be quick, little consumable 10 ones or tutorials within Slate. I will admit there is a slight advancement focus at this moment in time, but we're always coming up with new Slate Bites to kind of help you along the way. We also have a number of different ways for you to engage.

Those those engagements could be a webinar like this where you're kind of sitting in the audience and listening.

We also have a number of community conversations. They're kind of built around the idea that you're joining us for a conversation, less of a didactic presentation, but the entire goal of them is that you bring your thoughts, you bring your questions, you bring your perspective, and meet others who are kind of connecting on the same level within our community forums. Oh, sorry, I linked our knowledge base, which is all of our documentation, so you can always search there.

I also want to do a special plug to our.

Community forums that have user groups embedded within them, so you may have one that you could regionally belong to or topically get involved with. And I had one more thing that was.

Top of mind, where has it gone?

OK, it's gone, uh, community forums, another great place for you to kind of connect and meet with users, uh, and share resources and kind of get the lay of the land as well. As Logan mentioned, queries are a great place to start and slate was kind of designed to look familiar no matter what module you're in. So you'll see some.

Repeated theories and strategies applied. So your recipient list for a deliver mailing is going to be a query. So if you're familiar with the querying tool, it will look the same. You'll know how to filter, you'll know how to.

Design your exports and you'll know how to get at the information that you need. So a lot of oh great, people are adding some more resources in the chat. Just wanted to do a little roundup because we do have so many resources and ways to engage with you. Oh, another quick little plug is that we do have a number of community groups that are not technolutions run. So our community forums are technolutions run, but there are a few, I will call them community originated groups.

That exist in Facebook. So there's a super Slate friends Facebook group. I think that's what it's called.

And there's also a Slack channel, so the resources are plentiful. Don't be afraid to ask your question and also reach out to me at any time, or anyone else for that matter, if you need help navigating the resources.

Back to you guys.

Awesome. Thank you, Sir. I appreciate it. But yeah, there are so many different pieces of little knowledge tidbits out there. Umm, uh, let's see, we still got plenty of time. I'm going to go to that second question that I popped in. We are A1 Captain institution 1 instance with six different graduate applications to represent six different schools. What is the number one piece of knowledge all users should know if they end up losing or transitioning to a new captain? And would it be the application editor so that the application can.

Continues to run for all six schools. Umm, I, it depends on who the users are and what you expect the users to know. Umm, I would actually almost say not the app editor. It's fun to know what that is, but it's a great way to break things and uh, I think if your slate captain has left you, let's hopefully at the, at the, at the pinnacle and shining moment of being able to manage that application, especially with so many different rounds it sounds like.

Umm, I would probably say forms. It's that second piece of like if queries is how do we find the data? Forms is how do we get the data? So that's mapping fields. It's umm, making sure the scope is correct. Umm, it's conditional logic based for whatever your programs or piece of demographic information that comes in. Umm, I think forms would probably be the second thing that I found the most useful to know about to transition with NKU because your application is made of other.

So if you have someone who's having an issue with seeing the right information at the end of the day, forms is an easy way to, umm, make those edits or to make any adjustments. Uh, and knowing how to control what they see and not see a little bit too, but I don't know. Logan, is there also anything that you felt like came in real handy for you before we stepped into the picture?

I said queries are queries are my best friend. I think the other thing that was super important umm.

Is understanding.

From a school perspective, right, who you are, what you're looking for and what the needs are, and then backfilling with what Slate has, right? So if you're an advancement instance, obviously your needs are going to look a whole lot different than an admissions instance. The other, you know, joy is part of higher Ed is everybody has a million acronyms and a million different ways of saying different things and calling different things.

So making sure that you understand the biggest needs of that.

Area that instance and then backfilling what you need. Are you going to be the person that as a slate captain, are you going to be the person responsible for reporting to your cabinet? Are you the person that's going to be responsible for the back end user maintenance? Umm, every site captain does a different thing. So I think it's really important to understand the responsibilities of that role at your institution to then understand, OK, what's going to be the most important piece for me to know?

For us, a slate captain meant.

You're cleaning up all the back end, you're making our system talk to our Sis, you're making the application run. And then some of us front end users could figure out, OK, here's the data, I can get a query to my counselor, that sort of thing. And so the role that we needed was very different.

So it really depends on the needs of your institution.

Let's see.

Jeffrey has a great question. I don't know if Sir, if you can just answer it in the chat if you like, but for the Slate certificate, do we need to do it every year? I notice that the certificate includes the year on it. Could you clarify how that works from year to year?

Yep, that is correct. So each certification is by year. Uh, and to the human, not the institution.

It's another frequently asked question.

Great question. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Alright, we've got one more pre submitted question. What are some? Oh let me send it. What are some best practices for documenting processes so that others can step in smoothly? If the slate captain is unavailable, how do you recommend diving dividing responsibilities among A-Team so the captain role doesn't become a single point of failure? Great question, and it's the one that I've been struggling with, uh, since I was running a student organization as an undergraduate student. And guess what? That organization failed after I left.

It's fine. It morphed into something else that had a lot more money behind it than fundraising that I had. Umm, but it's stuff that you learn about the long way. It all is experiences, umm, best practices for documenting, I think.

Number one, especially with an application if.

Keeping a couple running docs that you can go to that are the bread and butter for what people are referring to. So cycle prep documentation, if you have a director of admission or whoever is in charge of a process that needs to be updated, umm, having their requests and what they need, umm, year-to-year documented, umm, and then you know, it's, it's spreadsheets, it's what's the request? Were we able to do it?

What did we do to accomplish it? If not able to do it, what was the new solution? What was the rationale? Kind of leaving those bread crumbs, Umm, it makes for a really cluttered folder structure and everything from there. But it's where it can. But it's really important. Umm, we also utilize a lot of templates for gathering fields and prompts. So for our graduate work that we've been doing, uh, I took a look at pretty much every field that was on the old application. What did we need? Or when we built it out from their sis.

What do we need? Um, and then found just kind of looked at that field search tool is your friend. Use it, umm, find out where it lives, find out what it's used for, double check with one another to make sure it's still usable in the same fashion, and then keep the list. What's the name of the field? What's the key? What's it being used for? Umm, does it apply or does it not apply?

And then we had the same process for all the new fields. This is the name, this is the key. Does the name make sense? Because the name making sense needs to apply to as many people as possible. And like, it sounds silly, especially if you came from like a really clean instance, but those are the things that make sense for your processes. Like, is this something we can carry on? Umm, same thing with prompts. What are all the prompts? What are those exports? Keeping track of everything on a spreadsheet. Umm, so that way you can refer to it later.

Same thing with the workflow. Umm, we have a workflow template to where you get to fill out what the bin looks like. Umm, and maybe if you're working with people who have never or never been in slate to know what a bin structure is just that, umm, oh, there's a word I'm looking for, but that crosswalk of slate to just, what's the common knowledge? Utilize your sheets. Uh, and then the other one that I think and fingers crossed, still hopes true is.

Hiding instruction fields and forms for applications. That's been a huge thing. Umm, it's leave bread crumbs. Use those section breaks to say, you know, the following is for our nursing applicants or the following is for our international students. Umm, just a little pieces. Whenever you log into a form, you don't have to then go to every field and look at different filters and filter off of that logic and find out, oh, who is this actually for? Umm, so being able to kind of leave that, uh, in different segments too.

Same thing with pages, just, uh, I don't know the best practices to document everything. We record every single call. And that's been very, very, very helpful to know what was it that was said, you know, you know, you know, so and so said, like we don't always have to do this, but we usually do for blank and just kind of understanding and being able to go back again and figure what that is. And then it's simple enough as like asking questions and that can be really hard sometimes whenever you know.

Everyone's being pulled in a million different ways, but if you're the person who's either making sure that there's a captain there or that the processes is there, then that's really important to you to make sure it's clear and and defined for everybody. Umm, and then dividing up the roles. That's really dependent also, again, and I think Logan really touched it well. Like what's the expectations of that person? Who does this fall on?

Um.

Man, yeah, that's, that's always tough because I think you do need some leadership. You need someone who's able to make a call. And if you're losing a slate captain, you need someone to step in and make a call. Umm, so often that was, you know, Logan in many cases and another chances it's gone above her and then sometimes need the information from a different captain or sorry, different campus partner. Umm, yeah. I don't know if you have anything. I know I was only a little bit Privy to how you divided up some things whenever.

We were still in that, like, beginning phase, but was there anything that really worked for you as far as like, so and so is going to work on this? So and so is going to face this. I know you've relied heavily on your other slate super user, umm, for help there. Yeah.

I will say one kind of unique thing that our previously captain did before he up and left me was he, and again, this is a unique way to do it, but it's been really helpful for our staff is he created a data set called NKU Slate Knowledge Base. So it was here are screenshots of what it looks like and how to do things in our Slate instance.

Frequently asked Questions What does this mean? Where do I find it?

That was really, really helpful. It lives on our home slate page for all of our staff members to go in and reference. Oh, this is what this means, This is what this icon does. This is how I upload a transcript if I need to. So that was super helpful for us in terms of documentation because he was keeping a list of here are the updates that I've made, here are the changes, here's what it looks like, screenshot, screenshot. It was a really unique way to use a data set, but it was really helpful for us in terms of.

Maintaining information about.

Still inside Slate, so you don't necessarily have to keep, you know, the 10 gillion shared spreadsheets. And for us, one of the things that was really important was making sure that slight responsibilities didn't just fall on Slate staff, right? So we train almost our entire staff and a whole lot of people on campus on sleep.

And so when it came time to learn how to do things, we said, all right, admissions counselors, you're going to learn how to run a query. That way you're not reliant on the two slight people that we have to get you a 2 second question that you know you could do in just a minute. We did the same thing with our processing team saying, OK, you need to be able to update decisions and do these different things that aren't necessarily your day-to-day job.

But so that you have kind of a a role and responsibility in this because again.

The bandwidth problem is real. We have 1.5 full-time slate people, not including Daniel Uh.

And so we have to kind of share the responsibility. So Slate is kind of the job of everybody in our office in just different capacities because sometimes you got to you got to share the love.

Yeah, one right on time, but I don't have any last minute questions or nothing, right?

That is perfect timing.

Thank you all for being here today. As a reminder, don't forget the recording of the session is going to be available in your home slate portal and then you can find it under Dive Deeper and Recordings. Logan, Daniel, thank you so much for sharing your perspectives. So much insight. Thank you all for being here today and I hope to catch you at our next Dive Deeper. Thank you all, have a good day.