Clackamas Community College

Background

Clackamas Community College, located in Oregon City, Oregon, is a learning institution selected by the Federal Government to participate in the Workforce Investment Act. Upon completion of their education, participants are placed in working environments directly related to their courses of study. In order to stay in compliance with federal regulations, CCC is mandated to implement a sufficient tracking system to maintain pertinent information on all participants enrolled in WIA.

The Problem

The need for an effective and all-inclusive contact management tool at CCC was increasing as the number of participants grew. CCC lacked the ability to have readily available information on each contact, from both the business sector and the student database.

CCC’s staff relied upon an outdated and inefficient paper system and from outside contract work, which provided them with comprehensive reports. The need for individual reports was simply going unmet. Each student/resource the college placed in the work force needed his or her own individual tracking—and the ability to accomplish this was a timely and expensive task.

CCC’s involvement with the Workforce Investment Act entails the maintenance of vast amounts of comprehensive contact information, every participant academic and career profile, and step-by-step accounts of process details. The amount of time and effort CCC staff spent on information allocation and maintenance was proving to be ineffective.

The Solution

Clackamas Community College relies on its Novell GroupWise email system for the dissemination of information on every level. Maintaining quality lines of communication with all resources and contacts is of the utmost importance for CCC. Through the integration of GroupLink’s ContactWise contact management tool, CCC has been able to transform its once slow and tedious tracking process into a full functioning, streamlined contact information system.

Operating on a well-established Novell platform, and moving to an open database server (e.g., Linux, NetWare or Windows based database options), the implementation of ContactWise provided CCC the opportunity to leverage its existing investments. The seamless integration of GroupLink’s ContactWise, with Novell GroupWise provided CCC with an operating tool that maximized efficiency while concurrently minimizing efforts.

Corky Fields works in Customized Training and Developmental Services for Clackamas Community College. “Every month we generate reports specifying detailed information regarding our involvement with the Workforce Investment Act. Before the implementation of ContactWise; the task of recording the exact number of businesses contacted, primary contact information used, the number of employees involved, and which project coordinator oversaw each and every project was a daunting process,” said Fields. “Now through the use of ContactWise we are able to receive direct and verifiable information instantly, and then route that data to the appropriate department or individual with a click of the mouse.”

“We have a need for mail merges, and before the implementation of ContactWise we had no choice but to do separate sorts,” said Fields. “With this new system everything is so streamlined, and we have the added bonus of having all correspondence recorded in ContactWise history Tab. One of the biggest advantages is being able to bulk email based on coding, and to incorporate electric-clients. This was something we were in desperate need of.”

Conclusion

Through the implementation of GroupLink’s ContactWise, Clackamas Community College has been able to take a cumbersome process and streamline it to the markets with which it is involved. Through a more competent and efficient contact management system, CCC has increased its potential to serve both students and enterprises affiliated with the Workforce Investment Act. The integration of ContactWise has provided CCC staff with the ability to perform their responsibilities better, while more effectively handling their contact resources.