Scale or Fail: Deploying Student Success Software at Columbia College

In 2018, Columbia College set out to implement Watermark in four months with the goal of having staff stop using their legacy system on a specific day and start using Watermark the next business day. To ensure success, the project manager gathered requirements with individual meetings and online surveys from all areas of the college pre-implementation to promote buy-in. Representatives from each area participated in all software demos and scored each on a standardized list of requirements. Once Watermark was chosen, a project implementation team was established that included nationwide leadership, Academic Advisors (traditional day and non-traditional nationwide locations), the Director of Student Success, and members of Technology Services to ensure that a variety of areas would have their voices represented during the configuration process.

Communicating early & often

• Started before the contract was signed.
• Met with stakeholders individually to gather requirements.
• Surveyed staff to build buy in.
• Allowed participation in software demos and scored on a standardized list of requirements.
• Provided a timeline to set expectations.
• Kept leadership informed.
• Continued communication post-launch with regular emails and workshops.

Approaching implementation in phases

• Evaluated functionality needed on day one versus things that could be introduced after going live.
• Phased in the introduction of the software to departments around campus. Offices that were added after the initial launch were TRiO, International Center, Athletics, Tutoring, Student Affairs, and Faculty.
• Highlighted key features such as mass messaging and scheduling to promote buy in from day one.

Created a tiered training plan

• Offered pilot group a first look at Watermark and training materials to allow time for adjustment.
• Hosted an Advising Conference two weeks before launch where a representative from each location came to the main campus for hands-on training to ensure each location had experienced users.
• Held two live webinars with Q&A sessions for college wide training across all campuses. Also created short training videos on Watermark features for go-live training and for on-boarding new staff.

In December of 2021, Watermark Insights acquired Aviso Retention. Student Success & Engagement includes all former Aviso products.

Online documentation:

Technology helps to combine human intelligence, artificial intelligence and data to more efficiently communicate with students and provide the most impactful interventions. It can also assist with departmental collaboration to work together more effectively. The use of the software allows for documentation of student interactions to share essential information. Communication and documentation were key for Columbia College. An overall guide and individual documents for each part of the software were saved in their employee documentation library. At least once a month, email announcements are sent with reminders and tips. This ongoing communication in many different formats keeps their usage up and campus buy-in high.

Watermark user group:

Columbia College created a team of experts on Watermark that meets weekly to answer questions, track issues, and log enhancement requests. They track these requests in an online ticketing system. This group then works with leadership to determine expectations of use and weighs in on each new functionality released over time.

Documenting a mass message in their legacy system for 100 students required about 600 keystrokes or close to 2 hours. In Watermark, the same communication only took 6 keystrokes and mere minutes to complete the entire process of documentation and mass messaging for 100 students. Showing this ease of process, improvement and effort to make life and day to day work easier for staff helped increase buy-in for the platform. It was important for Columbia College to achieve results that impacted campus culture and student success. Being able to show their progress, increase in usage, and intentionality with students was very important and made what they were doing with the system meaningful.

“The Watermark product itself made it really easy for us to get buy-in across the college. Features such as mass messaging, notes integrations, external links, tags, and the integration with our SIS and LMS have changed the way our staff engage with students.”

Kathy Heckmaster, PMP
Director of Student Relationship Management
Columbia College