Model Your Institutional Account Structure

Model Your Institutional Account Structure

A four-year university, an elementary school, and a school district all have vastly different org charts and governance models. But no matter your educational context, the Account object is foundational for modeling your institutional structure.

Institutional and Organizational Accounts

The Account object is a standard Salesforce object that represents organizational entities, such as departments or the academic programs that they administer, campus organizations, and sports teams. Accounts also represent organizational entities external to an educational institution, such as the schools that students have graduated or transferred from, local businesses, vendors, and research partners.

To help distinguish different types of institutional and organizational Accounts, EDA comes preconfigured with these record types that can be used for internal or external entities.

• Educational Institution

• University Department

• Sports Organization

• Business Organization

Note As you develop a plan for tracking institutional and organizational entities, consider whether you need custom Account record types to track other entities, such as school districts or government agencies.

A few other preconfigured Account record types are included.

• Administrative Account and Household Account—Specialized record types for modeling data about individual Contacts. See Model Faculty, Staff, and Student Contacts.

• Academic Program—A record type for modeling any type of academic, student support, or recreational program, including degree- or credential-granting programs. In the EDA data model, an Academic Program is modeled under a parent Account that typically represents some department within the institution.

Structure Account Records in a Hierarchy

Use Account records to model your institution's entities, including an Account record for the institution itself. You want your institutional Accounts to be well-defined and well-structured before you create Contact records to model the faculty, staff, students, and other people who have relationships with these entities.

Here's a small sample of Connected University's institutional Account records.

Account records

Organize your institutional Account records in a tree structure of parent and child records—what's known in Salesforce as an account hierarchy. For Accounts outside your institution, organize them into their own, separate account hierarchies, as needed.

Institutional Accounts: Sample Account Hierarchies

Let's see how account hierarchies can look in different educational contexts.

Important Keep in mind that these sample hierarchies don't necessarily mirror an org chart or personnel chart, nor are they supposed to. It's best to design your account hierarchies based on data management within the Salesforce security and record sharing model. Structure the data so that users have permissions to access only the data that they need and not more.

Let’s take a closer look at part of the account hierarchy for Connected University. The top-level parent Account represents the university itself. Accounts underneath represent administrative departments, academic divisions, and so on. Notice that Accounts lower in the hierarchy are sometimes parent Accounts, too.

• Connected University

  • Administration

    • Office of the President

      • Finance and Administration

      • IT and Data Services

  • Office of Admissions and Records

    • Registrar

  • Office of Student Affairs

    • Academic Senate

  • Office of Real Estate and Facilities

    • Physical Plant Department

  • Schools and Colleges

    • Office of the Provost

    • College of Arts and Humanities

      • Undergraduate Study

      • Graduate Study

    • School of Law

Consider another example of part of an account hierarchy for a secondary school that's a feeder school for Connected University. Under the top-level Daisy Bates Academy parent Account are Accounts representing administrative departments, academic departments, and so on.

• Daisy Bates Academy

  • Leadership Team

  • Curriculum and Instruction

    • Languages

    • Science

    • Performing Arts

  • Extracurricular Programs

    • The Bates Journal

    • Robotics Club

  • Student Support Services

    • Academic Counseling

    • Special Education

    • Tutoring

  • Facilities and Maintenance

    • Cafeteria Services

    • Custodial and Maintenance Services

    • Tech and Media

Let's round out our examples with part of an account hierarchy for the school district that Daisy Bates Academy is in. Under the top-level Rosewood Unified School District parent Account there are Accounts representing the superintendent's office, district services, district schools, and so on.

• Rosewood Unified School District

  • Board of Education

  • Superintendent's Office

    • Personnel

    • Learning and Development

    • Student Services

      • Special Enrichment Programs

    • Operations

    • Primary Education

      • Delano Elementary School

      • E.L. Kahlert Elementary School

    • Secondary Education

      • Rosewood Middle School

      • Daisy Bates Academy

      • Orange Tech High School

Institutional Accounts: Sample Account Hierarchies

Let's see how account hierarchies can look in different educational contexts.

Important Keep in mind that these sample hierarchies don't necessarily mirror an org chart or personnel chart, nor are they supposed to. It's best to design your account hierarchies based on data management within the Salesforce security and record sharing model. Structure the data so that users have permissions to access only the data that they need and not more.

Let’s take a closer look at part of the account hierarchy for Connected University. The top-level parent Account represents the university itself. Accounts underneath represent administrative departments, academic divisions, and so on. Notice that Accounts lower in the hierarchy are sometimes parent Accounts, too.

• Connected University

  • Administration

    • Office of the President

      • Finance and Administration

      • IT and Data Services

  • Office of Admissions and Records

    • Registrar

  • Office of Student Affairs

    • Academic Senate

  • Office of Real Estate and Facilities

    • Physical Plant Department

  • Schools and Colleges

    • Office of the Provost

    • College of Arts and Humanities

      • Undergraduate Study

      • Graduate Study

    • School of Law

Consider another example of part of an account hierarchy for a secondary school that's a feeder school for Connected University. Under the top-level Daisy Bates Academy parent Account are Accounts representing administrative departments, academic departments, and so on.

• Daisy Bates Academy

  • Leadership Team

  • Curriculum and Instruction

    • Languages

    • Science

    • Performing Arts

  • Extracurricular Programs

    • The Bates Journal

    • Robotics Club

  • Student Support Services

    • Academic Counseling

    • Special Education

    • Tutoring

  • Facilities and Maintenance

    • Cafeteria Services

    • Custodial and Maintenance Services

    • Tech and Media

Let's round out our examples with part of an account hierarchy for the school district that Daisy Bates Academy is in. Under the top-level Rosewood Unified School District parent Account there are Accounts representing the superintendent's office, district services, district schools, and so on.

• Rosewood Unified School District

  • Board of Education

  • Superintendent's Office

    • Personnel

    • Learning and Development

    • Student Services

      • Special Enrichment Programs

    • Operations

    • Primary Education

      • Delano Elementary School

      • E.L. Kahlert Elementary School

    • Secondary Education

      • Rosewood Middle School

      • Daisy Bates Academy

      • Orange Tech High School