Single org benefits

Why is it recommended to have a single org setup for CRM and SIS, versus having them in separate orgs?

Data:

• Single source of truth for student data - both teams are sharing the same records, hence, a single org reduces duplicate data.
  
  
• All your data is consolidated, and you can make more efficient use of it.
  
  
• Student insight - user can access and understand the student better from the head hunting process to the enrollment, as all the info are tracked in the same org.

Integration:

• Reduces the complexity of integration. Since a single org means that the integration between 2 orgs are not needed, this helps to reduce the delay of data availability and expenditure (can be spent on other high priority MVPs).
  
  
• Prospects become students, then alumni then donors who make contributions to the Funds (scholarships, grants, etc.) Managing the life cycle of the institution in one org is more efficient.
  
  
• By having a single org, you can avoid having to manage the flow of data between the two orgs (which increases the institution's technical debt). The whole point of SF and one org is to reduce that debt.

Efficiency:

• Prevent departments within an education institution from working in siloes - this is solved by having departments all working on the same solution/org.
  
  
• CRM is like the operating system on your computer and RIO is the app you download from the AppStore. Why would you separate them? They are designed to work together.

For example:

• Transfer credits feature in RIO:
  We now have a component where an applicant can view which Courses from their previous institution have transfer agreements, and also request credit transfers during the application process. If RIO was not in the CRM (Applications) org, then this feature would not be available.
  
  
• Fees:
  RIO has application fees, etc., that can be automated. While a separate CRM can also support applications with Fee's, we would likely need additional integration to get those fee's into the RIO Fee format to support downstream reporting on fees for the SIS.
  
  
• Licenses:
  Having a single org means less Salesforce licenses. If users need to access both orgs, they will need 2 Salesforce licenses (one for each org).

Multi-org benefits 

That is not to say that there are no benefits of having a multi-org setup for CRM and SIS.

Having a multi-org setup brings the following benefits:

• The CRM and SIS team can be separated into 2 different silos (2 different owners), so that they would not cross with each other.
  
  
• The CRM team can better protect the sales-related info like activity history from the SIS team.
  
  
• Prevent recruitment staff from having access to SIS data (and the other way around). Having separate orgs could be simpler than setting up private security models in a single org.
  
  
• Make changes to recruitment flows, org without impacting SIS, or the SIS implementation without impacting the Recruitment. (i.e. release independently without having to test in the other area).