CAMS — built on a legacy, non-relational database architecture — was not designed for the operational complexity that today's registrar offices face. It was built for a different era of higher education, when enrollment was simpler, student pathways were linear, and the same five staff members had been running the office for twenty years.

As you know, that era is over.

Most higher ed AI tools are too complex and lack practicality. We took a different approach. This demo recap breaks down three high-friction admissions workflows using Salesforce Agentforce to prove that AI can be operational, governed, and deployed in a fraction of the traditional implementation timeline.

Is the Enrollment Cliff actually an operations failure? Discover why institutional solvency now depends on Transfer Credit Efficiency. Learn how TondroAI Extract automates 'messy' data—from transcripts to military credits—to reduce evaluation time by 95%.

Unity Environmental University is a case study in intentional transformation. Recognizing the shifting landscape of higher education, the leadership team executed a bold strategic pivot to democratize access to environmental degrees. By embracing a hybrid, year-round model, they achieved what few institutions have: growing enrollment by over 1,000% while cutting costs for students and freezing tuition through 2030.

Vadim Gorlick, CEO of Tondro, a Salesforce implementation partner with extensive higher education experience, demonstrated how CRM systems can transform campus operations by serving as a central data repository and streamlining many processes. He showcased Salesforce's capabilities in handling academic and financial operations, including flexible term structures, course registration, and payment plans.

Seven months into a critical Salesforce implementation, Flagler College's admissions team faced a failed project with their launch deadline weeks away. Their concerns had been dismissed by their vendor, forcing them to scrap the project and revert to their old system for another year. The experience revealed a non-negotiable requirement for their next search: a partner who already understood the high-stakes nature of admissions operations from day one.

In a recent webinar hosted by ListEdTech, industry experts Charlie Moran (Moran Technology Consulting) and Justin Ménard (ListEdTech) offered one of the most candid data-informed perspectives we’ve seen on the current state of the Student Information System (SIS) market. Their candor, grounded in decades of analysis, made one thing abundantly clear: for many institutions, especially mid-sized colleges, the status quo is not sustainable.

San Francisco Bay University (SFBU), a small nonprofit university near Silicon Valley, serves a mission-centered population of first-generation and low-income students. But like many smaller institutions, SFBU struggled with disconnected systems and paper-based processes that slowed operations and limited growth. To support domestic enrollment expansion, the school adopted Salesforce not just as a CRM—but as a full Student Information System (SIS)—bringing together recruiting, admissions, financials, and student records on one connected platform.

Let’s be real: most SIS platforms are stuck in the past. 

Built for a world of paper forms and 9-to-5 office hours, traditional SIS systems are clunky, rigid, and allergic to change. They're not built for the way students expect things to work today—and they definitely weren’t built for the way your team needs to operate. 

But plot twist: you might already be sitting on the solution. 

If you’re using Salesforce (or even just thinking about it), you’re halfway there. What you may not realize is that Salesforce can also run your entire Student Information System. Yes, really.