In Your Own Words: An Own Higher Education Customer Live Panel

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(bell ringing)

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- I'm very excited to introduce our guests.

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To get started today, I'll just do a quick form

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of introduction.

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My name is Jen Baker and I am fortunate to be the RVP

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of the state, local and education national team at OWN.

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I'm very excited to kick things off.

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We have a lot of incredible customers

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within the higher education space.

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I really wanted to create an opportunity

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to bring some of our top customers together

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and talk about their experience in working with OWN.

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I wanna get started by introducing

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our three incredible panelists.

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I'll go ahead and start with Kevin.

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We have Kevin Vaughn, who is our associate vice chancellor

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for advancement operations.

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And he is with the University of Arkansas

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for medical sciences.

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Their little acronym is UAMS.

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Then we have Caitlin Santalucia.

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She is the director of administrative systems consulting.

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She is with Harvard University,

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the information technology team, also known as Hewitt.

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And her colleague Matt Donat, CRM consulting services owner.

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He's also with Harvard University Information Technology team,

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the Hewitt crew.

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So very, very excited.

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Thank you all so much for joining today at Harvard.

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We have Salesforce in use at,

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I think every school at this point,

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it has exploded across our campus.

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And this initiative that I'm talking about

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really aimed to understand what role central IT could

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or should be playing in the space.

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We didn't have a formal central service at that time.

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And the question was really now that this explosion

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has happened and we have so many instances of Salesforce,

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should we?

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What would that even look like?

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So we went out, we interviewed people,

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we did some analysis and we really tried to understand

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what people are looking for from central IT.

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And it would be varied across the university.

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Some schools have very robust Salesforce teams.

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They have multiple orgs.

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They don't really need our help so much,

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but there's still value there.

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But it looks very different for them

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versus a smaller school or smaller department

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who really need a lot more guidance,

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who can't just go hire a Salesforce administrator.

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And so out of those conversations,

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out of that analysis really came the idea

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for this central consulting service for CRM technology.

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- We've been using ONAF for about a year.

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We made the decision to go ahead and purchase ONAF early

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to get it in place to support the implementation.

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And we, I'll be happy to talk about this soon,

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but we didn't really know how much it would be a benefit

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leading up to go live, but it's finished from industry.

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- New to Salesforce, right?

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Like doesn't Salesforce offer something like this?

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And then they would chuckle and say,

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"Yes, but you're gonna need more than that."

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So that's really how ONAF came into being for us.

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It wasn't just about, is this the best vendor in this space,

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but it was about, is it gonna work for our service?

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Is it gonna work for our community?

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And is it user-friendly?

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So I'll say as a new person into Salesforce,

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I was able to learn ONAF in like two hours.

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The demos, the sessions were extremely helpful,

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but it's also just really intuitive.

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It's not hard to pick up.

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- I come at this from the perspective of a architect,

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developer, I appreciate the fact that what's being backed up

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is not just data, but also metadata.

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It's not a replacement for something like source control,

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but it's a useful layer for less technical administrators

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to be able to see what's changed, maybe revert a change.

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- It's important to choose a partner

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with a proven reputation that's able to deliver

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on their promises, which unfortunately,

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can be a challenge sometimes.

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So on that note, I'll just, I'd like to say

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that ONAF has been a phenomenal partner to UAMS.

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One of the things that I'll point out in particular

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is the onboarding process that we went through.

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And Caitlin, you alluded to this earlier,

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we worked with Alex and Cliff, who were incredible.

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They spent so much time with us.

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They were patient.

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They really operated at our speed.

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We could tell they weren't anxious to escape

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the engagement or kick a step.

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They just took the time to answer our questions,

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and we're very gracious about that.

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It's that time that they spend with us is unlike

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any other company I've dealt with

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in the Salesforce ecosystem.

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It is three notches above any of the other experiences

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we've had.

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And giving us the ability to plug in the orgs

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that we support as part of the service

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and the ones we already own,

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it helps us have more visibility

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in what types of data are being stored,

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helping folks identify a backup schedule,

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how to secure their data.

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So I think for us, ONAF has helped facilitate

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the conversation and ensure that our service

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can deliver on some of these things.

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- How do I staff?

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What does the team look like from a skillset perspective?

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And the question is what type of experience,

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'cause everyone kind of has had a different experience

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before they got into this role.

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Would you encourage them to look for

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to the point Salesforce is easy,

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but don't let it fool you, Matt.

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Like what kind of individual,

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what would be a good sample set of someone's skillset

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that they're looking if they want to bring on

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a full-time employee to manage the Salesforce ecosystem

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for them?

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- It's okay if someone's not a Salesforce developer,

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Salesforce admin yet,

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because those are skills you can learn,

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and there are a lot of resources

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for getting those skills.

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Being a strong business analyst, a listener,

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being able to understand business requirements

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and really think through,

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at least here at Harvard, Central IT,

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we really want to make sure our community

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is leveraging tools already in place

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in addition to their CRM, right?

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So how does it all connect?

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So I'm always looking for people

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that can put the puzzles together,

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really listen to what they're getting from the business,

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then come back and really think about

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what we already have on offer.

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And how that will all play well together

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to serve their needs.

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So I don't always totally focus on the technical skills

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when I'm looking to build up a team.

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(dramatic music)

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You