SkillsUSA Massachusetts needed to replace disconnected, manual processes with a system that could handle the full complexity of running a statewide career and technical education association, from school registrations to statewide competitions. With a custom-built member portal on Salesforce Experience Cloud, delivered by Advanced Communities, the organization launched a platform that manages every part of their operation: membership, conferences, competitions, hotel logistics, assessments, chapter recognition, invoicing, and a job board – all in one place.
Background & Project Objectives
SkillsUSA Massachusetts, Inc. is a state association of a national organization that connects career and technical education students with workforce development opportunities through experiences, competitions, training programs, curriculum, and industry partnerships. Each year, the association manages thousands of student and advisor records across schools statewide, runs several annual conferences, and the SkillsUSA Championships featuring more than 100 career-focused competitions, coordinates hotel logistics for hundreds of attendees, administers online assessments that determine competition eligibility, and oversees a Chapter Excellence Program that recognizes high-performing school chapters and SkillSync which connects members to Apprenticeship opportunities.
130+ Career majors across all career clusters
40,000+ members representing 67 CTE schools
275+ buisness & industry partners
Before this project, SkillsUSA Massachusetts, Inc. had no central system: no Salesforce, no member portal, no shared platform for schools to register or manage their own data. Staff were managing this complexity through manual processes, and as participation grew, the gaps were only getting harder to close.
The organization needed a solution that would:
- Give schools, advisors, students, and business partners a single online hub to register and manage their membership
- Support multiple membership structures, including a Total Participation Plan with tiered pricing based on school size
- Run end-to-end conference and competition management, from registration through judging
- Handle hotel logistics, including room assignments, for large-scale statewide conferences
- Deliver online pre-competition assessments that determine which students qualify to compete in person
- Power the Chapter Excellence Program with structured submission, judging, and scoring workflows
- Consolidate all payments: membership subscriptions, conference participation, and hotel bookings into one invoicing system
- Connect business partners with students through an enhanced job board that goes beyond standard listings and Apprenticeship opportunities
Our Approach & Solution
Advanced Communities built a custom member portal on Salesforce Experience Cloud from the ground up: greenfield Salesforce, purpose-built design, and a data migration of SkillsUSA Massachusetts’s existing school, contact, conference, and competition records into the new system.
The platform is organized into seven custom-built packages (with AC Unified Checkout powering payments and AC Job Board extended with enhancements), each designed for a specific slice of how the association operates. The result is one connected system where schools, advisors, students, judges, business partners, and SkillsUSA staff all have exactly what they need, without anyone manually stitching data between different tools.
Key features delivered:
- School & partner onboarding: Self-service registration for schools and business partners via the portal, with lead review and account activation workflows for SkillsUSA staff
- School management: Lead advisors manage their school’s profile, add students and advisors by form or spreadsheet upload, assign training programs, and maintain their own records, reducing back-and-forth with the state office
- Conference & competition management: Full registration flows for advisors, students, and exhibitors. Competition configuration including technical chairs, judges, timelines, and contestant assignments. And reporting across all conference activity
- Hotel management: A purpose-built hotel request system with a drag-and-drop tool for administrators to assign rooms across a large attendee pool, covering students, staff, state officers, judges, and volunteers, with invoicing tied directly to bookings
- Member assessment: Online pre-competition assessments that open on a specific date, score automatically, and produce a ranked list of students that determines who qualifies to compete on the conference floor
- Chapter Excellence Program: A structured digital submission process for school chapters, including judge assignment, scoring by multiple reviewers, and results reporting, replacing a paper-based annual program
- Invoicing & payments: Consolidated invoicing for membership subscriptions, conference participation, hotel bookings, and all other fees, with flexible payment options so school directors can pay for members in batches rather than all at once
- Enhanced job board: Business partners post Apprenticeship opportunities, internships and job opportunities while students apply directly through the portal, and school directors confirm student participation, with time logging built in.
The Solution in Action
Benefits & Results
With this platform, SkillsUSA Massachusetts, Inc. replaced a fragmented, manual operation with a single system that runs the full lifecycle of their association year.
Schools & Partners Schools register and manage their own accounts, students, and training programs without relying on staff to manually update records. Business partners post opportunities and interact with students through the portal rather than through one-off communications.
Membership Management Lead advisors manage their school’s membership subscriptions, including switching between plan types and paying in installments, with invoices generated automatically and tied to their actual registrations.
Conference & Competition Coordination Conference and competition logistics now live in one system, from initial registration through room assignments, judge coordination, assessment qualification, and results, giving staff real-time visibility without reconciling separate lists.
Hotel Logistics at Scale The management tool allows administrators to handle room assignments for hundreds of attendees across multiple hotels, matching students, staff, and officials to rooms without managing spreadsheets manually.
Operational Efficiency Automated notifications, structured approval workflows, and centralized reporting cut down significantly on the manual coordination burden for a small staff running a large, multi-event organization.
Built for the Long Term Since SkillsUSA Massachusetts, Inc. had no prior Salesforce environment, every part of the platform was designed to grow with them: new competitions, additional membership tiers, or expanded programs can be added without rebuilding from scratch.
And here’s what Skills USA Massachusetts, Inc. said about our performance:
Karen E. Ward, CSD
Executive Director SkillsUSA Massachusetts, Inc.
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