Higher education Advancement Salesforce CRM

How Emory University’s Advancement team turned its CRM into a self-serve training tool.

In the Advancement & Alumni Engagement department, a two-person Training & Education team replaced long PDFs and job aids with in-context guides and tooltips, delivered just in time inside the CRM.

Emory University · Lemon Learning testimonial ► Interview
Emory University · Salesforce CRM testimonial
 
1
CRM, fully guided
2
trainers, end to end
2
delivery formats
JIT
in-workflow learning
The challenge

Long documentation and job aids. Useful, but never on the screen where the work was happening.

Emory University’s Advancement & Alumni Engagement department runs its donor cultivation, alumni outreach and event management on a single CRM. Gift officers, alumni managers, event coordinators and program staff all work in the same platform every day. Whitney Miller’s Training & Education team is responsible for getting people fluent in it, and keeping them fluent as the system evolves.

For years, the answer was documentation. PDFs, job aids, knowledge-base articles, training decks. The content was good. The format was the problem. Users had to stop what they were doing, leave the CRM, find the right document, scroll to the right section, then go back and apply it. Most of the time they just guessed, or asked a colleague, or sent another ticket to the training team.

Whitney and Tesia wanted a model where the help showed up on the page where the work was happening. Same content, same expertise, delivered in the moment of need, without the context switch.

« If users stay in the space where they’re doing the work, it leads to better learning outcomes and meets their needs just in time. »

Whitney Miller Training Manager, Advancement & Alumni Engagement, Emory University
The solution

Move the training inside the CRM, and lean on a vendor team that picks up the phone.

The team layered Lemon Learning on top of the CRM and rebuilt training around two simple delivery formats: guides that walk users through a task step by step, and tooltips that surface context right on the field or button. Users now click the lemon icon, search a keyword, and get the right guide. Or just read the tooltip on the page and keep going.

A second factor sealed the decision: the Lemon Learning team itself. Whitney described them as a “catalyst”, quick to jump in when a guide misbehaved, available as the training team learned the platform. For a two-person training operation, vendor responsiveness was not a nice-to-have. It was the difference between shipping and stalling.

 

In-App Guidance, inside the CRM

Click the lemon icon, search a keyword, step through the task on the actual page. Highlighted walkthroughs, one screen at a time, on the platform every advancement staffer already lives in.
 

Tooltips embedded in the page

Short contextual hints that sit on the field. The answer, without breaking the flow. Field-level context, no training session required.

 

Two trainers, one platform

Whitney and Tesia author, update and maintain every piece of content. No outside agency, no separate LMS to feed. Everything lives in one place.

 

Lemon Learning as catalyst

A responsive vendor team that troubleshoots in real time, helps the trainers ramp on the platform, and stays in the loop as the program scales.

« The team from Lemon Learning was a catalyst for our choice. They are quick to jump in and find a solution. We had the confidence they would be there to support us as we learned the tool. »

Whitney Miller Training Manager, Advancement & Alumni Engagement, Emory University
The results

Less documentation, fewer repeat questions, and more learning where the work happens.

PDFs
retired, replaced by in-context guides
Repeat Qs
cut down, users self-serve in the tool
Core part
of how staff onboard and adapt

« It’s helped us reduce long documentation and make training much easier to access. »

Tesia Ruch Technical Writer, Training & Education, Emory University

« We can quickly create and update guides, which cuts down a lot of repetitive questions. »

Whitney Miller Training Manager, Advancement & Alumni Engagement, Emory University

« It’s become a core part of how we help staff onboard and adapt to new systems. »

Whitney Miller Training Manager, Advancement & Alumni Engagement, Emory University