Insights

The Top 10 New Slate for Student Success Features Highlighted at Summit 2026

During the 2026 Slate Summit in Nashville this past week, Technolutions highlighted some exciting new features that will be beneficial for end users and CRM administrators alike.

If you weren’t able to attend Summit — or if you did and need some help making sense of how you can best optimize the new Slate features in your work — I’ve highlighted my favorite 10. I’ve also included some example use cases, key benefits, and links to Knowledge Base articles if you’d like to learn more.

Top 5 Features with End Users in Mind

Event Check-In Communications: Automatically trigger event or appointment-related communications when a student is marked as attended, whether through a manual check-in process or by using a scanner. Once a check-in occurs, Slate can immediately send a customized email or text message to the appropriate staff member, ensuring they’re notified that their student has arrived.

Example Use Case: An institution uses Slate to manage student appointments and needs a consistent way to notify staff when students arrive. When a student checks in at the front desk, Slate automatically sends a customized email or text notification to the advisor, counselor, or staff member hosting the appointment. The staff member can prepare for the meeting or greet the student without requiring additional intervention from front desk personnel.

Key Benefits:

  • Eliminates manual notifications from front desk staff.
  • Ensures staff receive timely and consistent arrival notifications.
  • Leverages existing Slate communication channels and automation capabilities

Knowledge Base Article for Event Check-in Communications

Subtabs: Organize record tabs into intuitive parent and child relationships, making it easier for users to navigate complex records without overwhelming them with a long data list in one tab or multiple top-level tabs. Parent tabs can group related system, custom, and portal-based tabs together, creating a tidier user experience while still providing access to detailed information when needed.

Example Use Case: An institution imports Financial Aid data from its Student Information System (SIS) into Slate. While staff occasionally need access to historical financial aid records, their day-to-day work is focused on the current award year. By creating a parent Financial Aid tab that highlights current-year information and nesting historical award data within child tabs, users can quickly access the most relevant data while still having historical records available when needed. This approach reduces clutter and keeps the interface focused on the information users access most frequently.

Key Benefits:

  • Creates a cleaner, more organized record layout by reducing the number of top-level tabs.
  • Improves usability by grouping related information into logical categories.
  • Helps users focus on the most relevant data while maintaining access to supporting or historical information.
  • Reduces navigation time and minimizes scrolling across large tab sets.
  • Provides greater flexibility when designing record experiences for different user groups and business processes.

Knowledge Base Article for Subtabs

Entity Materials: Associate material types directly with specific entities, allowing files and documents to be uploaded, managed, and stored in the context of the record they support. Once a material type is scoped to an entity, administrators can add a material uploader to entity widget forms, enabling users to upload, review, and remove files directly from the entity row. This creates a clear relationship between records and supporting documentation while improving organization and reporting.

Example Use Case: An advisor is completing an appointment summary note and has a copy of the student’s class schedule they want to attach for future reference. By leveraging Entity Materials, the uploaded schedule is not only saved to the student’s record but is also associated directly with the specific appointment note. This relationship makes it easy for future users to understand the context of the document and eliminates the need for complex calculations, queries, or business logic to determine which files were submitted alongside a particular form or interaction.

Key Benefits

  • Creates a direct relationship between uploaded materials and the records they support.
  • Improves record organization by storing documents in the context of a specific entity rather than as standalone materials.
  • Simplifies reporting and data analysis by clearly identifying which files are associated with which forms, notes, or records.
  • Reduces reliance on custom calculations, queries, and workarounds to connect materials to related activities.
  • Enhances user experience by allowing document management directly within entity widget forms.
  • Provides greater context for future users reviewing records, notes, or interactions.

Knowledge Base Article for Entity Materials

Homepage Builder: Leverages Tabs to assign portals or reports to the Homepage Dashboard. 

Example Use Case: An institution has created a reportal it wants to display for users when they log into Slate. Using Homepage Builder, administrators can assign the portal to a tab scoped to “Homepage” without rebuilding or embedding the reportal into a Slate report.

Key Benefits:

  • Reuse existing portals and reports without additional development, configuration, or duplicate maintenance.
  • Deliver relevant information directly on login, helping users quickly access the data and resources they need most.
  • Leverage the same portal across multiple areas of Slate without maintaining separate versions.
  • Easily control and update homepage content through tab configuration, reducing administrative overhead.
  • Updates made to the source portal are automatically reflected wherever it’s displayed, eliminating redundant updates.

Knowledge Base Article for Homepage Builder

Express Query Tools: Provides users with new controls to rename, activate/deactivate, and copy query parts across Express and Embedded Query Builders, including subqueries, rules, and form conditions.

Example Use Case: An institution needs to send a communication to students registered for an upcoming term, including detailed course information. Staff can use Express Query Tools to rename export fields in bulk, creating clear merge-field labels for communications without manually updating each export. This reduces configuration time and improves consistency when building complex queries.

Key Benefits:

  • Perform common query management tasks, such as renaming, copying, and enabling/disabling query parts, directly within the builder.
  • Make bulk updates to exports and query components without opening and editing each item individually.
  • Copy existing query parts and subqueries to accelerate the creation of new queries and reduce repetitive configuration.
  • Quickly deactivate portions of a query for testing and validation without deleting existing work.

Knowledge Base Article for Express Query Tools

Top 5 Features with CRM Administration in mind

Query Library Inheritance: Query Library Inheritance gives administrators greater control over how shared query components are used and maintained across Slate. For any query part stored in the Query Library, administrators can define one of three inheritance modes: a) Unlinked/Unlocked (Default): End users can freely edit the query part after implementation, and future changes made in the Query Library do not cascade to existing instances. b) Linked/Locked: End users cannot modify the query part after implementation. Updates made in the Query Library automatically cascade to all linked instances, ensuring consistency across queries. c) Linked/Unlocked: Updates made in the Query Library cascade to implemented instances, while still allowing end users to make local modifications when necessary.

Example Use Case: An institution has created a Query Library for Advisors that includes exports used to calculate a student’s class code (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.). After a policy change, the institution adopts a new formula for determining class standing. Using Query Library Inheritance, administrators can configure the export as Linked/Locked, ensuring advisors cannot modify the approved calculation within their individual queries. When the formula is updated in the Query Library, the change automatically cascades to every query using that export. This ensures advisors are working with the most current and accurate class standing information without requiring manual updates across multiple queries, reducing administrative effort and the risk of inconsistent student data.

Key Benefits:

  • Maintain control over critical calculations, filters, exports, and business logic from a single source of truth.
  • Make changes once in the Query Library and distribute them across all linked implementations without manual intervention.
  • Ensure users across departments are working from the same logic, definitions, and calculations.
  • Eliminate the need to identify and update individual queries when shared logic changes.
  • Support growing numbers of users and queries without increasing the complexity of maintaining shared logic.
  • Balance administrative oversight with user flexibility by selecting the inheritance mode that best fits each query component.

Knowledge Base Article for Query Library Inheritance

Preferred Partner Login: A new user type, User (Preferred Partner), enables institutions to provision dedicated accounts for consultants and staff employed by approved preferred partner organizations. These users authenticate through their organization’s Single Sign-On (SSO) provider before being securely redirected into your Slate instance.

Example Use Case: An institution has recently begun working with a preferred partner and needs to provide access to several partner consultants. Instead of creating and managing individual institutional accounts or external Slate accounts for each consultant, administrators can provision users as User (Preferred Partner) accounts. When consultants access Slate, they are routed through their employer’s SSO login page and then redirected into the institution’s Slate environment. This provides a streamlined login experience for consultants who may support multiple institutions using Slate while reducing account management overhead for institutional teams. Additionally, when a consultant leaves the preferred partner organization, access can be automatically revoked through the partner’s identity management and SSO termination processes, helping institutions maintain stronger security and access governance.

Key Benefits:

  • Create dedicated preferred partner accounts without the overhead of managing traditional institutional user credentials.
  • Minimize the creation, maintenance, and deactivation of external user accounts within your Slate instance.
  • Leverage the preferred partner’s identity management and authentication controls to help ensure only authorized users can access your environment.
  • Allow consultants to use a single set of credentials across multiple Slate implementations rather than maintaining separate logins for each institution.
  • Benefit from partner-managed onboarding and offboarding processes, reducing the risk of orphaned or forgotten accounts.

System Tab Permissions: System Tab Permissions introduce granular read and write access controls for eligible system record tabs and subtabs. Administrators can allow users to view information stored within a tab while restricting who can create, edit, or delete records. This enables institutions to provide broader visibility into important data while maintaining control over data integrity and ownership.

Example Use Case: An institution imports Academic History data from its Student Information System (SIS) into the Schools tab on person records. Advisors need access to this information to support students, but they shouldn’t be able to modify records because the SIS serves as the institution’s system of record. Using System Tab Permissions, administrators can grant Advisors read-only access to the Schools tab while reserving edit access for authorized users and system processes. Advisors can view academic history data directly within Slate while maintaining the integrity of data managed by the SIS. This ensures users have access to the information they need without introducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized changes.

Key Benefits:

  • Configure separate viewing and editing permissions for eligible system tabs and subtabs, providing greater flexibility in managing user access.
  • Align access controls with institutional policies and data stewardship responsibilities.
  • Tailor access levels to the needs of different user groups, ensuring staff have the appropriate level of interaction with each tab.

Knowledge Base Article for System Tab Permissions

Entity Permissions: Entity Permissions provide granular access control for individual entities within your Slate database. Administrators can allow users to view entity data while restricting who can create, edit, or delete records within a specific entity.

Example Use Case: An institution’s advisors need access to view student advising notes so they can prepare for meetings and better support students. However, institutional policy requires that only designated staff members can create, edit, or delete advising notes. Using Entity Permissions, administrators can grant advisors read-only access to the advising notes entity while providing write access only to authorized users. This allows multiple user groups to access the same source of information with the appropriate level of control, eliminating the need to create and maintain separate entities for read-only and edit-capable users. This simplifies administration while improving data governance and consistency.

Key Benefits:

  • Support multiple access levels within a single entity, reducing the need for parallel entities maintained solely for security purposes.
  • Align entity permissions with job responsibilities, ensuring users have the appropriate level of access for their role.
  • Maintain one authoritative entity rather than managing multiple versions of the same data set.

Knowledge Base Article for Entity Permissions

Database Time Zone: The Database Time Zone setting establishes a single, database-wide time zone for time-sensitive processes and activities across Slate, including events, communications, exports, notifications, and scheduled jobs.

Example Use Case: An institution operates in the Pacific Time Zone, but users across regions frequently work with timestamps that require manual conversion. As a result, staff may encounter confusion when scheduling events, reviewing communications, interpreting exports, or troubleshooting time-sensitive workflows. By configuring the database time zone to Pacific Time, administrators establish a consistent reference point for all time-sensitive activity within Slate. Users can schedule events, launch communications, review exports, and monitor notifications with greater confidence, reducing the likelihood of timing errors and eliminating ambiguity across departments and regions.

Key Benefits:

  • Establish a single source of truth for dates and times used throughout Slate.
  • Minimize mistakes related to time zone conversions when planning outreach, events, and operational processes.
  • Ensure exported data and timestamped records align with institutional expectations and business processes.

Knowledge Base Article for Database Time Zone

While not all these enhancements have been released yet, now’s the time for institutions to begin thinking about how these tools could support their workflows and where they may have the greatest impact.

And as always, your friends at SIG are here to help if you need any assistance with these new features or anything else in your instance. Just connect with us and we’ll be happy to help. 

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