Transforming the recruitment and admissions experience with Anthology

Established in 1970, Touro University is a large private institution with a strong Jewish heritage. Over its 50+ year history, Touro has expanded from a New York City campus to 35 colleges, including locations in the United States, Israel, Germany, and Russia. Today, Touro serves a diverse learner population of 19,000 and offers a wide range of academic offerings spanning undergraduate, graduate, professional, and medical programs.

We've evolved and changed so much in a short period of time, and it seems almost exponential. I can't wait to see where we're going to be in two to three years.

Brian Diele, Director of CRM and Admissions Retention Operations, Touro University

As a large, widespread university, Touro used myriad application processes and upwards of 12 different CRM platforms across its network of campuses.

With over 100 staff members involved in admissions, the institution grappled with several issues, such as manual communication with applicants, paper application handling, and inconsistent data collection on leads and applicants. In other words, Touro’s patchwork of systems made it impossible for its team to manage their recruitment and enrollment efforts efficiently. The absence of a centralized CRM only amplified these challenges.

With 35 different colleges throughout the country and the world, we represent many different needs. And that was always an issue for us when we had our other product that we were using for applications and multiple CRMs.

Brian Diele, Director of CRM and Admissions Retention Operations, Touro University

The Touro team realized the need to move to an application system integrated with a CRM so that data could flow across various departments at the institution without the need to invest in developing an integration between software from different vendors. The real-time data and integrated application system provided with Anthology® Reach are now vital to Touro’s recruitment, admissions, and marketing strategies.

The fact that Reach is built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 only made it more compelling for the team, as this has allowed for customizations that helped to further automate tasks and streamline processes. As such, the Touro team is better equipped to handle the complexities of admissions efforts at 35 colleges across four countries.

Perhaps most importantly, Reach delivers a seamless application experience for prospective students. Interested learners are greeted with the appropriate logo and content from their desired college under the Touro umbrella—imperative for brand recognition and instilling trust—and are encouraged to begin the application process. But behind the scenes, the data is funneled into a centralized platform, making it easy to see trends and use the data to inform strategies.

Anthology worked closely with the Touro team throughout the implementation process to ensure all the requirements and nuances were accounted for from start to finish. “They were great the entire time,” recalled Diele. “It was really ideal in the amount of effort they put in to make sure that we were happy.”

Looking forward, Touro University is excited about leveraging Reach’s CRM capabilities for more sophisticated lead nurturing and advanced data mining.

Working smarter together: With a centralized system in place, Touro instituted consistent policies and procedures across its schools, eliminating shadow systems and improving data handling. Reach also enabled Touro to automate communications for applicants, relieving employees of the daunting task of responding to the thousands of inquiries the institution receives each year.

Reach also fostered a more harmonious environment between Touro’s schools and departments—an unexpected but welcomed benefit. For the first time, staff could look at the same information, eliminating the unnecessary friction that had often occurred before implementing Reach. As Brian Diele remarked, "The system really changed the community and brought us together.”

Touro's ability to customize Anthology Reach is never-ending. Every week, I find myself building some other new Power Automate Flow to solve a problem that we had that would've only been able to be solved manually.

Brian Diele, Director of CRM and Admissions Retention Operations, Touro University

Just what the medical school ordered

Reach proved transformative for Touro’s medical programs. Instead of building and managing upwards of 30 data bridges for a multitude of centralized application services, Reach funnels all the incoming data into Touro’s student information system. What’s more, Touro can customize the application system to provide program-specific hidden links that gather supplemental information the college needs.

Now, Touro can handle third-party applications the same way they do applications submitted in Reach. And since all the data is centralized in Reach, the university can—for the first time—see the full scope of applications and enrollment trends.

There’s always something exciting to build

Touro has taken full advantage of Reach’s customization potential. They’ve built onto the system to track leads dynamically, tagging the status based on their progression in the application cycle. Leveraging tools like Power Automate Flow, Touro has introduced automation to a wide range of tasks, freeing up valuable bandwidth for staff.