Fulbright University Vietnam is continuing its ambitious digital transformation with Salesforce at the core. Building on previous implementations of Sales Cloud and Experience Cloud, the university has now deployed Agentforce and Data Cloud to further streamline operations and elevate the student experience.
Fulbright University Vietnam is the country’s first independent, nonprofit liberal arts university. With backing from both the US and Vietnamese governments, Fulbright’s mission is to equip future leaders with the skills to address global challenges, and to build a diverse, inclusive academic community. The university maintains strong partnerships with top-tier US institutions including Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Dartmouth and the University of Texas.
With student numbers growing rapidly, Fulbright faced mounting administrative complexity and increasing pressure on manual admissions, financial aid, and student support processes.
The university faced challenges in scaling student services, handling a surge in service requests, and managing a growing knowledge base that relied heavily on specific keywords and manual navigation. And with each new student intake, the volume of questions increased.
Fulbright needed a secure, scalable solution to streamline operations and provide a more intuitive experience for students and staff alike.
Scalability is one of the big challenges for any platform, but if we reach 5,000 or 10,000 applications in a short timeframe, I know Salesforce can handle that, and much more.
Christopher AbramsVice President, Operations and Development, Fulbright University
Sales Cloud plays a central role in managing Fulbright’s student lifecycle. It is used by the Admissions team to capture and nurture leads, track financial aid applications, and ensure prospective students move through each application stage efficiently.
All interactions and documents are logged on a single platform, so no context is lost when a student transitions to enrollment. Upon acceptance, records are securely and automatically handed over to the Student Life team, which eliminates manual transfers and reduces data privacy risks.
Staff can now view full student history on one platform to enable more personalised and efficient support.
Experience Cloud powers the One Stop student services portal. Students can log service requests, view responses, access policy documents, and receive updates – all within a single portal.
The system is supported by dashboards that give Fulbright staff real-time insights into service case volumes and trends. As usage grows, the Student Life team can identify emerging issues, allocate resources effectively, and refine the student support model.
Combined with Agentforce, the portal has become a dynamic ecosystem for engaging, informing, and assisting Fulbright’s diverse student body.
With the advantage of a single source of truth data strategy, Fulbright was well positioned to move quickly on Agentforce. The university’s internal IT team led an efficient three-week Agentforce implementation end-to-end, leveraging its strong understanding of Salesforce architecture and data structure.
Student information had already been consolidated within the platform via Data Cloud which seamlessly integrates all structured and unstructured data. With the knowledge base now structured and centralised, Agentforce was able to draw on clean, reliable data from day one.
Students were involved in the design process, and in the pilot stage, providing opportunities for them to try out, evaluate and give feedback about the AI agent.
As a result, the IT team seamlessly integrated Agentforce into the student portal within just three weeks.
Agentforce is now embedded into Fulbright’s digital student portal as a central hub for academic and support services.
Students are greeted with an intuitive interface featuring a clearly visible Agentforce assistant. Instead of navigating menus or struggling with search filters, they simply ask questions like: "What courses do I need to complete my major?" or "What’s the housing policy for second-year students?"
The AI agent responds in natural and conversational language and tailors answers based on the user’s context, such as year level or course of study. This makes self-service faster, reduces student frustration, and enables service staff to focus on more complex needs.
We built an AI agent that can answer student questions in a human way. Agentforce unlocks a whole new way of interacting with our information. As we have a Customer 360 view, with every student touchpoint recorded in one place, Agentforce provides highly personalised, contextual answers. This also opens up tremendous potential for future AI and automation use cases, from automating enrollment to providing proactive advisor support. That is very exciting to us. It’s not just about saving time—it’s about transforming the way students interact with the university. We’re giving them immediate, relevant answers that reduce friction and improve their confidence in managing their own academic journey.
Quang Ha NguyenDirector of Information Technology, Fulbright University
Agentforce is only the beginning of Fulbright’s AI vision. In future, a staff-facing AI assistant will help faculty quickly access data about students, including their academic performance, club involvement, and work experience.
Also in the future vision is a Vietnamese-language version of the assistant to support applicants as they explore program options and financial aid.
Longer term, Fulbright plans to introduce automation into course planning and enrollment. For example, an AI agent could suggest relevant classes and complete the enrollment process for students, with appropriate safeguards.
From start to launch, Agentforce implementation took just three weeks. It was simple because we already had high-quality data on the Salesforce platform managed through Data Cloud, and the ease of deployment proved that our long-term strategy – investing early in clean data and unified systems – was the right one. It gives us the agility to adopt new technologies quickly and confidently.
Quang Ha NguyenDirector of Information Technology, Fulbright University
Agentforce is already streamlining the student experience and making service teams more efficient. Students can now access information 24/7 through the portal’s AI agent, and early feedback indicates high engagement and satisfaction. Internally, staff are also benefiting from Agentforce. IT and service team members now use AI to find policy and course information without the need to dig through static resources. And as AI features expand, Fulbright expects to further reduce manual workloads and focus human expertise on higher-value tasks.
Beyond AI, Salesforce continues to support Fulbright's wider digital strategy. Sales Cloud manages outreach and application pipelines. Experience Cloud powers the One Stop student portal. Salesforce Shield enhances data security, while Perception Point from AppExchange scans thousands of uploaded documents for threats. Together, these tools enable Fulbright to scale operations securely and efficiently as it grows.
Salesforce’s continuous updates keep Fulbright at the forefront of trusted technological advancements. This commitment to innovation aligns with its goal of leveraging secure, cutting-edge technology to enhance educational experiences for students and staff.
The use of Agentforce is a strategic move that aligns with our commitment to innovation, excellence in education and operational efficiency. It integrates seamlessly with our existing infrastructure, and ensure our systems remain scalable, secure and agile, capable of adapting to the evolving needs of our community. Overall, Salesforce supports our future goals by providing a flexible, data-driven, and innovative platform that enhances our ability to deliver exceptional education and services.
Christopher AbramsVice President, Operations and Development, Fulbright University
