FAQs

Staff and faculty materials:

1.Log in to MasonLeaps

2.Join the Patriot Connect Community

3.Select the Topics tab

Student-facing materials:

1. Patriot Connect Overview – Video Resources

Depending on your role at the university, you will receive training through live instructor-led (ILT) / virtual instructor led (VILT) courses, eLearnings, videos, resource guides, job aids, standard operating procedures (SOP), and/or Salesforce-specific resources (like imbedded application guidance or link-outs to the Salesforce-specific training site, Trailhead). 

The launch-period training was provided for all staff and faculty users of Patriot Connect: Student Success. Live, instructor-led training (ILT) courses were available both in-person and virtually and took place mid-April through mid-May. Sessions varied by role and topic, with multiple date and time options to accommodate different schedules. Additional live trainings will be scheduled and required attendees will be informed about the details this summer.

The launch-period training was provided in mid-April through mid-May.

Training is highly encouraged to understand how to use Patriot Connect and ultimately be able to support students, who will be using Patriot Connect as their primary method of scheduling appointments. Depending on your role at the university, attending training will be crucial to your day-to-day activities after go-live. 

The student experience site is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, requiring minimal formal training. However, videos and job aids are available to students for additional support: Patriot Connect Overview – Video Resources

These materials are also available to relevant faculty and staff that need the information themselves or need to reiterate learning objectives/guidance to students.

For launch-period training, individuals were hand-selected by their unit, school, and college to attend specific instructor-led trainings (ILT). If you were not assigned to a live training, then your college, school, or unit, in collaboration with your representative Product Owner, deemed the job aids, resource guides, videos, and eLearnings available at go-live to be sufficient based on how you will individually use Patriot Connect. Additionally, if your college, school, or unit does not require the use of Patriot Connect at this time, you may not have been assigned to live training. However, one recorded version of every ILT will be made available within MasonLeaps through go-live for all faculty and staff. Additional live trainings will be scheduled and required attendees will be informed about the details this summer.

Refer to the following ITS support channels for assistance:

• Submit a ticket: https://its.gmu.edu/submit-a-ticket/ 
• Chat: https://its.gmu.edu/chat/
• Phone: 703-993-8870

If you encounter any issues logging in or need technical support, please contact the Mason Student Services Center (MSSC).

• Submit a case using this form
  • Select “Patriot Connect” for the question, “Which area of the university do you need assistance with?” 
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 703-993-2000
• Website: https://mssc.gmu.edu 

We are actively working to ensure accessibility for all students. However, students who use assistive technology (such as screen readers or keyboard-only access) will likely need assistance to schedule appointments through Patriot Connect until the issues are resolved. Students are being advised that they may contact the Mason Student Services Center (MSSC) to receive assistance in scheduling, or they may contact their advisor or a member of their success team directly, using the email address or phone number listed under the “Success Team” heading. 

If you encounter a student experiencing this issue, please assist them by scheduling a meeting with you directly. If the student needs to meet with another staff member, either help by scheduling the appointment for them, connecting them via email to that staff member to schedule an appointment, or refer them to the MSSC. Students can submit a case, and for the question “Which area of the university do you need assistance with?” they should select “Patriot Connect.” Staff are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and will follow up via email to schedule a meeting with the student. 

Students will be required to use Patriot Connect to engage with key areas like academic advising, student success coaching, and other student services offices to make appointments and follow through on referrals to critical services.

Faculty and staff involved in key student services such as coaching, advising, and student support—which involve appointments and referrals—along with enrollment management services, will be required to use Patriot Connect to document and manage their interactions with students.

The expectation is for faculty and staff participating in Patriot Connect to use the platform when taking and conducting appointments with students. Patriot Connect should be used to document appointments and interactions, as it supports consistent advising practices and enhances student success by providing a unified platform for tracking communications and referrals, helping reduce the “Mason shuffle.”

As part of the strategy to create a more connected student experience, Graduate Education (schools and colleges) will use Patriot Connect for advising similar to their undergraduate counterparts. This ensures that graduate students have access to the same streamlined support and mentoring resources as undergraduate students, enhancing consistency across the university.

The key users of Patriot Connect: Student Success will be students, advisors, and student success coaches. Other users who will be impacted include the student support services community and current users of Navigate. See the Faculty and Staff tab for a comprehensive list of Participating Units.

Patriot Connect: Student Success will officially be available for participating student support services on April 30, 2025. The Patriot Connect team is collaborating closely with affected units and stakeholders. Those units and stakeholders will receive training and updates on when to start using Patriot Connect through various communication channels such as project email updates, change champions, and guidance from unit leaders.

Colleges and schools should ensure they have Patriot Connect change champions identified and encourage use by their faculty and staff for student advising interactions/appointments. Colleges and schools can also update their departmental websites where appropriate to direct students to Patriot Connect (connect.gmu.edu) to schedule appointments with their academic advisors. By consistently utilizing Patriot Connect, we can facilitate a more connected student experience, create a complete engagement record for the student, and eliminate the “Mason shuffle!”

Patriot Connect change champions help drive changes associated with the implementation of Patriot Connect within their respective groups. They do this by helping to facilitate rapid two-way communication between the project team and stakeholders, providing support for their teams and units, and by building awareness and understanding of the Patriot Connect platform and its implementation. They also share project updates, encourage end-user adoption, support cultural changes, gather feedback, address concerns, and monitor possible risks and issues. Change champions also leverage their unit-specific experience to enable effective coaching and empowerment of impacted individuals.

You will log in via single sign-on (SSO) with your George Mason NetID and password, similar to how you access existing university platforms (i.e., Banner (Patriot Web)). Students will log into Patriot Connect at connect.gmu.edu (Faculty completing progress reports will also log in at this link). Faculty, staff, and student staff will log into Patriot Connect at masonconnect.my.salesforce.com.

All users of Patriot Connect require training on FERPA and Highly Sensitive Data. New George Mason staff and faculty should be on the lookout for notifications to complete one or both trainings after they start.

To ensure your account has access to Patriot Connect, you must complete a New User Request Form. The process to get access will require both you and your supervisor completing digital form(s), confirming your need for access to Patriot Connect. ​

Go here to access Patriot Connect Email Signature Templates.

Download this document to be able to copy and paste your preferred email signature. There are 4 options for how you can incorporate Patriot Connect (connect.gmu.edu) into your email signature to help spread the news to students about our new platform designed to enhance the student journey. If you meet with students, don’t forget to add your Patriot Connect “Personal Meeting Link” to the “Book an appointment with me” line.

​The primary use of the Student Success Case Record Type is to represent a student’s entire academic journey at George Mason. In contrast, the Support Case Record Type is used to manage specific requests related to point-in-time assistance and issue resolution services (for Release 1, creating and managing Support Cases is limited to Costello College of Business). ​

The Student Success Case does not track the “Status”, and requires no action on behalf of a staff or faculty user. The Support Case case record type does track these statuses (i.e., New, Working, Pending, Closed, etc.) and requires further action to resolve and close the case.

The Student Success Case contains the student’s assigned “Success Team,” which is a group of one or more internal users who support students around a specific area or service, providing timely interventions. This “Case Team” could include a student’s assigned academic advisor, program coordinator, student success coach, etc. The data to populate the assigned “Case Team Members” is pulled from Banner.

In terms of information scope, the Student Success Case serves as a hub where all relevant ongoing student support information, such as notes, tasks, and interaction summaries, are tied. On the other hand, Support Cases are usually associated with a specific student record and they can be managed independently, depending on the nature of the issue.​​

Lastly, in terms of applicability, every student has a “Student Success Case Record,” making it universally applicable to all students. Support Cases, however, are created as needed for specific issues, providing a more tailored approach to specific requests and issues.​

Most assignments are based on Banner (SGAADVR) since Banner is the source of truth for Patriot Connect. There are some assignments that will be added directly in Patriot Connect, such as housing and residence life CD’s and RAs, and peer assignments.

Interaction Summaries are used to capture notes from any “interactions” with students and can be created outside of an appointment or drop-in.

To log an Interaction Summary:
1. Log into Patriot Connect.
2. In the Global Search Bar at the top of the screen, enter the student’s name.
3. From the search results, select the student’s Account or Contact. This will take you to the student’s “Student Contact Record.”
4. In the center section of the Student Contact Record, scroll down until you see the Details, Academics, Tasks and Emails, and More tabs (depending on the size of your screen/monitor, you may see additional tabs listed).
5. Select More and then select Interaction Summary (if you do not see the More tab, select Interaction Summary directly).
6. Once on the Interaction Summary tab, select the New button.
7. Log the details and notes for the interaction and select Save.
8. The Interaction Summary will be logged on the student’s “Student Contact Record,” and will be visible to the student in their Patriot Connect student portal on their My Notes tab.

No, if you don’t schedule and meet with students regularly, you won’t have a Service Resource record. A Service Resource is a person who meets with students and is responsible for providing academic and student support services.

To see a report of your Student Success Caseload (the students who are assigned to you):

1. Select the dropdown arrow next to the Navigation Menu.
2. Select Reports.
3. Select All Folders.
4. Select the 1 TEMP Report Templates folder.
5. Select the TEMP Student Success folder.
6. Select the TEMP_My Student Success Caseload report.

The QR Code is used to check-in for a previously scheduled appointment, in-person drop-in appointment, or a space check-in/check-out. This will not be used to schedule appointments. Appointments can be scheduled using the Patriot Connect Portal or Faculty/Staff can schedule on behalf of students on the student’s “Student Contact Record” on the staff and faculty side of Patriot Connect.

Go to your Profile Settings and under Calendar & Reminders select Activity Reminders. Then, uncheck the settings for event reminders.

1. Go to your Service Territory.
2. Click on the Related tab.
3. Scroll to the Service Territory Work Types related list.
4. In the Work Type column, select the topic you are looking for.
5. Review the Estimated Duration and the Duration Type fields.

Patriot Connect will enable the ability to create, save, run, and export reports. There will be trainings for those who need to know how to create and view reports.

The list of units available for referrals in Release 1: Student Success focuses on student success and includes advising, student success coaching, career services, and learning services. See the Faculty and Staff tab for a comprehensive list of Participating Units.

You will have access to all student records, including interaction summaries created by other staff/faculty (provided the interaction summary is marked “public,” which we encourage). You can locate a student’s account in Patriot Connect using the global search feature and entering their personal details, such as name, G-Number, or email address.

Yes, there are role-based permissions and hierarchies built into the system. For example, student staff will have a different permission set and will be able to see limited information about their peers in the system.

Yes, staff and faculty who are available to have appointments scheduled with them will have the ability to enable bi-directional calendar sync between their Patriot Connect and Outlook calendars. This will reflect availability consistently across both Patriot Connect and Outlook, streamlining scheduling and improving efficiency. Please note users will be able to see the full details of their own calendar events inside Patriot Connect, but other users will not be able to see meeting details. To others, events scheduled within your Outlook calendar will appear only as blocked or “busy” in Patriot Connect.

Yes, business end users will be able to create marketing campaigns within Patriot Connect and utilize either Marketing Cloud or Distributed Marketing to send communications and manage campaigns based on their permissions.

No, a plug-in extension for Outlook will be available. This feature allows you to log emails to a student’s account without needing to switch to Patriot Connect.

Yes, students will have the ability to opt-out of receiving email communication. If a student opts-out of email communication, this information will be visible in the student’s contact details. SMS opt-out details/options are currently being finalized and will be communicated out once confirmed.

Yes, Vonage will be synced with Patriot Connect in Release 2, which will be available in 2026.

Yes, all relevant data from Navigate will be moved into Patriot Connect. We will communicate more information about how stakeholders can expect to see and use this data as we approach go live.

Yes, we will identify all data needing to migrate from the current systems to Patriot Connect. We will be migrating data from the current Navigate system as well as our current Salesforce TargetX Orgs, in accordance with a detailed, vetted, and thorough schedule and transition plan.

As part of a separate strategic initiative, George Mason is replacing our current degree audit system, DegreeWorks, with Stellic. Advising notes captured in DegreeWorks will be exported before that system is sunset and will be available in Patriot Connect after initial go-live.

Event management functionality will be integrated with the Patriot Connect platform, but it does not come with the native Education Cloud product. The program team is in the process of identifying a 3rd party event management tool for Patriot Connect. The event management tool will replace Salesforce TargetX functionality as part of Release 2: Recruitment and Admissions.

Production data will be migrated very close to the target go-live date, to ensure data accuracy. This data will include TargetX data (including Campaigns) and will be migrated to similar tables (objects) within the Patriot Connect platform.

While Navigate is a stand-alone tool, Patriot Connect will support student success, recruitment and admissions, events management (as it relates to recruiting and orientation), and mass communications through a single, integrated tool. Leveraging this unified platform with centralized student data will provide a holistic view of each student and enable personalized, optimized student support services from application to graduation.

Banner (PatriotWeb), George Mason’s Student Information System, is the source of truth; all student record information will flow from Banner into Patriot Connect.

No, confidential units are not available for referrals nor appointments in Patriot Connect. However, these units’ contact information IS available in Patriot Connect. More details about this are available in our Standards of Use documentation in MasonLeaps.

Patriot Connect is George Mason University’s new primary system of engagement for the student journey, designed to integrate and modernize our technology platforms and create a more connected and efficient experience for students, faculty, and staff. Starting at the beginning of the student journey, Patriot Connect will serve as a centralized online tool for students, offering support from application to graduation. Patriot Connect will enable students to receive personalized communications, schedule appointments, and access essential student support services including academic advising, student success coaching, and learning services. In the second release of Patriot connect capabilities, coming in 2026, all application and admissions will be handled within the platform. By replacing disconnected platforms like TargetX and Navigate, Patriot Connect aims to eliminate redundancies and streamline processes, enhancing data accuracy and user accessibility across the university.

Salesforce is a constituent relationship management (CRM) system that hosts and powers Patriot Connect. Salesforce is a cloud-based platform designed to manage and analyze interactions and data. George Mason University is using Salesforce Education Cloud (a version of Salesforce tailored for the Education industry) to improve student success and recruitment and admissions, paired with Salesforce Marketing Cloud to optimize our campaigns and engagement efforts.

Patriot Connect is George Mason University’s dedicated platform built for student engagement, powered by Salesforce Education Cloud. While there are other instances of Salesforce at the university, Patriot Connect specifically uses Salesforce Education Cloud to create a connected student experience based on key student activities and services.

The Patriot Connect Program Management Team encourages you to share your thoughts and feedback through our Let’s Connect Form. For specific questions or concerns, please contact your Patriot Connect Change Champion.

As part of two planned releases, George Mason will phase in two Patriot Connect tools, Student Success and Recruitment and Admissions.

Release 1: Student Success will replace Navigate and will be released on April 30, 2025. Training will be delivered to end users ahead of the release.

Release 2: Recruitment and Admissions will replace Salesforce TargetX and is tentatively planned for release in 2026 and will follow a phased user activation approach with three waves: February 2026; July 2026; and October 2026.

The program team is carefully considering the transition timeline to minimize disruption, especially during busy periods. Patriot Connect will be available for students to begin scheduling appointments with participating student support service communities starting May 1. To accommodate current and graduating students as they complete their semester, Navigate will remain available until May 22, which is the last day that current students can make an appointment (same day) in Navigate.

The decision-making process for Patriot Connect is led by the Salesforce Executive Committee with representation from units affected by the implementation of Patriot Connect. The Patriot Connect program management team provides the day-to-day management of the program and product team with input from subject matter experts as well as the Salesforce CoE in the development of the Patriot Connect requirements.

The CoE was created to represent the interests and requirements of units around the university. This body determines how we collect and prioritize new features and enhancements for Salesforce, how we build these items, and how we effectively manage the subsequent change these items present to our user base. Members of the CoE include technical, process, industry, strategic, and business unit subject matter experts across all university business units (sometimes called Product Owners), and business unit leaders, all working in collaborative partnership for a seamless and streamlined user experience.