What Makes a Cloud Implementation Successful?

5 Key Considerations for a Smooth Higher Ed Transition

As more institutions of higher education move from on-premise systems to modern, cloud-based SaaS solutions, the promise of reduced maintenance, greater accessibility, and cost-efficiency is powerful. To ensure your cloud implementation truly pays off, here's a revamped look at five foundational best practices - updated for today’s landscape.

1. Communicate Early, Often, and Transparently

Why it matters: Effective communication ensures alignment across your institution’s stakeholders - from IT and leadership teams to faculty, staff, and students. Establishing clear expectations, timelines, and feedback channels builds trust and momentum.

Pro Tip: Set a consistent meeting cadence with multiple communication outlets - like email updates, intranet posts, and town halls - that invite questions and input. Over-communication is your ally.

Beyond keeping people informed, it helps combat rumors and misunderstandings.

2. Prioritize the Human Side with Change Management

Why it matters: Cloud migration isn’t just a technical shift. It’s a people-centered journey. Users often experience stress, resistance, or confusion when processes change.

Best Practice: Implement a formal Change Management Plan, adopting frameworks like ADKAR, to guide behavioral change, manage resistance, and build enthusiasm. Involve someone with strength in campus outreach - perhaps from marketing or communications - to champion the transition and craft compelling messaging.

3. Do Your Homework: Planning, Assessment, and Team Composition

Why it matters: Skipping pre-planning or understaffing the team can lead to rushed decisions, overtaxed resources, and missed objectives.

Checklist:

• Conduct a comprehensive audit of current systems and processes to assess cloud readiness and choose scope wisely.
  
  
• Define roles - project managers, change managers, departmental champions, and vendor support leads.
  
  
• Ensure your team has adequate bandwidth and build in contingencies for delays and unexpected hiccups.

4. Train Strategically: Demo, Document, and Empower

Why it matters: Adoption fails without effective training. Staff and faculty who feel supported are more likely to embrace and maximize your new systems.

Approach:

• Deploy a “Train-the-Trainer” model: select power users to receive hands-on training and equip them to teach peers across departments.
  
  
• Develop user-friendly documentation - quick reference guides, video walkthroughs, FAQs - and make them easily accessible well before go-live.
  
  
• Whether phasing rollout or launching campus-wide at once, support your trainers with recognition and resources.

5. Follow Up: Listen, Learn, and Iterate

Why it matters: Launch isn’t the finish line - it’s the beginning of optimization. Post-go-live feedback helps you refine workflows and drive continuous improvement.

Action Steps:

• Conduct a “listening tour” across departments: what’s working well? What isn’t? What issues remain?
  
  
• Use these insights to adjust configurations, tweak automation, or provide targeted training.
  
  
• Share success stories to build momentum. For example, Southern Connecticut State University improved research administration turnaround times after going live with Kuali Research, while UConn streamlined previously clunky processes using Kuali Build.

Additional Modern Perspectives & Emerging Best Practices

• Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning
  Cloud platforms change rapidly. Encourage faculty and IT staff to pursue ongoing professional development, cloud certifications, and peer learning to stay ahead.
  
  
• Treat Change Management as Operational Budget, not One-Time Cost
  CFOs should recognize change enablement expenses as ongoing operational investments - key to enabling innovation, not as a one-off cost.
  
  
• Perform Deep Assessments & Establish Governance
  Utilize frameworks such as Huron’s implementation roadmap and AWS’s cloud governance model to guide planning, compliance, and deployment strategy.

Seamlessly Leveraging Kuali's Cloud Solutions

If you're exploring SaaS platforms tailored for higher ed, Kuali offers modular, mission-aligned tools that embed directly into your institution's ecosystem - without feeling forced. The Kuali suite offers a full stack of SaaS modules - Research, Academic Operations, Build, Financials, Ready (business continuity) - trusted by hundreds of institutions for compliance, operational efficiency, and innovation. 

Implementation Services 

Kuali’s expert services ensure a smooth transition through structured onboarding, templated workflows, and ongoing support. This setup eases adoption and paves the way for future expansion.

A cloud implementation’s success hinges on communication, human-centered change management, thorough planning, targeted training, and ongoing feedback loops. Layering in continuous learning, governance frameworks, and treating change as an operational investment further strengthens outcomes. By weaving in Kuali’s higher ed–specific cloud tools - like Kuali Build for agile workflow automation and Kuali Research for streamlined administration - you’ll be equipped with solutions that feel intuitive, powerful, and purpose-built.

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