Slate

Slate Blog

June 23, 2025

Transitioning to Slate Student Success: Soft Launch Updates and Summer Training Kickoff

Exciting things are in store for our students and undergraduate academic advising professionals as we conclude the soft launch of the Slate Student Success Platform and prepare for the summer training sessions. Read on to review the training plan for...

CHAMPIONING STUDENT SUCCESS AT UCR

The Slate Student Success Platform is set to officially launch in Fall 2025. This innovative platform is designed to streamline the advising process, empowering both students and advisors to achieve greater academic and professional success. The Slate Student Success Platform is a dynamic collaboration between the Division of Undergraduate Education (UE), academic advising professionals, and Information Technology Solutions (ITS).

Project Timeline

Spring 2025

Soft launch of the Slate Student Success Platform among select academic advising units and their respective undergraduate students. Participants will pilot the use of the Slate portals and certain Slate features, including the advisor profile setup, calendar integrations, and appointment management.

Summer 2025

Training for all undergraduate academic advisors will commence

Fall 2025

Launch of the Slate Student Success Platform across all undergraduate advising units and students

WHAT IS SLATE STUDENT SUCCESS PLATFORM?

Slate Student Success Platform is UC Riverside’s newest constituent relationship management (CRM) tool for student advising. With Slate’s intuitive features, advisors and students can make the most out of every advising session. Advisors can focus on providing in-depth guidance and support, ensuring that each student's unique academic needs are met.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SLATE?

Centralized Advising
Hub

Slate consolidates student information across all colleges and schools into a single, easy-to-access platform, minimizing the need to switch between different student information systems.

For students, it’s an all-in-one hub that provides access to advising appointments, notes, and communications. Other campus resources like R’Web, Canvas, Degree Audit, Financial Aid, Student Business Services, and the UCR academic calendar are also accessible via Slate.

Cross-campus Collaborative Care

Slate fosters collaboration among advisors from different colleges and schools, strengthening UCR's student care network. Share insights, resources, and best practices to provide consistent and high-quality advising to all students.

Comprehensive Appointment Scheduling

Advisors can set up their appointment schedules and integrate it with their business / work calendar to create time blocks that allow students to self-register for advising appointments through the Slate Student Success Portal. Students can schedule future appointments as well as same day drop-in sessions.

Synchronized Advising
Notes

Slate allows advisors to create advising notes that all advisors can access, ensuring that all interactions a student has with every advisor across colleges and academic units are accounted for and considered in each advising session.

Please note that during the soft launch period, advising notes entered in Slate can only be viewed by those who are participating in the soft launch. Advising notes uploaded in Banner will still need to be accessed through Banner.

Streamlined Communication

With Slate, advisors can create and distribute multiple communications to specific groups of students. Communication via email can also be automated and triggered based on different criteria.

Slate’s “Events” feature allows for online registration, self-service rescheduling options, and automated, personalized communications. Administrators can also set capacity limits, waitlist options, and other meeting controls.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why is UCR moving to Slate?

Slate will enable more efficient electronic record management, petition routing, communication, and appointment scheduling for academic advisors, thus reducing advisors’ transactional workload and making more time available for advising students on their academic goals.

More importantly, Slate empowers advisors to provide a holistic advising experience for students. The platform facilitates cross-campus collaborative care by consolidating pertinent student information in a central location and enabling advisors across all colleges and schools to collaborate with one another.
What will happen to the different advising tools and student sites that are currently being used?

The old advising tools and student sites will be retired once advisors and students begin using the Slate Student Success Platform. However, please note that advisors and students will continue to use student information systems such as Banner and Degree Works.
Why are there different versions of the Slate portal?

There are three different versions of the Slate portal because each portal holds information that’s relevant to students and advisors.

Through the Slate student portal, students can access the self-service appointment scheduling and see information that advisors have shared with them.

The Slate advisor portal allows UCR advisors to see at-a-glance information about their students, appointments, and communications, while the Slate Drop-In Management Portal is used for managing unscheduled sessions requested by students via the Slate Student Success Portal.
Do all advisors—both undergraduate and graduate—need to start using Slate in Fall 2025?

The first phase of the implementation of Slate Student Success Platform only impacts undergraduate academic advising professionals. Plans to move Graduate Division advisors to the platform are still being developed.
Why am I receiving an error when I login to Slate?
Please make sure that you are logging into the correct Slate portal.

Advisor Access
- Slate Advisor Portal - View advisees, review and manage appointments, and access backend functionality such as updating your advisor information and managing calendar integrations and schedules
- Slate Drop-In Management Portal - Manage unscheduled sessions requested by students via the Slate Student Success Portal
- Access the Slate backend - Manage calendars and schedules and access and create queries
Student Access
- Slate Student Success Portal

TRANSITION SUPPORT AND TRAINING

Training Timeline

Some teams are participating in the soft launch this Spring 2025 quarter. For teams planning out their transition, the timeline for training and onboarding will resemble the following:

UCR SLATE TRAINING

WHAT TO EXPECT DURING THE TRANSITION

3 Weeks

→ 1 →

ORIENTATION/
KICKOFF

Whole group meets with rollout & training team to discuss what to expect in the upcoming weeks, including the training timeline and communication plan

2 Weeks

→ 2 →

STRATEGY SESSION AND FIRST TRAINING

Strategize rollout and communication
1.5 hour training setting up profile and creating appointment blocks
- Multiple times made available

1 Week

→ 3 →

SECOND TRAINING

1.5 hour training on managing scheduled and drop in appointments. Multiple times made available.

Launch

→ 4 →

SLATE GOES LIVE

Students will be able to make appointments through the Student Facing portal. This will be communicated to them as planned in strategy session.

Week After

→ 5 →

OFFICE HOURS HELD

Multiple time frames for drop in support will be provided to facilitate the transition.

Post Lanuch

→ 6 →

ONGOING SUPPORT

One-on-one appointment blocks available for assistance.
Regular check ins & additional training will be scheduled.

Note: Time frames are approximate (& can be modified upon request). Each training will include asynchronous content (with step-by-step documentation as well as short recordings) and a recording of the session for folks who cannot attend

Training Documentation

Using Slate for the first time? Check out the documentation below to get started with the Slate Student Success Platform as an advisor or a student.

The Slate Student Success Portal (For Students)

The primary purpose of the Slate Student Success Portal is to allow students to make advising appointments. The portal lets students schedule future appointments as well as same-day drop- in sessions. Additionally, the portal can be used as an access point to other campus resources, such as degree audit, financial aid, and the academic calendar.

Navigate the Slate Student Success Portal: https://goto.ucr.edu/slate-student-portal
Access the Slate Student Success Portal: https://succeed.ucr.edu/portal/studentsuccess
The Slate Advisor Portal (For Advisors)

In this portal, advisors can manage their appointments and schedules and access student information.

Navigate the Slate Advisor Portal: https://goto.ucr.edu/slate-advisor-portal
Access the Slate Advisor Portal: https://succeed.ucr.edu/portal/advisor_hub
The Slate Drop-In Management Portal (For Advisors)

This portal is used by advising staff to manage unscheduled sessions requested by students via the Slate Student Success Portal. It has multiple drop-in rooms so that each school/college can manage appointments and availability via one or more drop-in rooms.

Navigate the Slate Drop-In Management Portal: https://goto.ucr.edu/slate-drop-in-portal
Access the Slate Drop-In Management Portal: https://succeed.ucr.edu/portal/advisor_dropin_manager
Learn More About Slate’s Features (For Advisors)

The Slate application has many helpful features, including the ability to create queries and reports, send out mailings, and set up forms and events.

Additional information about these features can be found in the Slate Knowledge base article: https://goto.ucr.edu/slate-kb

Note: If a “Knowledge record not found” message is received, select the “Log In” option found in the main page navigation and sign in with your UCR credentials to view the article.