ConexED Retain vs Ellucian Smart Plan
ConexED Retain
conexed.comEllucian Smart Plan
lp.ellucian.comSide by side
| Figure | ConexED Retain | Ellucian Smart Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Academic Advising Software | 7.6 (#5) | 7.1 (#9) |
| Audience | ConexED says it was built for higher education leaders and advisors, including CIOs, vice chancellors, and advisors supporting hundreds of students. | Ellucian describes Smart Plan as a solution for institutions and their students and advisors. |
| Headquarters | Cottonwood Heights, Utah, United States | Reston, Virginia |
| Integrations | The page lists Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, D2L Brightspace, Ellucian Banner, and PeopleSoft as compatible systems. | Ellucian says Smart Plan is natively integrated with Degree Works and Colleague Student Planning. |
| Purpose | Retain helps higher education institutions identify and support students at risk of leaving. | Smart Plan creates personalized academic plans that adapt as students’ academic progress, requirements, or circumstances change. |
| Security | ConexED says it encrypts transmitted data with TLS 1.2 or higher and data at rest with AES-256, and hosts customer data in the United States on AWS. | Ellucian lists SOC 2 and ISO 27001 among the compliance credentials shown in its Trust Center; the page does not specify Smart Plan separately. |
| Support | ConexED provides a customer support portal with a contact support option and knowledge base articles, including a section for Early Alerts and Case Management. | Ellucian’s product article offers implementation, optimization, and training services. |
Plans
In their own words
ConexED Retain
ConexED Retain is a web platform for higher education institutions to identify students who may be struggling, route concerns to advisors and follow interventions through resolution. Activity feeds from Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle and D2L can trigger alerts for changes in attendance, grades or engagement; configurable rules also monitor missed appointments and milestone slippage. Faculty can flag a concern from a student profile, while students can submit configurable self-referrals that create an advisor case. Case records track severity, assignment, resolution reasons and change history. Advising, tutoring, financial aid and counseling teams can contribute timestamped notes, labels, attachments and threaded comments. Retain combines LMS engagement, attendance, milestone completion and advising touchpoints into success scores; alerts can assign a cohort, start a drip campaign or open a milestone. Listed integrations include Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, D2L Brightspace, Ellucian Banner and PeopleSoft. ConexED says it is TX-RAMP certified and FERPA compliant. Pricing is on request; the product page invites institutions to book a discovery call.
Ellucian Smart Plan
Ellucian Smart Plan is a web-based academic planning and registration solution for institutions, students, and advisors. It analyzes academic history, program requirements, prerequisites, and institutional policies to create validated course plans. Real-time student information system data tracks progress and recalculates a completion route when circumstances change. Students can model changing majors, adding a minor, or adjusting course load, then see course sequences, completion timing, and cost implications. They can register directly from plans while institutional registration windows, prerequisites, and policies are applied. A dynamic rules engine manages sequencing, program requirements, and course relationships; multi-goal updates can combine goals such as a double major and minor. Historical institutional data can help tailor plans. Ellucian says Smart Plan integrates natively with Degree Works and Colleague Student Planning. The product page invites institutions to schedule a live demo and does not state a price, free plan, or free trial. Ellucian offers implementation, optimization, and training services.