Access the podcast to hear Atlassian and Clovity experts discuss how to accelerate digital transformation for higher education organizations through compliant ITSM and digital collaboration tools, like Jira Service Management, Confluence and Loom. Explore how Atlassian enhances visibility and service delivery in higher education with practical use cases for ITSM, facilities, HR, legal and research.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
My name is Anuj Sajdeva, I'm the Chief Executive Officer at Clovity, we are an Atlassian Platinum partner and we have a prominent presence within higher ed. Dave?
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah, hi, Dave Rheaume, I am the Director of Sales for SLED, so State and Local Government Higher Education here at Atlassian.
[Cameron Starman]
Hi everybody, Cameron Starman, Senior Director of Client Management for Clovity, and with a heavy focus on the higher ed and SLED practice.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
Yeah, so I'll be moderating the session and then Dave and Cameron will be chiming in. So, Dave, let's start with you actually, I mean, as you can see, especially given the climate and SLED in general and the new administration, how do you see this whole noise affecting from a budget challenge within higher ed space?
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah, yeah, no, there's definitely, you know, in the industry, we'll say, a lot of challenges that are coming down the pike. You know, for faculty, for staff, for students, for the Office of the President, for all of, you know, college and university campus life, it's affected, right? And so what we're seeing as a summation of it is limited IT budgets.
So budgets are, you know, becoming under scrutiny and pressurized or under pressure. We see at the same time, simultaneously, an increase in demand for tools or systems, applications, etc. The proportional amount of funding doesn't quite match the demand that we're seeing in the industry or these colleges, universities.
And really, the pressure to reduce operational costs as a result of all of that. So, yeah, I mean, it's out there, it's real in the ether and we're working the best we can to be a good partner and steward through it all.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
So technically, what you're saying is it's actually, it's an opportunity in chaos, because given the way Larsen is strategically positioned in the systems of work, it's actually an opportunity then for all of us to see.
[Cameron Starman]
I think technology always kind of comes in at that focal point, right? And I think Atlassian is, with their tools and their offerings, I think there's a very real opportunity here to knock out some of these old legacy systems, knock out some of these things that aren't working so well. And I know there's a little bit of fear out there because, you know, nobody likes switching tools.
And, you know, it's not always easy to get everybody on board for that. But I think, you know, there's so much out there in terms of automation and new workflows that can be created. It's just going to take a lot of workload off of administration staff, off of teachers, off of facility security.
There's so many different things where you can really kind of come in and make a difference. You've got to make a little change up front, but honestly, it's so worth it in the long run.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
Yeah. So Dave, that might be one more question. Are you seeing more unilateral decision making now, given sort of the budgets are constrained?
So the decision making is faster or it's still sort of more sort of multiple levels, given the product is very positioned, not just for one thing. It could actually span across the university or campus.
[Dave Rheaume]
That's a great question. And I think, you know, really what we're finding from our customers of industry is that there's sprawling tech usage, there's sprawling different tools and disparate systems. And across the campus, you know, there's different divisions that don't know left or right what they're doing.
And so really, that's where we can act as a good partner. We've been trying to act as a good partner is coming in with an informed point of view on how we can create a unified infrastructure where all divisions know left and right hand what each is doing. And it's all aligned.
It's rolled out in a pragmatic fashion. And so those are, to answer your question, some of the findings that we're seeing from our customers is that they're really just fragmented, you know, tech stack and sprawling.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
So actually then that calls for tool rationalization with Atlassian. I think that's a good segue. So what all products are you seeing, especially in the Team 25 announcement with Focus and with Talent and then with obviously Robo being part of it?
What are products you really see fitting into the new world of higher ed?
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah, so Team 25 in Anaheim, California this past year is our flagship annual conference. And we had a lot of representation from the slide community, so state and local government, higher education and beyond. And some of the keynotes and the customers that were there on stage talking to the improvements that they made, especially as it relates to new products and offerings, it was enamoring.
And so, you know, there were some, of course, with the buzz in the industry with artificial intelligence, that's everything. And so our product called Robo is AI built into the Atlassian suite of products across the board. While on stage, our founder, Michael Kennenbrook, MCB announced that Robo will be included on cloud editions now, complimentary.
And it's really to kind of help our customers continue to scale their usage, continue to gain efficiencies with the technology. And so there's Robo. Right.
But then alongside that, we've announced collections. So there's strategy collection, there's teamwork collection. And what that is, is it's a collection of numerous different applications that we offer.
And, you know, really the goal of it is to get from leadership all the way down to, you know, surface level. All parties aligned, engaged and working on the same goals and objectives at the very top. You know, driving that uniformity across the campus.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
Yeah, no, no. I can actually personally talk about this because we have been sort of looking at this very closely with few campuses. I mean, the strategy collection especially is actually a great thing, especially the merger of the whole Jira line piece and the focus piece and then talent.
It's the right solution for the sort of the higher end, as you said, when you can actually see the portfolio of the portfolios and not just that, that could also go into talent space. And then combined with free Robo, that's like slam dunk in my opinion. Kevin, what's your perspective?
[Cameron Starman]
I mean, you know, I'm excited about the new tools, but I'm also I love Jira, JSM and Confluence together, like as a complete workflow and solution where you can have long term project planning, short term service requests and knowledge management that runs throughout all of it. Like I think the overlays that you guys were just talking about, very important. I think what that does is that gives that even greater strategic element that I think not only higher ed, but government and enterprise.
I think that everybody needs it. Right. There's for a long time we've kind of, you know, there just hasn't been the connections with the people doing the work and the people sometimes making the decisions as well as it should be.
Right. Like, obviously, we've we've gotten to this point. But I think there's something now, like, you know, what Dave just said, we can really start to connect all these things and start to build out kind of just this really beautiful ecosystem of understanding and, you know, the heads talking to the hands and vice versa.
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah, because if I'm on campus, regardless of, you know, where I am on campus or which division I'm on campus or if I'm a student, et cetera, faculty, staff, I want to know where the one place to go to get support for anything is that I need. And so I think really, you know, that's the goal is how do we help, you know, colleges and universities simplify their tech stack, integrate their tech stack and provide that seamless interface or means to be able to get what they need faster, more efficiently. Yeah.
[Cameron Starman]
Also stop scaring IT security with a bunch of different instances that they don't know about.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
So if I if I may sort of summarize what you both said, actually, the way we have to look at it is almost what Cameron is saying is Jira Confluence sort of project management, knowledge base and JSM can be the foundation. And then you have Jira, the strategy collection piece, which sort of elevates it further at the executive level, combine it all with Robo, the AI. That's like a package for success for university, basically all of it together.
You can you can solve the whole service management piece. You can solve the project management piece. And then now you start to plug in the apps that actually solves the whole end to end piece, the process transformation, which is sort of what these universities really need today.
[Dave Rheaume]
And on that point, I mean, some of the buzz, we'll call it the electricity at Team 25, when those presentations were done and they came off stage, the swell from our customers, you know, some of them saying whatever that was, I have to have it. And so on that point, one of the demonstrations showed just how powerful this can become. For instance, for campus life, we're all in a lot of phone calls every single day, virtual telephone calls, etc.
One of the new products is Loom. And so Loom allows you to video record your conversations like a teleconferencing technology should. And after the call is done, it sums up the conversation, who is in it, what the objectives of the call were, what was discussed, what the action items or takeaways were and who was tasked with those items.
Once that's done, it summarizes it and pops it into a confluence page, mentioning the appropriate parties with what the call was and the takeaways and creating tasks for teams in JIRA to execute on holistically and together as a team. Wow. So you can see just how connected we're thinking about the future of campus life.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
Not to mention, actually, Loom is one of the fastest growing products. And from what I read was apparently it's saving like 50% of the meetings. You could just record and send Loom videos and it just saves a lot of dollars for the campus, actually.
So there's an ROI right there also. How do you see the products fitting into various use cases within university? Because I know IPSM is a slam dunk, but what other areas do you see it's fitting in?
[Dave Rheaume]
The best thing that we can do is listen to our customer. And obviously, extending off of what we talked about earlier, the pains or the challenges that are faced by these colleges, universities. Our goal is to listen, to get on site with them, to understand where they're faced with challenges.
There's a few areas that come to mind. So when you talk about ticketing, really, it's universal. No matter the case, no matter what you're tracking, what you're trying to get fixed or solved.
A few of them that have bubbled up to the top lately from what we've seen from our customer base are things like facilities and maintenance ticketing. And we use JSM for that. Reporting, for instance, if there's broken elevators or HVACs, heating, ventilation, air conditioning repairs that are needed.
And really making sure that there's a centralized pragmatic fashion in the way that those tickets are responded to. And for us, it's done through our chair of service manager at JSM tool. So there's just one example of what we're seeing.
It extends to things like tracking requests from classrooms. So, for instance, if the air conditioner is broken in a specific classroom, that can be a ticket that can be responded to and automated for repair and follow up. And then finally, maintenance scheduling, right?
Because maintenance and the fleet that responds to these things, they always have to stay on schedule with making sure that student life is taken care of and that they're healthy and safe on campus. And so really just assigning specific teams to certain tasks that is their goal to get replaced and on time, efficiently every time.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
Actually, Kevin, I know Dave talked about a few areas. I really like that example.
[Cameron Starman]
We're already so busy. And, you know, in higher ed, they're often doing more with less more often than not. And, you know, they're busy.
They're taking care of thousands of students. And it's just the more that we can automate some of those lower level tasks, but still have that kind of high quality output that comes from it. I just think it's really going to change how, you know, again, we do all of our work, you know, higher ed or otherwise.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
So we can potentially look at it from obviously the traditional help desk. We can look at it from facilities. We can look at it from like extension to facilities, HVAC.
We can look at it from a classroom. We can look at it from a legal standpoint.
[Cameron Starman]
We can look at it from HR.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
We can look at it from marketing. Pretty much the whole gamut.
[Cameron Starman]
I think funding requests, like literally, I mean, for at least for how I look at higher ed, JSM, you could apply across the board. Everybody could use it. And, you know, the other ones kind of fit in as well.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
Yeah. And given sort of the way this place is booming, there are more and more partners who are templatizing all this. So actually, that makes it much easier for the campus.
So, Dave, I mean, recently I learned. Is this true? Like some of our competitors in the JSM space, they even charge like for approvers.
They charge per seat, whereas the most sort of the price efficient is JSM because all the Atlassian charges is really for the person who's resolving it, as we call it, the resolver. Walk us through sort of what's your perspective there, because the audience would like to know, because that to me is really. So the key from a from a pricing strategy perspective, which the higher education should really know about.
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it aligns with one of Atlassian's core values, and that is doing right by the customer.
And so in that vein, you know, we've taken it to the street with our customers from our pricing perspective with JSM in particular. You know, if we're talking about ITSM and even beyond ITSM, there's other technologies out there where you start to get a tool implemented and set up and you start to see all these other things that it can do or we'll call it bolt ons that you can bolt onto the core technology. And so over time, you know, what happens is tech scroll.
Right. And you've got this this big bill that you never thought from day one you were going to be faced with. Well, now you're faced with and you've got to figure out how you come up with the budget to meet that and renew it.
Right. And so with us, it's about taking care of the customer. And specifically, when you talk about ITSM and beyond, JSM, Juris Service Management, it's all included.
We include it all. So, yeah.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
So basically, the customer is not paying for like the classroom student who's raising a request. They're only raising it for the person who's actually solving the problem, which is like the resolver. Unlike the agent, thank you.
Unlike a lot of competitive products, which actually do end up charging even for the person who's actually sort of raising the request.
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah. Yeah, that's correct. It's for the agent because we think that, you know, there is a user that's literally physically using the technology that counts as a user.
Right. And for folks that need to use a product of the service that they offer, they should be charged for that. So, yeah.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
And Kevin, I know you mentioned about the asset piece on the track.
[Cameron Starman]
I think that's kind of where you're reading my mind over here. I mean, yeah, I think the asset play is. And again, it kind of in the same vein, because a lot of competitors charge per asset.
Right. Which really makes you be way too strategic or kind of fine tuned when you're doing your assets. But where I think the modern version that honestly Elastic has created is everything can be an asset.
Right. We called out elevators or HVAC, like, sure. But, you know, building a new building or campus security.
Right. Going through these different workflows that once they're set up, you make sure that no step in that process is missed. You're following compliance.
You're following the kind of rules and guidelines of the administration of your entity. And so I think, yeah, the automations, it's great because it takes some of the pressure off people. But it also makes sure that all of the necessary pieces are getting done each time.
Dave, anything you'd add to that?
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah, no, I mean, I think it extends, like we're saying, it's universal. Right. Once you get it set up and implemented correctly, which takes a little bit of time, it's free rolling after that.
So where you can extend it to numerous divisions, use cases, students, faculty, staff, whoever needs to use these systems and tools can have access to it. And it's rolled out just how the rest of the university has it rolled out so that there's no fragmented solution. And so that's key for things like, you know, research management and lab coordination.
For sure. Going into an example such as that to make sure that, you know, they're, for instance, using our confluence technology to track research milestones and share more broadly with other divisions across the campus. And so things like that.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
So again, it goes back, if we templatize it right, it is usable across various departments. And now actually the most important, which I know Atlassian is now strategically invested, AGC, Atlassian GovCloud, FedRAMP. How do you see that fitting into the higher education space?
Because there is element of obviously sensitive data. There is there is a demand out there. We are seeing the demand.
For the audience, again, if we can spend like how does AGC fit into the higher ed world?
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, to Anuj's point, your point, we we rolled out AGC, Atlassian Government Cloud, March of 2025.
Made it generally available just after that. And so we've seen a major uptick and lots of demand coming from it. And even within our SLED division, specifically higher education, colleges, universities, FFRDCs, Federally Funded Research Development Centers, often pair and partner with colleges, universities.
And so we're seeing it take shape in some of those efforts where they've got to be able to house sensitive data. Right. In conjunction with the federal funded research development centers.
And so as a result, they need technology. And they, of course, they need technology for things like ticketing and things like, you know, sharing and collaboration and working with their teams on tasks. And and so as a result, based off of the demand that we've seen in the industry, we came up with our Atlassian Government Cloud offering to be able to get them their tools in a more secure manner.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
Yeah, no, it's actually very interesting, right, because you see higher education, but then there's an element of higher education, which is investing into sort of future innovation project, which holds sensitive data. And that's where AGC could be a right solution for a lot of these universities and sort of higher education. Wow, that's pretty wild.
Yeah, so I think let me sort of try to summarize. So maybe on one hand, we are saying there is sort of the element of budget constraints, but then Atlassian fits right in because of the economies of scale, it can be implemented across various departments with right automation, that the services costs, long term OPEX costs can be reduced with the asset being not charged per asset. That itself is a sort of a good cost reduction.
And then on top of it with AGC, there's a whole security element which fits right in. And not to say the least, with the whole marketplace with Atlassian has, right, then you start to extend your solution beyond even what you can fathom the core of sort of JSM or project management. That's kind of how I see the whole segment of it.
Just, I mean, what's your perspective, Cameron?
[Cameron Starman]
No, I think you kind of wrap that up nicely. And I think, you know, we've had several conversations, right, with these kind of, you know, federal, you use a cool acronym. I don't think I've heard it, but basically, they're either doing lab research or something for either federal or other kind of like federal agencies, right?
So we've had quite a few and they are definitely looking at FedRAMP. And, you know, it's a lot of them right now are on DC and, or sorry, data center, just to be clear. But I think there's a real opportunity for them to kind of take that next level up with Atlassian with, you know, the offering of Atlassian Government Cloud.
And I think their research will be propelled because of it. You know, it's just going to give them, like you said, better collaboration. You're kind of sharing that knowledge with maybe between labs, maybe between different entities.
But I think the more that we can, you know, obviously there's sensitive data in there, but the more that we can share, the more we can collaborate, the more that each other kind of knows what they're doing within, you know, the realms of who's supposed to know. I think that's just going to benefit us.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
Dave, any parting thoughts?
[Dave Rheaume]
Yeah, no, I just, you know, we're really excited to work within this space. It's our honor and we owe it to our future workforce and generations to come. And so, you know, it's commendable the work that folks within this industry do every single day.
And so it's on us to provide the tools they need to succeed. And so that's what we're here for. And we're here to partner with the colleges, universities, students, faculty, staff, also the president, you know, make it all happen for them.
But yeah, no, I think really it's just about alignment of the organization from top to bottom and making sure that, you know, you have the objectives set to help guide the organization forward. And underneath that, making sure that everybody's aligned, tracking on their goals. And, you know, even something such as the analytics that are baked into the platform gives them robust detail on exactly the areas they're doing great in.
Some areas that may need improvement based upon the data and the usage of the tools that's occurring. And so that's one of the value drivers, too, for the higher education segment from what we're seeing. So excited to see what's next.
[Anuj Sachdeva]
I think there's all growth, especially, as I said, it's a great product. I should have mentioned this thing, but the other aspect of which we are also seeing is not just the AGC thing, but the way this product has evolved and now it solves like multiple use cases. That's kind of where the biggest value for the universities are going to come in, if I may say so.
I think that especially, I mean, again, the consolidation and the whole end-to-end workflow. Good. Thank you.
Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Dave. Signing off from here.
More to come. Thank you very much.
[Cameron Starman]
Thanks, everybody.