Adobe® Marketing Cloud Success Story Simon Fraser University One university, hundreds of websites Simon Fraser University Burnaby, British Columbia www.sfu.ca Top Canadian university uses Adobe Experience Manager to improve its reputation and recruitment on the web through engaging, consistent online experiences Ranked by national surveys as one of Canada’s top three comprehensive universities for almost 20 years, Simon Fraser University (SFU) offers more than 100 undergraduate major programs and more than 45 graduate offerings. Staff from eight faculties teach at three campuses in British Columbia: Burnaby, Vancouver, and Surrey. SFU relies on its web presence to support recruitment efforts and enhance its reputation. The university’s web sites provide information to many audiences: parents and prospective students; current students and alumni; and university administration and faculty. Across SFU and throughout its network of partners, web content creators of varying skill levels are publishing to more than 1,600 web sites. Large departments, such as student services, have full-time professional web authors, while smaller departments might assign one employee or even a graduate student to update content on a part-time basis. “When you have so many people working on websites, it’s hard to get the consistency that’s vital to our branding and reputation,” says Frances Atkinson, director of institutional, collaborative, and academic technologies at SFU. Atkinson is responsible for the technologies that power the university’s core sites, including the main pages for faculty, schools, departments, as well as 200 related sites. Using Adobe Experience Manager, SFU can unleash the enthusiasm and knowledge of its many web content authors—and still achieve branded, professional-looking results. “With Adobe Experience Manager we can design templates that cascade through all the sites, making it easy for web authors to update content—improving the experience for our site visitors with timely, high-quality, and consistent content across all of the websites.” Frances Atkinson Director of Institutional, Collaborative, and Academic Technologies, Simon Fraser University Challenge • Improve consistent branding across hundreds of SFU websites to enhance experience for site visitors Improved brand consistency • Adopt a more controlled, centralized approach to web content authoring to improve creation and publishing of relevant content • Implement social media capabilities within main website to reduce audiences leaving site for social interactions • Support reuse and integration of content across sites SFU selected Adobe Marketing Cloud, including the Adobe Experience Manager solution, to replace the existing homegrown templates. The more centralized approach fostered a new level of professionalism, consistency, and ease of use. “With Adobe Experience Manager we can design templates that cascade through all the sites, making it easy for web authors to update content—improving the experience for our site visitors with timely, high-quality, and consistent content across all of the websites,” explains Atkinson. “We also can enhance our sites with mobile and social media to reach more audiences in ways that appeal most to them.” Solution SFU is using Adobe Marketing Cloud, including the Adobe Experience Manager solution, to streamline creation and maintenance of websites that engage students and other communities and strengthen the university’s brand and reputation. Benefits • Created consistent branding across all university websites • Improved content creation, management, and publishing for departments across campus • Enhanced university reputation with consistent, engaging web experiences • Enabled integration with business systems to streamline distribution of information To maintain consistency, a university group created website templates and distributed them to web content authors. However, the templates were difficult to use and quickly became outdated. SFU evaluated a dozen web content management solutions before deciding to use Adobe Experience Manager. Experience Manager provided a centralized content management platform, enabling the IT team to create several intuitive templates that web content creators could use to quickly and reliably update online content in minutes. Streamlined web content management To help harness the full potential of Adobe Experience Manager, Atkinson worked with a designer to create templates and trained 12 developers on her team in building apps. The early work was a complete success, and within the first six months, the number of trained content authors increased from 12 in IT to 150 across the university, with new, authorized content contributors being trained almost daily. SFU leverages Adobe Experience Manager, including web content management, digital asset management, social communities, and mobile capabilities, to support more cost-effective, coordinated updating of web content across the university. For example, staff in the university president’s office maintain a regular “Envision SFU” blog, and events calendars are easily kept current by staff across departments. “Adobe Experience Manager provides a growing number of content contributors—including more than 150 of them today—with an easy-to-use platform that fosters their creativity while helping ensure we always deliver professional, SFU-branded experiences on all our web pages,” says Atkinson. Integration between the university’s business applications and Adobe Experience Manager helps ensure that important administrative information is kept updated and consistent as quickly and cost effectively as possible across hundreds of websites. “Adobe Experience Manager enables us to scale up—not just to the number of users, but also to the creativity of SFU faculty and students—while maintaining a consistent web presence, supporting recruiting and further strengthening our reputation for excellence.” Frances Atkinson Director of Institutional, Collaborative, and Academic Technologies, Simon Fraser University Toolkit Polished, branded experiences Adobe Marketing Cloud, including the Adobe Experience Manager solution. Capabilities used include: As a result of using Adobe Experience Manager, the university’s website delivers many benefits to content contributors and visitors. Every department—including Student Services, the President’s Office, Academic Advising, and Admissions—now has easy access to a centralized library of updated, branded content, and online visitors benefit from a consistent, more engaging experience. •Web content management •Digital asset management •Social communities •Mobile “Our content authors are working at least three times faster,” explains Atkinson. “Plus, they’re enjoying it more than ever. For larger groups, such as Public Affairs and Student Services, a transition to a new system can take a lot of effort, but they are among our biggest supporters. They’ve seen the marked benefits of using Adobe Experience Manager and are extremely enthusiastic about the solution.” A bridge between the past and the future SFU expects the new website capabilities will enhance and extend connections within the university community and beyond. For example, when reporters approach the university for an expert on a topic, the website now has an app showing SFU faculty and their areas of expertise, giving reporters rapid access to experts and making it easier to contact the appropriate person, and subsequently enhancing the university’s image as a thought leader. Beyond ongoing updating of rich online content, SFU is looking to extend Adobe Experience Manager to support electronic payment processing, provide access to content via tablets and mobile devices, and to provide students and faculty overall with more web services supporting everyday university processes. SFU has selected mobile capabilities in Experience Manager that will provide access to university content across the multitude of devices available for the mobile web. For more information www.adobe.com/solutions/ digital-marketing.html Adobe Systems Incorporated 345 Park Avenue San Jose, CA 95110-2704 USA www.adobe.com “At SFU, virtually any faculty or student could eventually author content for our online pages,” says Atkinson. “Adobe Experience Manager enables us to scale up—not just to the number of users, but also to the creativity of SFU faculty and students—while maintaining a consistent web presence, supporting recruiting and further strengthening our reputation for excellence.” © 2013 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. Adobe and the Adobe logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 91080651 4/13