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Lead
Lead represents a potential student to an educational institution or program.
- Sample Uses for Lead
Recruiting and admissions teams typically track two types of potential students about whom little is known—suspects and prospects. - Lead Record Types
Create leads record types for your institution if required. K-12 Architecture Kit doesn't provide any record types for Leads. - Configure Lead
Set up and maintain the Lead object in K-12 Architecture Kit. - Create Lead Records
Create leads in K-12 Architecture Kit by importing them or by using automation, or manually create a lead from the Lead object. - Convert Lead Records to Contact Records
When you convert a Lead is up to your institution, but we recommend doing so when a suspect signals interest, thus becoming a prospect. When converting a Lead, the fields on the record create three records: Contact, Account, and optionally Opportunity. - Things to Know About Maintaining Lead Data
Check new Account records periodically to ensure their Account Names follow your naming convention.
Sample Uses for Lead
Recruiting and admissions teams typically track two types of potential students about whom little is known—suspects and prospects.
Suspects haven't yet signaled interest in your institution while prospects have. In EDA K-12 Architecture Kit, we recommend using Leads to represent suspects, and Contacts to represent prospects. When suspects become prospects, you can convert their Lead records to Contact, Account, and Opportunity records.
Here's how some institutions use Leads in a recruiting context.
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University—Track suspects, perhaps gathered from a list provided by a testing service or recruiting event, who are good candidates for your marketing efforts.
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K-12—For private and charter schools, use Leads to personalize interactions and narrow the field of suspects.
Leads are an excellent way to track prospects at the top of your recruiting funnel. Using Leads instead of Contacts when a potential student's data first enters EDA K-12 Architecture Kit gives you many advantages, such as native Lead scoring and personalized marketing campaigns that allow you to better track and report demonstrated interest. Separating Leads from the Contacts who are invested in your institution keeps your data clean and your marketing precise.
Lead Record Types
Create leads record types for your institution if required. K-12 Architecture Kit doesn't provide any record types for Leads.
Configure Lead
Set up and maintain the Lead object in K-12 Architecture Kit.
- Initial Configuration for Lead
It's essential to understand how to configure Lead-related settings and processes in Salesforce before you create Lead data in EDA. Understanding how EDA creates and names Accounts for converted Leads is critical. Review these resources to make sure you have the full picture. - Keep Up with Lead Updates
Consider these updates, depending on which version of K-12 Architecture Kit you originally installed.
Initial Configuration for Lead
It's essential to understand how to configure Lead-related settings and processes in Salesforce before you create Lead data in EDA. Understanding how EDA creates and names Accounts for converted Leads is critical. Review these resources to make sure you have the full picture.
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A Table-Driven Trigger Management (TDTM) rule controls the naming of Account records created during Lead conversion. For more information, see Apex Class Descriptions for EDA.
Keep Up with Lead Updates
Consider these updates, depending on which version of K-12 Architecture Kit you originally installed.
| If Installed Before Version | Configuration Task |
| (Summer '21) |
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Create Lead Records
Create leads in K-12 Architecture Kit by importing them or by using automation, or manually create a lead from the Lead object.
Create Lead Records with Import or Automation
Most institutions create Leads by importing a list of suspect data. For detailed import considerations, see Recommended Data Import Sequence for EDA.
If your website includes an inquiry form, you can set up Web-to-Lead to generate Leads based on the data they provide in that form. You could even set up automation using Flow and Apex to automatically convert these Leads to Contacts. Work with the person in your institution who owns the form to update it with the necessary Salesforce code. For detailed information about Web-to-Lead, see Generate Leads from Your Website in Salesforce Help.
Make sure your import process or automation takes into consideration how you’ll populate the required Company field on Lead records, and how that works with the EDA Settings that determine how Accounts are named when Leads are converted.
Create a Lead Manually
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Click the Leads tab and click New. If you don't see the tab, find it from the App Launcher.
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Enter relevant details, paying attention to these fields.
- Last Name
- This field is required.
- Company
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This field is required.
If you've configured Automatically Rename Lead-Converted Accounts in EDA Settings, what you enter for Company isn't used to name the Account when the Lead is converted.
If you haven't configured Automatically Rename Lead-Converted Accounts in EDA Settings, enter a name that matches the naming conventions of the account model you're using in EDA. For example, if you're using an Administrative Account model, enter Lombard Administrative Account for a suspect named Louis Lombard.
- Lead Status
- This field is required. Choose Open - Not Contacted, Working - Contacted, or other values that your institution has defined.
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Save your changes.
Convert Lead Records to Contact Records
When you convert a Lead is up to your institution, but we recommend doing so when a suspect signals interest, thus becoming a prospect. When converting a Lead, the fields on the record create three records: Contact, Account, and optionally Opportunity.
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Open the Lead record and click Convert.
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Enter the relevant details for the new records, paying attention to these Account fields.
- Account Name
- If you've configured Automatically Rename Lead-Converted Accounts in EDA Settings, what you enter for Company doesn't matter. You can leave the value that was inherited from the Lead record.
- Record Type
- Select a record type. Typically, this is Administrative or Household.
If you've configured Automatically Rename Lead-Converted Accounts in EDA Settings, select one of the record types you've specified for the setting to ensure that you name the Account appropriately.
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If using Opportunities, specify a name for the Opportunity that makes sense for your institution. By default, the value is the Company name followed by a hyphen.
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Click Convert.
After a Lead is converted, we recommend creating an Affiliation record connecting the Contact record to an Account record, like the academic program the person is interested in. Then use the Role field on the Affiliation record to identify the Contact record as a prospect.
For steps on how to convert a Lead, see Convert Qualified Leads in Salesforce Help. For full mapping details, see Lead Conversion Field Mapping.
Things to Know About Maintaining Lead Data
Check new Account records periodically to ensure their Account Names follow your naming convention.
If you find any that don't align, you can update them from EDA Settings by selecting Update All Administrative Account or Household Account Names.
If you frequently import large lists of suspects, managing Leads can be an overwhelming task. Create a dashboard to help you monitor suspects through the different stages. Then create a strategy for maintaining Leads, as some leads tend to persist over time, while others require periodic purging to maintain data integrity.
Consider how to handle duplicate Leads. For example, if a suspect is included in a list from a testing service, and then again in a list for a recruiting event, two Lead records can result for the same suspect. Include duplicate cleanup in your maintenance strategy. Also review Merge Duplicate Leads in Salesforce Help.
If your recruitment process requires updating Lead records after they've been converted, assign your staff the View and Edit Converted Leads permission. For more information, see Let Users View and Edit Converted Leads in Salesforce Help.
Lastly, review additional Things to Know About Leads in Salesforce Help.
