Boston College’s Advancement department’s marketing team plays a key role in supporting the university’s fundraising efforts. Like most universities, the pressure to meet aggressive fundraising goals leaves the team with a very large number of projects to support fundraising events for student scholarships, campus improvements, athletics, new programs, and more.

The Challenge

Before Hive, the Advancement marketing team managed their work using a variety of different applications, processes, and communication methods, which led inevitably to unnecessary and costly issues such as duplicate work, extra printing to correct errors, and team members not knowing what they needed to do and when. Though weekly production meetings helped the team understand the overall list of projects in progress, the lack of a single, cohesive project management application made it difficult to communicate effectively amongst themselves and with their Advancement colleagues.

The team knew that a great project management tool was needed and began a search for the perfect one. They began with Smartsheet, which was the university’s standard project management app. They soon realized, however, that Smartsheet did not have the flexibility and specific features needed for a fast-moving marketing team. They then underwent an exhaustive search to find an app that was purpose-built for the work they did: One that allowed team members to communicate in real-time, respond to issues quickly, and easily coordinate all online and offline elements of marketing campaigns.

The Solution

The Boston College team found their solution when they chose Hive as their project management app. It provided the perfect combination of an intuitive interface, flexibility, and the ideal set of features needed for a fast-moving marketing team. Making the move to Hive allowed the team to completely transform how they accepted, developed, and released projects with a much higher rate of proactivity and effectiveness. It was a transformative experience. The team now centers all of its work around Hive, using it to drive weekly production meetings, track each team member’s workload, understand the amount of work they do each week, and more.

Hive also helped the Boston College team think differently about their process, leading to even greater efficiency. Within Hive, they developed a system of two-letter codes for each group in the department, which helps determine which individuals are working on which projects. Using action cards inside of these projects, the marketing team has transformed Hive into their system of record and backlog for all tasks, which helps hold people accountable and track progress. Each person involved in the project is able to see exactly where it stands and understand what actions need to be taken, whether they are inside or outside of Hive.

Boston College also leveraged Hive’s open integrations to create an innovative project intake tool that combines Gravity Forms, Zapier, and Hive to create a single-action project set-up. For example, when a colleague submits a form for a new email, a series of actions takes place, including automatically creating a new project in Hive and automatically creating a new folder in Google Drive where all projects-related documents can be stored and edited. Then, when a project moves through different stages (e.g., from email development to proofreading), a Zapier action is triggered alerting the project requester that it is time to approve the email for release.

After several months of using Hive, the marketing team has become significantly more productive, efficient, and confident. Digital Marketing team leader Jamie Manning notes that:

Hive was and is the only product that delivers exactly the tools and features a fast-moving marketing team like ours needs. The app has greatly streamlined our workflows and efficiency and will be a key part of our success for a long time to come.