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A Year of Change, Growth, and Momentum

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Infographic titled “2025 Reflection & Highlights” from Plaid Analytics summarizing course-level enrollment forecasting, Tableau and Power BI integration, AI-ready data governance, metrics.
2025 Reflection & Highlights

Here we are at the close of another extraordinary year. It’s been a challenging one across higher education, and we’re deeply grateful to have you alongside us on this journey.

This year, I want to reflect on a few themes that emerged from our work with clients, and to recognize the people who made that work possible.

Enrollment Forecasting Has to Keep Pace with Reality

In an environment where conditions shift quickly, it’s more important than ever to update enrollment forecasts in near real time, understand impacts across the institution, and integrate results directly into planning workflows.

To that end:

  • Plaid Forecast now supports course-level enrollment forecasting with confidence.
    In an era of constraint and uncertainty, institutions need data-informed insight to allocate scarce course resources wisely. Several of our college and university partners are already seeing how this improves planning conversations.
  • Plaid Forecast is now integrated with Tableau and Power BI.
    These tools complement Plaid’s web interface and allow results to flow directly into standard reports and broader institutional planning processes. This integration was driven directly by client demand, and we’re glad we listened.
  • A big shoutout to Pat, who re-architected our results engine to deliver faster, more reliable outputs while supporting the formats required by these analytics platforms, and to Melinda for making PowerBI sing.

AI Is Only as Good as the Data, and the Governance Behind It

With AI rapidly entering the mainstream, data quality and governance are no longer optional. They are foundational.

When a big decision needs to be made, institutions need data now, not next week. Plaid’s data integration and warehousing work continues to give institutions that edge, supporting:

  • Student and learning analytics, helping institutions tell a more accurate story of student success and investment impact. We now support Banner, Colleague, PeopleSoft, Canvas, TaskStream, and more.
  • People analytics, enabling more accurate tracking and reporting on faculty and staff.
  • Survey analytics, eliminating the need to reinvent data structures with every new survey. Results can move quickly into Tableau or Power BI so teams can focus on action.
  • Facilities, building, and real estate data, including spatial integrations that support planning and capital decisions.

We now support visualization in Tableau and Power BI, integrate across AWS, Azure, Databricks, and other ecosystems, and are aligned with the MortarCAPS Higher Learning Data Standard.

Alongside this, Plaid Govern continues to help institutions get ready for AI. By clarifying roles, lineage, and definitions, teams can adopt new tools with confidence. Watch for an announcement early in the new year that will make it even easier to get started.

And yes, another shoutout to Pat, Melinda, and me for making this real.

Enrollment Plans Shouldn’t Gather Dust

In March, I had the opportunity to present on AI, Predictive Modelling, and the Future of Enrollment Planning at the AI-Cademy Conference, hosted by Higher Education Strategy Associates. It was one of my favourite presentations in nearly a decade. The audience was engaged, thoughtful, and open to imagining what could be possible.

A Difficult Year, and Reasons for Optimism

There’s no sugar-coating it. This has been a tough year across North America. Shifting immigration policies, funding cuts, program closures, and layoffs have made for a bumpy ride.

And yet, I’ve been heartened by what I see. There is a genuine effort to put learners first, automate where it matters, adopt new methods and technologies like AI, and recommit to institutional missions even under pressure.

Teaching, Learning, and Gratitude

It’s hard to believe it’s nearly been a year since I became an adjunct professor. As I prepare to return to the University of British Columbia in January, it’s been incredibly rewarding to see former students announcing their graduations.

These professional engineers made a significant investment in their leadership development, and I’m humbled to have played even a small role in their journey.

Partnerships That Matter

This year we announced new partnerships with Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA) and MortarCAPS.

Through HESA, we’ve worked with organizations like CANARIE to support learning for identity and access management professionals across Canada. We’re also excited to be part of HESA’s Re-University conference in January.

With MortarCAPS, we’re bringing a North American lens to a promising initiative, contributing our data engineering expertise to help turn a standard into something institutions can actually use.

By the Numbers

  • 21 blog posts published this year. Big thanks to Melinda for helping make this possible.
  • Four new institutions onboarded to Plaid Forecast.
  • Clients now span North America, from coast to coast to coast.

Looking Ahead to 2026

On the blog, keep an eye out for:

  • A goal to move to a weekly publishing cadence, with short, practical posts grounded in real institutional work.
  • New innovations in data governance, focused on helping institutions become AI-ready through quick starts and durable frameworks.
  • A new series on data integration in the community college space, rooted in real-world constraints and lessons learned.

Thank you for reading, for collaborating, and for continuing to push this work forward with us.

Wishing you and your family well for the holiday season. We look forward to connecting next year.

~Andrew, on behalf of team Plaid Analytics