Hope to see you at the UCAS Annual Admissions Conference 2014!

We're proud to be bringing Student CRM to the UCAS Annual Admissions Conference in 2015. Click here for the 2015 details.

We're pleased to announce that, once again, we are exhibiting the UK's most loved student recruitment software, Student CRM at the UCAS Annual Admissions Conference at the Celtic Manor, Newport in Wales from Monday 14th April to Wednesday 16th April 2014.

Pop by and say hello (stand 5) just look out for the lime green stand handing out pick and mix sweets! We're looking forward to meeting Universities and Colleges from across the UK. 

If you're responsible for student recruitment at your University and would like to enhance your student recruitment process and activities, simply book a free demo of our 21 apps and we can give you a live demo at the conference.

Drop into the stand to say 'hi' to Dom, Peter and Andrea!

Flattering prospectuses ‘mislead’ students

David Matthews writes in his article in THE that some University marketing materials do not always reveal the true picture.

Universities invest a considerable amount of time and money each year planning, designing and writing their prospectus, painting an idyllic picture of university life. Some are also however embellishing facts and polishing certain statistics in order to promote themselves. Mmmmm. Desperate measures in tough times?

Read David's full article here:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/tablet/EA4021A2/2010564.shared

Here at Data Harvesting we believe that time spent on engagement is the better alternative. Authentic engagement.

Improving the process of actually getting your prospectus to the student and facilitating proper engagement with your institution should be the goal. Leverage the powerful features of today's modern student recruitment systems like our Student CRM, which manages the whole process simply and efficiently, doing the hard work for you.

How a CRM builds trust and authenticity into messaging.

When a student visits your University website, do they engage like Sam in this example?

• At 11:00am Student Sam completes the online Prospectus Requests form.
• She gets an instant, personalised, branded email thanking her and confirming that her prospectus will be posted soon (AUTO).
• At 3pm a PDF file of ready-to-print labels is automatically emailed to Recruitment Officer Chris in the office who mails out prospectuses each day. Sam’s address is in that daily file and gets posted out.
• Sam’s prospectus arrives by post the next day.
• One week after requesting, Sam gets a personalised email with more useful information (AUTO).
• Another week later, Sam gets an email with a link to book on an Open day (AUTO).

AUTO: set up in advance and 100% branded with business rules and merged personalised content, these communications increase your accuracy, responsiveness and engagement appeal. Our Student CRM’s Prospectus Request app allows students to request a prospectus by post, download or email and follows up each student with a personalised contact plan to ensure student satisfaction with an accurate and instant automated service.

So as you can see, it’s all very well attracting new students with brightly coloured, smiley-faced prospectuses oozing with exciting “facts” but this needs to be backed up with a professional automated engagement process which allows you to follow the student journey through the initial enquiry, prospectus, open day, application and on to enrolment.

Contact us today to book a free Student CRM demo to see how it could improve your student recruitment.

500,000 little code buds blooming

Our Cloud CRM solution never stands still.

Whilst it's taken over 3 years to build and develop the latest version of our Student CRM with its 21 pick and mix apps, everything has advanced again since we rendered this cool visualisation. Running from our in-house development team's log files, this video transforms code into beautiful buds that bloom before your eyes. This is our 'behind the scenes glimpse' (a bit like the latest popular John Lewis advert, just a bit less festive).

Watch the video below to see years compressed into seconds and what it takes to build the UK's best-loved Student CRM.

UCAS DIGI

In October we took our Student CRM to London to exhibit at the UCAS Digital Marketing & Social Media Conference.

We attended some really great seminars and met plenty of digitally like-minded people. Conference host Andrew Hargreaves said "student recruitment is now all about acquisition and conversion" which of course our Student CRM is geared towards.

Another hot topic also on the agenda was mobile marketing. Mobile is key to student engagement; experts predict that, in 4 years' time, 98% of students will own a smartphone - indicating that all digital strategies must include now mobile.

Which is partly why we developed our Mobile Event Capture app due to the need to be able to capture data at events or whilst out on the road.

Jamie Smith from South Staffs College won praise and admiration (and gasps!) from follow delegates when he spoke about their 25-second online application form! Making the whole application process super simple for busy students.

And Jim Tudor urged delegates to think SoLoMo = Social Local Mobile.

Data Harvesting's Student CRM was even top of the leaderboard for Tweeting whilst at the exhibition for a few minutes but I think Jamie Smith overtook us in the final furlongs.

A big thank you to the talented Events & Technical Co-ordinator Justine Atkin from UCAS for managing this wonderful event. Here are a few snaps from the conference:

Student CRM is exhibiting at the UCAS Digital Marketing and Social Media Conference on Friday 18th October 2013

The Student CRM roadshow is always out and about. Student CRM is next exhibiting at the UCAS Digital Marketing and Social Media Conference on Friday 18th October 2013. Come to London and take a look at the UK’s most loved ‘Student CRM’ – our cloud computing SaaS solution for Universities and Colleges. Besides meeting the Data Harvesting team on our exhibition stand (yes, lots of free giveaways again!) you have plenty to discover on this one-day conference for Marketing and communications professionals from the higher education sector:

UCAS describe this event as:

The Digital Marketing and Social Media Conference 2013 will be focussed on providing the tools and knowledge to help you enhance your digital marketing potential.

Key themes for the conference include:

• Maximise audience reach, minimise cost - 25 digital trends to take away - Future Index
• Higher education - why is a user experience led digital strategy so important now? -Webcredible
• How Google Panda and Penguin have created the 'new SEO' - Emarketeers
• Delivering an Exceptional Student Experience - IBM and South Staffordshire College
• Social Media best practice - nurturing your digital customer - Havas People
• Student engagement through mobile technology

Who should attend?

Marketing and communications professionals from the higher education sector.

Plenary sessions

Break-out sessions

• The key components of a successful online brand
• Optimising your digital assets for mobile devices
• Email campaigns - personalisation and amplification
• Social Media best practice - nurturing your digital customer

Product demonstrations

Networking opportunities to share knowledge

Student CRM is exhibiting at CASE Europe in Manchester

If you are already registered for CASE Europe from 26th to 30th August 2013, do pop along to our Student CRM exhibition stand. You can see why we are passionate about providing the UK’s most loved ‘Student CRM’ – our cloud computing student recruitment SaaS solution for HEIs. If you have yet to register for CASE, take a look here: www.case.org/Conferences_and_Training.html

View the CASE Europe Annual Conference 2013 Programme

The Future of the Higher Education Curriculum

Data Harvesting exhibited at this year's ‘The Future of the Higher Education Curriculum' conference held on Thursday 13th June 2013 at The Royal College of Surgeons of England, Lincoln’s Inn Fields London.

Thank you to our existing CRM clients who visited our exhibition stand and helped us to get rid of more sweets (you are good!). As you know we don't like to take leftover sweets home following an exhibition.

Great to meet new CRM-curious friends on the day. A big hello to Gavin, Mandy, Jane, Kathryn, Linda, Stella, Charlotte, Andrea, Karen, John, Malcolm, Maggie, Simon, Ross, Linda, Chris and Craig.

Does your CRM send text messages to your students as a part of your recruitment process?

If not, then try our Student CRM - and see why we use SMS to communicate with students. Our Student CRM sends out text messages to registered students.  (Thank you Lucy Keyte at Dynmark for permission to use these infographics.)

Spot the Data Harvesting choristers?

Craig Yates (yes THE Craig Yates from Only Men Aloud) assembled a 60-strong choir from the delegates attending the 3-day UCAS Admission Conference in Newport, Wales in March 2013.

Andrea Finnagin and Dom Yeadon from Student CRM specialists Data Harvesting were amongst its number. Great fun, especially as none of us knew we were going to a part of Craig's choir until the day it happened! And a big thank you to Craig Yates - what a superstar!

Not sure Sony will rush to sign us, but we make a happy sound!

Video: The Data Harvesting singers in full voice at The Celtic Manor Resort to a packed conference hall. Great fun and amazing results considering we only met each other to form this temporary 60-strong choir of sopranos, altos, tenors and bass, and had 100 minutes of rehearsals!

Pick and Mix Apps is a sweet success at UCAS

With over 9kgs of pick and mix sweets given away so far on our stand at the UCAS Admissions Conference in Newport, Data Harvesting's Student CRM stand has certainly been a sweet success. Our 21 pick and mix apps are all geared towards Student recruitment, so the Student CRM is certainly catching the attention of the 400 delegates.

This has been a great chance to catch up with clients old and new, and make many new friends. Hello to all our HE clients - great to see so many of you! And to new friends Steve Crompton and Marta Texidor from Microsoft's Yammer - worth checking out their tech below.

One highlight on Monday (apart from naming our Quiz team the imaginative 'It's bad karma to harm a llama farmer') was singing in the 60-strong Only Admissions Aloud Choir Challenge assembled from delegates on the day and performing live on stage on the last day.

The adoption of CRM by HE continues to be strong, as VCs across the country demand accountability from their Recruitment Heads. The blend of multiple different and complimentary marketing activities is vital in strategic decision-making. We are pleased to be able to make that process a whole lot smoother, accurate and faster with our built-in reporting.

Back to the conference now.

Newest Student CRM at UCAS Admissions Conference

Data Harvesting will be unveiling its newest Student CRM at the UCAS Admissions Conference at the Celtic Manor Resort, Newport between Monday 25th March and Wednesday 27th March 2013. Already causing quite a stir in the student recruitment marketplace, this new CRM continues to win business from UK Universities and Colleges.

Come and visit us on stand 5 to see for yourself how to recruit more students with Data Harvesting's Student CRM.

Video: How to lock your iPad's Home button when using Mobile Event Capture

When you are at an event, using Data Harvesting's Mobile Event Capture from the Student CRM, you want to prevent students using the Home button to close down the app and do something else. The last thing you need if for a student to close the app and browse to something, well shall I just say 'something less desirable' for the next visitor to your stand to see.

OK, you have 2 choices:

1. Cover the iPad's home button (many lockable iPad stands do this)
2. Lock the iPad's home button (if your stand does not cover it, or if you don't use a stand)

How to lock your iPad's Home button when using Mobile Event Capture

n iOS 6 you can limit your iPad to one app by disabling the 'home button' access and restricting touch input to certain areas of the screen enabling your iPad to be left unattended. Only available on iPad 2 and above.

1. Go to Settings
2. Tap General
3. Scroll down to Accessibility
4. Scroll down to Guided Access
5. Tap Guided Access
6. Switch Guided Access to on and Set Passcode if not already set
7. Go to an app with a scrolling picture, triple click on the HomeButton, Press Start in the top right-hand side of screen. Your screen is now locked.
8. To unlock - Triple click the home button, enter your passcode and in the top left-hand side click End.

Smartphones, students and recruitment

Student recruitment using smartphones and tablets. This infographic gives a useful insight into how students are using smartphones every day.

How will this impact your recruitment in the future? Click image to see full size:

You (heart) Mobile Event Capture

Nice Mobile Event Capture feedback in just now, thank you everybody, we love to hear that you love using our CRM!

"The Mobile Event Capture and platform was an easy way to collect student details and a great way to keep in touch with students in a timely manner. The data was organized just the way I wanted it for my records and it saved me a lot of time." Senior International Recruiter, International Recruitment & Admissions, Wilfrid Laurier University

"I love the app!  It is simple, clean and easy to use." Manager Student Recruitment, University of Saskatchewan

"I must say that your system was extremely easy to use and the features were also very user friendly." Vice President International Development, International College of Management, Sydney Australia

"I did indeed enjoy using the app, I thought it was very easy and convenient for not only us but the student." Assistant Director International Admissions, East Carolina University, USA

"I really enjoyed using your app. It was easy to use, quick to install and we were able to contact the interested students very easily afterwards.

As students meet a lot of people and see many opportunities during the fair it’s good to contact them afterwards and remind them about the existence of your institution.

With your app it was easy and we were able to modify the mails already beforehand and the app sent the messages automatically so there was no need to remember to do it myself." Coordinator of International Education, Tampere University of Technology, Finland

We believe that everybody's CRM software should leave them feeling this happy.

Find out more about Mobile Event Capture. Interested in a 100% Free Trial?

37 Universities using Data Harvesting at Wembley

Great fun at Wembley over the weekend, as a total of 37 universities from all around the world used our Mobile Event Capture app to collect student details at their Student World stands. A really good get-together in the bar the night before and yet we all still got up at 7am the next morning to recruit students! Lovely people and a great show, thanks to Marcel and his team at MJD.

Image: Students arrive at Student World, Wembley 2012.

And a big hello to all our new friends from:

Algonquin College Baruch College British Higher School of Art & Design NHH Norwegian School of Economics & Business Central European University Conestoga College Degrees Ahead East Carolina University Fontys International Business School Georgian College HAN University of Applied Sciences Hanze University of Applied Sciences Hong Kong Polytechnic University HU University of Applied Sciences HZ University of Applied Sciences IE University International College of Management, Sydney Jacobs University KEA Copenhagen School of Design and Technology Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts Niagara College OCAD University Preparation for Life Rotterdam Business School Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey SAIT Polytechnic Seneca College of Art & Technology Stenden University of Applied Sciences The Student World University of Amsterdam University of Groningen University of Saskatchewan Van Hall Larenstein VU Amsterdam Wilfrid Laurier University Zuyd University of Applied Sciences

Hot on the heels of the Manchester Student World where one in three exhibitors made use of it, it seems Universities just can't get enough of Mobile Event Capture app.

See you all at the next one!

Mobile app a hit at Manchester's Student World fair

One in three universities used Data Harvesting's Mobile Event Capture app to collect student details on iPads and laptops this weekend. Universities from all around the world, including new Zealand, Canada, Netherlands, Finland and more all used this clever offline app to capture student details quickly, then upload into their own CRM and follow-up.

Image: Sophia Ip, Assistant Manager, International Affairs Office, Hong Kong Polytechnic University at Student World, Manchester 2012.

Sophia commented: "Your mobile app is a very helpful and easy to use tool for capturing student data at events, and I was very impressed with the excellent post event follow up functions."

Welcome to the Data Harvesting family:

Algonquin College Baruch College British Higher School of Art & Design NHH Norwegian School of Economics & Business Central European University Conestoga College Degrees Ahead East Carolina University Fontys International Business School Georgian College HAN University of Applied Sciences Hanze University of Applied Sciences Hong Kong Polytechnic University HU University of Applied Sciences HZ University of Applied Sciences IE University International College of Management, Sydney Jacobs University KEA Copenhagen School of Design and Technology Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts Niagara College OCAD University Preparation for Life Rotterdam Business School Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey SAIT Polytechnic Seneca College of Art & Technology Stenden University of Applied Sciences The Student World University of Amsterdam University of Groningen University of Saskatchewan Van Hall Larenstein VU Amsterdam Wilfrid Laurier University Zuyd University of Applied Sciences

The general consensus was that the Mobile Event Capture app allowed the recruitment officers more time to speak to students face-to-face, whilst it allowed the students to enter their own details directly into the iPad on each stand. Very fast to set up and totally customisable to suit each university, this app is simplifying the way students details are saved at recruitment events the world over.

How to send students birthday messages

Wish students a happy birthday!

It's easy to wish students a happy birthday when it's our Birthdays app doing all the hard work!

With SMS or email options, you can set this helpful little app to find every opt-in student in your CRM and send them a personalised greeting on their birthday - 'Happy Birthday John (or Jane)!'.

(Like all our CRM apps, Birthdays runs hands-free - after all, who has time to do all that by hand?)

Mobile Event Capture app iOS6 update

IMPORTANT: if you are thinking about upgrading your iPad software from iOS 5 to iOS 6, read this carefully first: Following Apple's recent iOS 6 update, we have released a new version of our Mobile Event app.

BEFORE you update to iOS 6 you will need to:

• Sync any existing data stored in the Mobile Event Capture app.
• Remove the app from your homescreen by tapping and holding on the app icon until it begins to shake. Then press the cross in the upper left-hand corner to remove the app.
• Then open the Settings on the iPad, tap Safari, then tap Clear Cookies and Data. (This will remove all website data from your iPad. Ensure that you do not have any other important website data on the iPad.)
• You are then ready to update to iOS 6.

AFTER updating to iOS 6:

• Log in to the CRM and open Mobile Event Capture on your iPad.
• Navigate to the 'Download' tab.
• Tap the 'Download' button.
• When the app has finished installing, follow the onscreen instructions to add the app to your homescreen.

Once the app has been added to your homescreen, you are ready to get out there and collect some more student details!

Student recruitment success at Student World

Student recruitment was made simple for Universities attending the Student World Fair at Manchester on Saturday 29th September. They all successfully used (and loved) the Mobile Event Capture app to store the details of all students who visited their stands.

Manchester Fair Saturday 29th September 2012 - The Point, Manchester. Meet over 70 universities from around the world at The Student World Fair at The Point in Manchester on Saturday 29th September 2012. Click here for more info.