We approached Craftsman Technology with the task of creating a brand new public portal for a new program our non-profit was starting. While we had a clear vision of what we wanted, we were unsure how we could use Salesforce to accomplish it. Craftsman not only immediately understood our needs and expectations, but offered us several options to achieve our goal. We greatly enjoyed working with Craftsman because of their expertise, professionalism, timeliness and excellent communication. We will definitely work with them again in the future.
Austin Film Society
Salesforce NPSP + PatronManager
Founded in 1985 by filmmaker Richard Linklater, Austin Film Society (AFS) creates life-changing opportunities for filmmakers, catalyzes Texas as a creative hub, and brings the community together around film.
AFS operates Austin Studios, a 20-acre production facility focused on attracting and growing a creative media ecosystem. Additionally, AFS operates both Austin Public, a space for the city’s diverse media makers to train and collaborate, and the AFS Cinema supporting community engagement.
AFS supports filmmakers toward career leaps, encouraging exceptional artistic projects with grants, support services, and professional development through its Creative Careers program.
Purpose
AFS had been using Salesforce since 2017. AFS engaged Craftsman in early 2022 to add interactive experiences for its Creative Careers program participants. The program is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. To navigate this growth, staff needed a means for program participants to self-enroll in classes, have access to resources and track individual progress through the program.
Craftsman’s task was to evaluate how to leverage the existing use of the Salesforce platform, as well as deploy portal functionality using Salesforce Experience Cloud. The deliverable from design would fully articulate requirements and prescribe technical solutions. It would also provide detailed time and budget estimates to help the organization weigh the business value of the investment to follow.
Project Details
The project leveraged Salesforce’s Experience Cloud and created an interactive experience for program participants. Part of the interactive experience required creating a reward structure that was participant-facing in the form of custom badges and achievements. It also needed to provide prompts to participants to guide them to the correct resources and through the enrollment process.
A key challenge of the project was to ensure that the existing ticketing application, PatronManager, could effectively be augmented by custom functionality. Craftsman was able to extend the existing functionality by adding new objects to track cohorts and participation data, build custom notifications within the workflow and deploy automation related to cohort classes and projects.
Tools + Technology
AFS leverages Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack with PatronManager and Salesforce Experience Cloud. This project also included FormAssembly to assist in the intake and enrollment process and Nintex DocGen to automatically generate transcripts for program participants.