Talend Cloud helps streamline Kent State University’s admissions process

Kent State University is using Talend Cloud to simplify its admissions processes. Combining data integration, data stewardship, and application integration capabilities from Talend on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kent State is able to integrate ERP with CRM and other SaaS systems, streamline the admissions processes, and shorten development time.

With eight campuses spanning Northeast Ohio, a College of Podiatric Medicine, a Regional Academic Center, and academic sites in major world cities such as New York City, Geneva, and Florence, Kent State University is one of Ohio’s leading public universities and a major educational, economic and cultural resource far beyond the Northeast Ohio region it has served since 1910. The student body comprises more than 38,000 students, including more than 1,700 international students from 100 countries, and the worldwide alumni family exceeds 245,000. 

During the graduate and international student admissions processes, Kent State receives data such as standardized test scores and candidate lists, from several sources. This influx left Kent State with many point-to-point integrations among different systems, both on-premise and in the cloud. The university needed a way to organize and integrate data sources to simplify the application and admissions process. To achieve this organization, the university sought out a solution to transition to a cloud-based environment and integrate all systems receiving application data.

In working with Talend, Kent State has integrated more than 60 systems, streamlined the processing of more than 6,000 graduate school applications, shortened development time with reusable components, and leveraged Talend’s Remote Engines to access cloud and on-premise data.

The university was able to integrate two major systems, CollegeNET CRM and Banner ERP, to prevent employees from manually entering the same information twice. The integration also syncs data nightly so changes in Banner are replicated in CollegeNET. Additionally, faulty data is caught early as the data stewardship capabilities in Talend Cloud eliminate the need for manually changing data in Banner, saving up to 20 minutes of admissions staff time per applicant.  

“Talend is a platform that helps us integrate multiple systems on-premise and in the cloud, put structure around data movement, and make data work for us,” said John Rathje, Kent State's vice president for information technology and CIO. “We use it to manage and understand data and as a framework for capabilities like deploying a more structured approach to reporting and analytics.”

More information is available from Talend and Kent State University.