Organizations today rely on an ever‑expanding ecosystem of digital tools: student information systems, CRMs, HR and financial platforms, grant discovery tools, application review portals, and more. Each system is often excellent at its specific job, yet when these systems don’t communicate seamlessly, organizations end up with a familiar and costly problem -- information silos.
Information silos occur when data is locked inside individual systems and cannot easily flow across the organization. Staff are forced to manually re‑enter data, reconcile spreadsheets, hunt across platforms for the information they need, or repeatedly ask other stakeholders to provide information. This approach is not only time‑consuming, but also error‑prone, expensive to maintain, and frustrating for everyone involved. More importantly, it prevents organizations from getting a complete, accurate view of their operations, activities and ROI because data necessary for assessing is scattered or buried.
The System of Record Can’t Stand Alone
Most organizations rely on a primary system of record as the authoritative data source. There is also a constellation of additional tools that manage business processes and maintain specific records in support of those processes, such as faculty activity, award tracking, and approval processes. However, a system of record cannot function in isolation. For it to deliver full value, the system of record must support three essential capabilities:
- Store essential data – act as the central repository for reliable information.
- Outbound data sharing – send trusted, up‑to‑date information to other tools across the institution.
- Inbound data enrichment – automatically pull in data from the constellation of systems in order to keep records accurate and current.
Without these capabilities, even the most robust platform risks becoming another silo.
Automating Data Flow with InfoReady Data Feeds
InfoReady supports the key mission of maintaining good data and addresses the silo problem directly through a variety of InfoReady data feeds options, which provide automated data exchange between InfoReady and other institutional systems. Rather than relying on applicants to manually submit Information known to the institution or administrators to export data of completed processes, data feeds create reliable, scheduled flow of information that reduces errors and eliminates redundant work.
Good Data Upfront
With inbound data feeds, you can ensure that InfoReady is continuously enriched with authoritative data that can be used in your business process.
- Directory Look‑Up pulls real‑time contact information from institutional directories to improve communication and making assignments. It even combines multiple email aliases into a single directory entry so that everything goes into the same mailbox for individuals.
- Dynamic Profiles Plus automatically populates user profiles from student or faculty information systems and can instantly auto-fill form fields. Having standardized people data available in InfoReady also brings the benefit of using additional tools in InfoReady that rely on big data sets: the nominations tool facilitates nominations processes, while the advanced share option allows administrators to widely promote opportunities to targeted groups.
- Data Look-Up brings data not associated with people into InfoReady so that it can be used in form collection. For example, a student submitting a waiver request could search on a single field -- such as a course number -- and have related fields populated automatically, saving time and reducing mistakes.
Inbound feeds also extend beyond internal systems. Integrations with tools like Ex Libris Pivot-RP, GrantForward and Atom Grants. allow administrators to push funding opportunities to directly into InfoReady, ensuring users always see the most current opportunities without duplicative effort.
Pushing Data Where It’s Needed Most
Equally important is InfoReady’s ability to send data outward. Outbound data feeds can push competition details, award decisions, funding amounts, account numbers, and follow-up form data (e.g. annual reports) into other platforms. You can plug this data into several destinations, including websites, marketing tools, and, of course, the system of record. This ensures that once data is entered and finalized in InfoReady, it doesn’t need to be manually re‑created elsewhere.
For institutions with advanced integration needs, InfoReady also offers an API, enabling IT teams to automatically retrieve a fixed collection of data and connect InfoReady directly to their broader technology ecosystem.
From Silos to Seamless Systems
By combining inbound and outbound data feeds, you can transform InfoReady from a standalone system into a connected hub working with your system of record. Imagine how easy it can be to manage a process in InfoReady such as Sabbatical leave of absence. Send faculty data from a system of record to auto-fill digital forms, ask faculty to fill out the additional information needed for the decision-making process, manage review workflows and make decisions in InfoReady, and then automatically send data about decisions back to the system of record. The result is cleaner data, faster workflows and decision-making, and a unified experience for applicants, reviewers, and administrators alike. In an environment where silos slow progress, automated data connectivity isn’t just a convenience—it’s a necessity.
To learn more about data feeds for InfoReady, ask our team for a personalized discovery call.