Jumpstart is a national non-profit organization working to ensure every child in America enters kindergarten prepared for academic and social success. With the goal of breaking the cycle of poverty, they provide preschoolers from under-resourced communities with language, literacy and social-emotional programming. The work is vital, because by the time children from impoverished areas enter kindergarten, they're already behind, having typically heard 30 million fewer words than their more af uent peers.
Since 1993, Jumpstart has trained more than 45,000 college students and community volunteers to transform the lives of more than 100,000 preschool children nationwide. And they're methods get results. Jumpstart children make 1.5x greater gains in crucial literacy skills compared to those who don't enter the Jumpstart program.
For us, working with Jumpstart was a rewarding opportunity to help an impactful organization make a tangible difference for more than 12,000 kids per year.
The Problem:
Manual Integration Wastes Precious Time
Jumpstart relies on its network of staff, college students and community volunteers to provide direct, hands-on early education support to preschoolers. But managing their extensive volunteer manpower requires efficient technology and data tracking to log volunteer placements, hours and key activities as well as child educational development.
In recent years, Jumpstart has incorporated emerging technologies to manage their operations, but with technology comes the challenge of governing an ever-growing array of disparate tools and data. To centralize their data and make it useful, Jumpstart had to rely on its staff and volunteers to spend hours moving data from disparate sources into a usable, central platform - Salesforce.
The result? Staff and volunteers had to spend time solving data integration headaches and managing Salesforce that they could have spent helping children.
They needed a seamless scripting solution that allowed them to automate Salesforce data integration so their team could meet more direct needs in the field.
After researching potential solutions, they found many were expensive, required them to code an automated solution themselves or came with no development support. Finally, Jumpstart found CData and our Salesforce PowerShell Cmdlets, and they had what they needed.
Jumpstart's Requirements:
- Effective Automation - Jumpstart needed to automate a manual task that was costing their team countless time manually entering data
- Ease and Reliability - They needed a solution that would maintain data integrity and integrate seamlessly with Salesforce
- Speed - They wanted the project delivered in a fast-track, 2-week timeline
- Development support - Jumpstart required the availability of a dedicated support team that could ensure their automated solution would always work and remain up to date
The Solution:
CData Salesforce Powershell Cmdlets
When Jumpstart came to us, we quickly provided a solution that would allow them to save their team time and frustration. Our Cmdlets for Windows Powershell gave Jumpstart an easy-to-use way to map data from the source databases (MySQL and Active Directory) to their Salesforce implementation. Then, using our cmdlets, they were able to easily create and test a custom syncing script that provided perfect, seamless compatibility.
"We use the Salesforce Powershell Cmdlets to help integrate and manage several key databases to help better track volunteer and child data," said Danny Summerlin, Senior Manager of Technology for Jumpstart. "By allowing for scripted automation, this module frees up our staff to meet more direct needs in the field."
As standard PowerShell Cmdlets, the solution fit right in with Jumpstart's IT investments. Without developer support, Jumpstart was able to create a robust integration using the system administration team they had on staff.
"Being able to automate Salesforce interactions with the same language as the rest of our tooling is an enormous time and trouble saver," Summerlin said.
Last, we particularly met Jumpstart's needs because we provide the kind of support they could rely on if anything ever needed an update or a fix.
"This Salesforce PowerShell module appears to be one of the few available that have any development support," Summerlin said.
The Results:
Jumpstart Can Spend More Time Empowering Kids to Succeed
We completed the project in the span of only two weeks, providing Jumpstart seamless data integration, total reliability and more functionality in Salesforce.
"By enabling greater automation, these tools are helping us have a greater impact in the lives of children!"
- Danny Summerlin, Senior Manager of Technology, Jumpstart.
