Collaboratory General FAQ

While building a homegrown system might seem appealing, it typically requires 12 - 18 months of development time, ongoing IT support, and significant internal resources. Institutions must define their own data model, rely heavily on already-stretched IT teams, and face long-term maintenance and security challenges. Critically, these efforts often overlook the cultural work required to gather community engagement data, such as building faculty buy-in, aligning with institutional priorities, and framing data for strategic use. Most internal development teams simply aren’t equipped to navigate those complexities.

The University of North Carolina Greensboro originally built Collaboratory in-house. After facing high support costs and a significant security breach shortly after launch, they quickly realized that maintaining a custom-built SaaS product was unsustainable. That experience led to the commercialization of Collaboratory so that it could be more securely and effectively managed.

Collaboratory is a purpose-built, turnkey solution specifically designed for higher education community engagement. It requires minimal IT involvement (limited mostly to optional SSO setup and API use), and comes with a secure, user-friendly platform, a core, standardized dataset informed by national best practices, and a dedicated support team deeply grounded in the field. Institutions that adopt Collaboratory gain more than just software, they also join a national community of practice focused on strategy, culture change and shared learning, which no generic data platform can offer.

It’s also worth noting that Collaboratory’s parent company, Avviato, Inc., specializes in Salesforce development, yet they continue to support Collaboratory as a standalone tool outside the Salesforce ecosystem, because they recognize that community engagement requires a fundamentally different approach than what CRM systems are designed to deliver.

The institutions most successful with Collaboratory are those that approach it not simply as a software tool, but as a strategic lever for institutional change—and remain flexible as campus priorities evolve. Rather than collecting data for its own sake, these campuses intentionally align their use of Collaboratory with broader institutional goals, such as strategic planning, Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, promotion and tenure reform, or targeted initiatives like expanding K–12 partnerships or addressing pressing social issues. Just as importantly, they allow their use of engagement data to shift over time, following where energy, leadership attention, and emerging priorities are strongest. In doing so, they use Collaboratory to tell a deeper, more data-informed story about engagement that remains relevant and useful for key audiences such as donors, foundations, and state legislatures.

Successful adoption starts with a few key conditions. First, campuses should have clearly articulated commitments to community engagement that require data to support and advance them. This might include tracking progress toward strategic metrics, expanding geographically focused work, or increasing external visibility and investment. Equally important is strong leadership and staffing. We recommend identifying:

• At least one senior leader (e.g., Vice Chancellor, AVP) to champion the effort and connect Collaboratory to high-level goals.
• One to two core administrators who lead the implementation, manage daily use, and guide strategy and communication across campus.
• Support staff or students to assist with data entry. Campuses with the most robust datasets often employ student workers to enter activities on behalf of faculty and staff, reducing burden and ensuring consistency.

Ultimately, success with Collaboratory is less about technical capacity and more about cultural readiness. Institutions that frame data collection and use it as a tool to support their mission are those that see the greatest long-term adoption and value. Our onboarding process is designed to support exactly this type of intentional, strategic use, helping campuses embed Collaboratory into the fabric of their engagement work.  Additional information about the characteristics of a successful Collaboratory campus and administrator can be found here.

The level of staffing needed varies by institution, depending on campus size, structure, and internal capacity. However, we generally recommend that institutions identify the following roles to support successful, ongoing use of Collaboratory:

• At least one senior administrator who can champion the platform at the institutional level, helping to build buy-in and connect Collaboratory to broader priorities such as the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, accreditation efforts, or promotion and tenure reform.
• One to two core administrators who lead the day-to-day management of Collaboratory. These individuals typically coordinate implementation, data entry, reporting, and outreach efforts. They often work with student staff or administrative assistants to support activity setup and data maintenance.

Rarely does an institution dedicate a full-time position solely to Collaboratory. Instead, the most successful campuses integrate Collaboratory into existing roles where community engagement, assessment, accreditation, or institutional research are already key responsibilities. On average, we see core administrators dedicating approximately 30–40% of their time to Collaboratory during the first year, with time commitment often decreasing as processes are established and more campus stakeholders become involved. We provide guidance to help institutions identify and prepare staff for these roles.  Additional information about the characteristics of a successful Collaboratory administrator and campus can be found here.

A successful Collaboratory rollout requires dedicated human attention - there’s no data collection tool that can simply be “set and forgotten.” That said, we want to be transparent: implementing Collaboratory and using the data meaningfully does take intentional effort. Because we view this work as a form of cultural change, we strongly discourage a passive approach - such as mass emailing faculty or staff to input their own activities, which rarely results in sustained success or meaningful institutionalization.

No campus we work with has a full-time staff member solely dedicated to Collaboratory or even to engagement data. Most institutions integrate Collaboratory into the portfolios of staff already working in related areas (e.g., assessment, accreditation, community engagement, or partnership development) where the platform’s data directly supports their existing responsibilities. Many campuses also build what we call a “network of data liaisons,” designating individuals within key schools, departments, or centers to serve as points of contact. These liaisons typically spend a small portion of their time (often just 5%) ensuring their unit’s activities are documented and making use of the data for their own needs, whether that’s accreditation reporting, storytelling, or strategic planning. This distributed model has proven highly effective for scaling Collaboratory use without requiring significant new infrastructure.

At most institutions, Collaboratory is housed within an office or center focused on community engagement or university-community partnerships. These offices most often report through the Academic Affairs division. In our experience, and in line with our recommendations, the day-to-day management of Collaboratory - including implementation, data collection, and data sharing -is typically handled by the engagement-focused office or center. Meanwhile, broader strategic planning and alignment with institutional priorities often involves senior leadership within Academic Affairs, such as the Provost or Associate/Assistant Vice Provost. This structure helps ensure that Collaboratory is both operationally supported and strategically leveraged at the institutional level.

Please reference Collaboratory Implementation Models for an overview of centralized, decentralized, and committee-based approaches, with key staffing, resource, and strategy considerations for a successful campus launch.

Collaboratory implementation is a structured yet flexible process that typically spans about six months, though it moves at the institution’s preferred pace. A detailed timeline guides a core administrative team at your institution through each phase of onboarding, from technical setup to strategic planning. While approximately 25% of onboarding is technical - covering system navigation and data entry - the majority of the process is focused on cultural and organizational change efforts. Institutions spend significant time identifying key stakeholders, understanding their data needs, and aligning Collaboratory with broader institutional goals. Most campuses take a phased approach to implementation, which we strongly recommend. Rather than launching institution-wide from the start, institutions often begin with one or two key units, build internal champions, and expand use over time. This grassroots, momentum-building model tends to be more effective than a top-down mandate, fostering stronger buy-in and more meaningful data collection.

As part of implementation, Collaboratory provides a robust onboarding curriculum that includes training modules, strategy calls, and guided planning tools such as stakeholder alignment and success planning templates. Institutions receive ongoing support from the Collaboratory team throughout this process, and they also have the option to purchase additional consulting hours for more customized or intensive support, as needed.

In addition, as soon as an institution joins, they become part of our national community of practice - a network of community engagement professionals and administrators from other Collaboratory campuses. This group meets regularly to share strategies, troubleshoot challenges, and learn from one another. Events include monthly Coffee Breaks, virtual Summits, professional networking sessions, and more. We are intentional about cultivating this learning community, which serves as a valuable resource long after onboarding is complete.

Institutional change is often the most significant challenge in implementing Collaboratory - not the technical setup, but the cultural shift toward data-informed engagement. Our onboarding process is designed to support both: about 20% focuses on the technical components, while 80% is dedicated to guiding institutions through strategic planning and change management. Implementing Collaboratory is an ongoing, iterative process - no institution is ever truly “finished.” While every campus is different, we’ve found that successful implementations share a few key practices:

• Secure senior leadership support (e.g., President, Provost) to champion the effort.
• Identification of a clear institutional home for Collaboratory — typically in Academic Affairs or an Office of Engagement — and the assignment of 1–2 core administrators to lead implementation and data use.
• Defining long-term goals for data collection and use (e.g., Carnegie Classification, aligning with UN SDGs, strengthening K–12 partnerships) and mapping out the internal and external stakeholders who will benefit from the data.
• Clarification of data scope and definitions, including what types of engagement to include (e.g., paid internships, faculty volunteerism).
• Implementing a phased rollout, often starting with a small set of academic units or engagement-focused committees.
• Leveraging the proxy feature and student support for data entry — many institutions hire students to help manage this process.

Collaboratory provides foundational documentation to help support a consistent understanding of key terms during campus rollout and beyond. While Collaboratory recognizes that definitions of community engagement and public service can vary across institutions, disciplines, and departments, our approach is grounded in definitions widely accepted within the field of higher education. These are outlined in our documentation and are intended to serve as a shared starting point, not a rigid framework. In addition, Collaboratory offers a comprehensive glossary for both users and administrators, which includes terminology specific to how the platform structures and categorizes data. Each institution often adapts these definitions to reflect its own mission, culture, and strategic priorities. This is an important part of implementation, and we work closely with campuses during onboarding to support these discussions. As institutions continue to use Collaboratory and expand their data collection, the language they use often evolves, and we are committed to supporting that process.

With Single Sign-On (SSO) enabled, users automatically lose access to Collaboratory once they are no longer affiliated with the institution. When employees leave, administrators have several options within the platform: they can reassign the individual’s activities to new leads or principal investigators, retain the former employee’s association for historical accuracy, or archive the activities and remove the profile entirely. Many institutions use the end of the academic year as a natural time to review and update member data.

Yes. Faculty and staff choose not to publish their activities, which prevents them from being publicly visible on Collaboratory. While non-published activities are not displayed on public profiles or the public-facing site, they are still included in aggregate reports accessible to Collaboratory administrators, allowing the data to be counted and analyzed without being publicly attributed. Further, institutions have the option to enable a private Collaboratory setting. By default, many aspects of a Collaboratory site are publicly accessible, but enabling this setting restricts access to logged-in users from the institution only. When this setting is active, no activity data is publicly visible, and email notifications to community partners are disabled. This option can be useful for institutions that prefer to limit public visibility while still using Collaboratory for internal data collection and reporting.

Yes. Every Collaboratory portal comes equipped with a core, standardized dataset informed by national best practices and field literature; however, we recognize that your campus may have unique engagement priorities that require additional nuance. To reflect your specific institutional context, administrators can define and manage custom fields, including drop-downs, checkboxes, and text inputs across any step of the Activity Form. You also have the flexibility to remove or "unrequire" standard fields that may not be relevant to your goals, helping to streamline the data entry experience for your faculty and staff. These custom responses are captured alongside our core data and are fully available for your reporting and data exports. Note that the ability to fully customize data fields and form structure is available to institutions specifically within Collaboratory’s Strategic Tier contract.

In Collaboratory, community-engaged scholarship is often positioned as an output of an activity. Because activities are the central unit of analysis in the system, an ongoing research partnership would typically be documented as an activity that generates scholarly products over time. These products - such as publications, presentations, or reports - are tracked in the "Scholarly Products" section of an activity record. For long-term or evolving research partnerships, Collaboratory allows users to differentiate between anticipated products and those that have already been achieved, supporting a more nuanced understanding of scholarly outcomes over the life of a partnership.

Yes, faculty and staff volunteer activities, including board service, can be captured in Collaboratory. However, most institutions choose to document only those activities where employees are acting in their institutional role (e.g., serving on a board as a university representative), rather than purely personal volunteerism (e.g., coaching a child’s soccer team). Collaboratory is flexible in what it allows, with the only requirement being that each activity must involve at least one institutional representative and one external entity to qualify as a campus-community partnership. That said, we encourage campuses to collect data that reflects their strategic priorities and institutional identity. Defining what “counts” as engagement is a key part of the onboarding process, and we help support those conversations as each campus implements Collaboratory.

Collaboratory can effectively capture internships, practicums, student teaching placements, and similar experiential learning opportunities. These are treated as activities in Collaboratory and can be documented either in aggregate or at a more detailed level, depending on your reporting needs.

• Aggregate approach: Institutions may enter a single activity representing all placements of a certain type (e.g., all student teaching placements for a semester), linked to multiple schools, partners, and locations.
• Granular approach: Each individual placement can be entered as its own activity, allowing for more detailed tracking of specific partners, focus areas, and engagement types.

Collaboratory also allows administrators to filter and analyze activities by type (e.g., internship, practicum) and view them in relation to other data points, such as community partners involved, populations served, issue areas addressed, and the roles of external organizations. This provides a comprehensive picture of where students are placed, the purpose of the engagement, and the broader impact of these partnerships.

Yes, Collaboratory has an outbound reporting API that allows your institution to automatically pull real-time data from your Collaboratory portal into your own internal and external tools — like dashboards, websites, faculty reporting systems, Salesforce, etc. The API is designed to provide secure, programmatic access to Collaboratory’s data through RESTful JSON endpoints. Institutions can use it to extract a wide range of data, including information about activities, partnerships, outcomes, and participation, filtered by criteria such as date range or program. The API supports both real-time queries and scheduled data pulls, making it possible to keep websites, dashboards, and reports consistently up to date without manual exports. Authentication is handled through API tokens or OAuth, ensuring secure access to institutional data. With clear documentation and flexibility in how data is structured and filtered, Collaboratory’s Reporting API provides a reliable foundation for institutions looking to integrate engagement data into internal and external environments and streamline their reporting and analysis workflows. You can learn more about Collaboratory’s outbound API here.

In addition, Collaboratory also supports inbound API integrations, which allows your campus systems (such as a student information system, learning management system, HR system, or an engagement database) to automatically send data into Collaboratory. Campuses most often use inbound feeds to keep key records like units, courses, members (faculty, staff, and students), partner organizations, and engagement activities up to date without relying on manual entry.

Yes. Collaboratory offers an inbound API integration that allows campus systems (for example, your SIS, LMS, HR system, or an existing engagement database) to securely send data into Collaboratory on an ongoing basis. Campuses typically use this to keep foundational information current, such as units, courses/sections, member records (faculty, staff, and students), partner organizations, and activities, so that engagement professionals can focus more on using the data and less on re-entering it. Inbound API setup is coordinated with your campus IT contact and the relevant data owners, and Collaboratory’s team provides guidance through testing, validation, and go-live. You can learn more about Collaboratory’s inbound API here.

Yes, students can enter their own engagement activities into Collaboratory. However, we generally do not recommend using Collaboratory to track individual student volunteer hours. Collaboratory is designed to capture macro-level data that reflects the institution’s strategic and relational engagement - focusing on the who, what, when, where, and why of partnerships - rather than individual service hours or participant counts. Nearly all institutions using Collaboratory also maintain separate micro-level systems (e.g., Campus Labs, Givepulse) within Student Affairs to track student volunteerism. These systems are designed to collect individual-level data (number of hours, number of participants), which serves a different purpose than the institutional-level data Collaboratory collects. As a result, the two systems are typically managed by different teams and are not directly integrated.

Rather than duplicating data entry, most campuses use information from student-level platforms to identify larger student-led or institutionally supported engagement efforts (e.g., Days of Service or major student organization initiatives) that are more appropriate for documentation in Collaboratory. In this way, the systems complement one another: micro-level tools support individual tracking, while Collaboratory provides a broader, strategic view of how the institution engages with communities.