What’s New in Anthology Reach – September 2025 Release
Whether you’re an advisor delivering personalized support, a marketing leader improving student communication, or an IT director ensuring security and performance, the Anthology® Reach September 2025 (2025.3.0) release introduces new features that strengthen student engagement, simplify compliance, and improve the reliability of critical processes.
Table of Contents
- Smarter Student Engagement Tools
- Stronger Consent Management for SMS and Custom Channels
- More Targeted Student Support with Enrollment-Driven Networks
- Faster and More Reliable Student Experiences
- Enhanced Security and Manageability for Integrations
- Why This Matters for Higher Education
- Access the Release Notes
- Catch Up on the Roadmap
- In Case You Missed It: Summer 2025 Highlights
- Connect with Us
Smarter Student Engagement Tools
Students expect communication that feels both personal and convenient. With this release, institutions can:
- Engage via richer WhatsApp conversations
New support for variables and media templates enables institutions to send personalized, media-rich WhatsApp messages. Examples include sending a student’s schedule as an image, admissions requirements as a document, or a tailored welcome message. - Respect student communication preferences
A new WhatsApp Consent flag at the contact level ensures students only receive messages when they’ve opted in, allowing institutions to build trust while staying compliant with privacy regulations like FERPA in the US and GDPR internationally
Outcome: Institutions meet students where they are—with personalized, compliant messaging that increases engagement rates.
Stronger Consent Management for SMS and Custom Channels
Compliance in higher education isn’t just about checking boxes—it’s about building lasting trust with students. This release expands consent management to cover SMS and custom channels, giving marketing and recruitment teams greater flexibility while aligning with Microsoft’s Real-time Marketing (RTM) framework.
Outcome: Institutions gain confidence that every message sent is compliant and student approved, protecting reputation while maintaining meaningful engagement.
More Targeted Student Support with Enrollment-Driven Networks
Every student’s journey is unique. With this update, Reach now links Success Networks directly to enrollment records.
That means support plans, interventions, and outreach can be tied to a student’s specific program or enrollment path.
Outcome: Advisors and student success teams can deliver more precise, program-specific interventions, ensuring students receive the right support at the right time.
Anthology Reach Success Network linking student enrollment records to support plans (Screenshot) 
Faster and More Reliable Student Experiences
Institutional portals are often the “front door” of the student experience. Performance matters—especially during peak registration.
This release includes multiple back-end optimizations that improve registration speed, scalability, and reliability, such as:
- Reduced back-end service round trips
- Smarter widget logic
- Plug-in and telemetry optimizations
Outcome: Students benefit from faster page loads and smoother registration. Institutions see fewer disruptions and lower infrastructure costs.
Enhanced Security and Manageability for Integrations
Data security is a top priority in higher education. With this release, Reach updates its Student API custom connector to use the new Application API Key (replacing legacy keys).
Outcome: Institutions gain stronger security, easier credential management, and alignment with best practices—without disrupting existing integrations.
Why This Matters for Higher Education
The September 2025 release of Anthology Reach goes beyond technical upgrades. It enables institutions to:
- Communicate with students in ways that are personalized, trusted, and compliant
- Deliver program-specific advising and interventions aligned to student journeys
- Improve the digital student experience during registration and beyond
- Safeguard institutional reputation with stronger compliance and security
In short: Reach continues to evolve as the best CRM for higher education, helping institutions stay connected, proactive, and student-centered.
Release Notes
This release is now available, with rollout to non-production environments starting September 24, 2025.
Explore the full release notes for technical details.
Catch Up on the Roadmap
Want to know where Anthology Reach is headed next? Watch our on-demand Reach Roadmap Webinar to see how we’re shaping the future of student engagement, enrollment, and retention.
Watch the on-demand roadmap webinar.
In Case You Missed It: Summer 2025 Highlights
The July 2025 release introduced two major advancements already making an impact:
- Faculty and Advisor Alerts
By integrating Blackboard® with Anthology Reach, institutions can bring faculty alerts into the advisor workspace—enabling coordinated support when students show early signs of risk - AI-Powered Real-Time Journeys
Built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and enhanced by Copilot, staff can now deliver behavior-triggered outreach at the right time, guided by AI suggestions
Integrated faculty and advisor alerts from Blackboard LMS in Anthology Reach CRM 
Learn how Blackboard and Reach together enable earlier, smarter interventions: Watch now.
Connect with Us
Find out how Anthology Reach CRM can help your institution engage students at every step of their journey. Connect with an Anthologist today.