ConexED Retain

ConexED Retain is a web-based student intervention platform for colleges and universities. It is best suited to institutions coordinating advising and support services around students who may be struggling. Its strongest case is the combination of early alerts, shared casework, and automated follow-up; institutions should look elsewhere if they need a mobile platform or a published price.

Overview

Retain is built to move student concerns from detection to resolution. Learning-system activity, staff concerns, and student referrals can feed into advisor cases, while connected meeting and outreach records and a Report dashboard extend the workflow beyond the case itself. This makes it more compelling for institutions seeking a coordinated support process than for teams looking only for a standalone alert tool.

Its intended audience includes higher education leaders such as CIOs and vice chancellors, as well as advisors supporting large student caseloads. TX-RAMP certification and FERPA compliance, along with encryption in transit using TLS 1.2 or higher and at rest using AES-256, address important institutional security requirements.

Key features

Alerts and referrals

Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, and D2L activity feeds can trigger alerts when attendance, grades, or engagement change. Configurable rules also monitor attendance patterns, grade trajectories, missed appointments, and milestone slippage. Faculty can flag concerns from a student profile, and configurable student intake forms can open self-referral cases directly on an advisor’s caseload. These multiple routes can help teams surface issues without relying solely on individual advisors to spot them.

Shared case management

Cases capture severity, assignment, resolution reasons, and change history. Timestamped notes, labels, attachments, and threaded comments allow advising, tutoring, financial aid, and counseling to contribute to one case. Soft deletes preserve records for compliance. That shared record can reduce fragmented follow-up across departments, though its value depends on those teams using the same workflow.

Scoring and automation

Composite success scores draw on LMS engagement, attendance, milestone completion, and advising touchpoints. Alerts can also assign a cohort, start a drip campaign, or open a milestone automatically. Together, these tools can help institutions turn signals into consistent next steps; they are less useful where teams do not have clear intervention rules or ownership.

Connected services and support

Retain links cases to ConexED meeting and outreach records and sends resolved-case outcomes to its Report dashboard. It also supports degree planning, intervention workflows, a student planning portal, email and SMS campaigns, CRM synchronization, and funnel recruitment analytics. ConexED provides personalized ticket-based support, with email follow-up Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. MST.

Pricing

Retain uses a paid model with custom pricing. Institutions are invited to book a discovery call, so teams should expect to discuss their needs rather than compare a posted rate. This approach may suit institutions evaluating a broader deployment, but it makes budget comparison harder before engaging ConexED.

Platforms

Retain is web-based, including its mobile access. The platform lists Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, D2L Brightspace, Ellucian Banner, and PeopleSoft among the systems it works with. Institutions already using these systems have relevant integration options to assess; those relying on other systems should confirm fit before choosing it.

Who it's for

Retain is aimed at higher education institutions that need advisors and campus services to coordinate interventions across substantial student populations. It is a stronger fit for organizations seeking connected alerts, case records, and follow-up automation than for individual advisors or institutions seeking a lightweight, self-service tool.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Multiple alert sources—LMS activity, configurable rules, faculty flags, and student referrals—give institutions several ways to surface concerns.
• Pro: Shared notes, attachments, threaded comments, and case histories support coordinated work across advising and other student services.
• Pro: Success scoring and alert-triggered assignments, campaigns, or milestones can connect monitoring to follow-up.
• Pro: TX-RAMP certification, FERPA compliance, and stated encryption standards address institutional security needs.
• Con: Custom pricing requires a discovery conversation, limiting upfront budget comparisons.
• Con: The platform is web-only, which may not suit institutions that require native mobile access.
• Con: Integration fit still needs checking against an institution’s systems, even though several major education platforms are named.

Alternatives

FlightPath is the clearest option for institutions that want a free, self-hosted web advising system and can manage its server, MySQL, and PHP requirements. Choose Retain instead when coordinated alerts, cross-service casework, and automation are the priority.

Ellucian Degree Works may suit institutions focused on degree progress and planning that want Android, iOS, Linux, API, and web access; Retain is the more directly oriented choice for intervention alerts and shared support cases.

Civitas Advising is a paid, annual-subscription option scaled to institution size and integrated systems, with Android, iOS, and web platforms. Consider it when that platform scope is a closer match; Retain emphasizes alert-to-case follow-up.

EAB Navigate360 uses an enterprise license for staff and students, with pricing tied to enrollment and technology scope rather than per-user or per-office fees. It is worth comparing for institutions seeking that licensing model; Retain’s distinction is its described case workflow and connected support records.

CoreCampus is a paid cloud platform priced by average annual FTE students, with a monthly fee and all software modules and features included. Consider it when that pricing basis and bundled approach fit better than Retain’s custom quote.

Ellucian Advising is another web-based paid advising option with pricing available through a demo or direct contact. Ellucian Banner Student and Ellucian Smart Plan are web-based paid alternatives to compare for institutional needs.

For broader category comparisons, see Academic Advising Software, Student Recruitment Software, and Student Engagement Software.

Verdict

Choose ConexED Retain if your institution needs to connect early student-risk signals with shared case management and automated intervention follow-up. Its main advantage is bringing multiple alert sources and campus services into one process; its main reasons to look elsewhere are custom pricing, web-only access, or a mismatch with your existing systems.