Gonzaga University is creating connected experiences and delivering integrations 60% faster with Workato

Darren Owsley, Chief Technology Officer of Gonzaga University, saw an urgent need to innovate faster and retire technical debt, so that the University could continue to handle growing student enrolments with the same resource pool. Despite adopting a Customer Relationship Management tool and an integration Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS) in 2018, their legacy iPaaS solution couldn’t meet their needs of connecting business-critical applications. 

Developers were instead caught up with unproductive tactical scripting and error logging, at the expense of strategic projects. This was not only inefficient and expensive; it meant that even five years in, the University could not go live with a path-defining Master Data Hub strategy to integrate and automate data across their core systems, so as to better understand their student base, unblock issues, and fuel students’ success.

When the time came for Gonzaga University’s CRM to be replaced, Darren and his team jumped on the opportunity to also replace their poorly-adopted incumbent iPaaS.

They stringently evaluated their options, based on whether the new platform could make work faster, easier and less resource-intensive for their developers, while also seeking great support and alignment with strategic goals (e.g. to modernize integrations).

This time, Darren and his team were not looking to be swayed by a demo. They went straight into trialing Workato for themselves. Their developers had to ensure the platform was intuitive, stable and well-documented. Workato emerged as the top scorer in every key evaluation metric, even against three well known iPaaS alternatives.

Yet, the true test was for Workato to replace Gonzaga University’s CRM to Salesforce and concurrently replace all other integrations, starting with a complex custom integration between Salesforce and the Student Information System (Ethos Banner). This is where Workato proved to how the power and capabilities to accommodate both modern and legacy integration approaches, ensuring seamless connectivity with efficient data processing. 

The proof of concept did not end there. Darren and his team found they could also asynchronously manage master data using Workato’s Enterprise Data Hub accelerator, which provides directly visible database access on SQL server, whereas this was a black box on their legacy iPaaS. With a wide range of pre-built integrations, the ability to extract metadata, and streamlined management of APIs, Gonzaga University used Workato to integrate over 10 core systems to achieve value at record speed. This unified data is used across finance, learning management, data reporting, communication, IT, marketing, and donor management systems. Darren and his team could finally build a single source of truth to understand their student base and even take action.

Workflows that used to take a week with their legacy iPaaS now just take a day with Workato, unlocking Gonzaga University to integrate 60% faster, down from 10 days to just 4. By completing up to 30 integrations within 10 days, Gonzaga University has already had a net return on investments. 

Darren says they are on track to retire technical debt and describes Workato as “the only iPaaS that could really engage citizen developers”, taking work off of IT. Gonzaga University now boasts twice as many automation builders across campus. Darren says they have gained more than just an iPaaS. He sees Workato as “an extension of Gonzaga” and shares that even at the one year mark, the “honeymoon is not over”, referring to the collaborative working relationship that benefits the Gonzaga community.

Darren’s greatest satisfaction comes from watching his team become more productive and take up more advanced, higher value projects, so as to further Gonzaga’s mission to educate and propel service leaders. For a start, Workato automatically detects and notifies of errors so that no one has to spend hours analysing error logs like they used to. Best of all, Darren notices an unmistakable “boost in morale”. When Gonzaga University’s most senior developer postponed her retirement by 1.5 years because “Workato makes integrations fun again”, Darren knew they had found a game-changer for redefining Higher Education.

What’s Next?

Looking to the future, Darren and his team have a thousand different use cases in mind, such as automating business processes like employee onboarding, student orientation and accounts. Darren is especially enthusiastic about experimenting with Workato’s capabilities in data pipelines and in building and leveraging interactive AI agents, known as Genies. 

As Gonzaga University continues to innovate with Workato, it is poised to scale its impact by reimagining the landscape of Higher Education.