Delightful Progress: Kuali's Legacy of Community and Leadership
A Q&A with Joel Dehlin
As CEO, Joel Dehlin has led Kuali.co through the past ten years, since its organization as a commercial company in 2014. Kuali has its early roots in the previous decade, beginning in 2004 as a project of the nonprofit Kuali Foundation that established its "by higher education for higher education" origins.
Here, CEO Joel Dehlin updates us on Kuali today and how it has thrived as a software company that succeeds in the tech marketplace while maintaining the community values envisioned in higher education years ago.
Mary Grush: Ten years ago you told me, "The best thing about Kuali is the community… It's personally very important to me that we continue to engage the community in awesome and productive ways." So how did you do that?
Joel Dehlin: When I was first introduced to the Kuali community, I was awestruck by how smart and how nice the people in it were. But the software higher ed had been subjected to had been bad for a long time. So it seemed like a worthwhile endeavor to help bring amazing software to higher ed.
Taking the software to the next level required additional resources, new processes, and maybe above all, leadership.
So, Kuali.co stepped into the leadership role for the community, bringing on additional engineers and adding product managers, designers, customer success people, sales, marketing, and administrators to the mix. We've modernized tech stacks and methodologies and grown the Kuali footprint significantly.
It's been super-hard work for sure. But merging new leadership together with the community has been all we hoped it would be. Very challenging, but incredible because we're working with great people who care deeply about higher education, people who are smart and kind and articulate as well as demanding.
Merging new leadership together with the community has been all we hoped it would be.
The bottom line is, in the past 10 years — I can't believe the company's been around for 10 years — we've created some really great software.
Grush: Back in the early days, we heard mostly about Kuali Financials. What are the main solution areas today? I've heard quite a lot about Research Administration.
Dehlin: Research administration is as important as it's ever been, and our new Research Administration products are phenomenal and really engaging the market. The interest has exploded.
There's so much excitement about research administration across all quarters, not just in the U.S., but internationally. Our new Research Administration products leapfrog forward to a next generation of research administration that people have been wanting for a long time.
Our new Research Administration products leapfrog forward to a next generation of research administration that people have been wanting for a long time.
All of our Research Administration solutions — Sponsored Programs, post-award, IRB, IACUC, COI/COC — look and feel the same, and they all integrate seamlessly, because they're built on the exact same code base. Also, we're using AI in really interesting ways. And our software methodology allows us to create new capabilities quickly and safely.
But Kuali offers solutions beyond research administration.
We have worked with the community to develop solutions for registrars/provosts, CFO/controllers, IT, and most other departments as well. In addition, any department in an institution can build its own "apps" using our no-code forms and workflow tool, Kuali Build.
Grush: What are some of the shifts and trends now, things that you want to address as a company? What are some of the external forces out there in the environment that your company is responding to?
Dehlin: There are many but I can mention a few.
I think the number one thing is that for decades, software (in general) has, at best, improved things a little for people but has also made it more frustrating for them, because of a poor user experience, or sometimes because of difficult vendor relationships. And sometimes, it's the software itself that has made things worse for some institutions. So we're making sure we create software that's delightful to use.
Grush: I noticed that term, delightful, on your website, so I'm thinking this is something you're pursuing very purposefully. What's an example of a delightful user experience?
Dehlin: You're right; we use the term delightful intentionally. We want people to feel joy when they use our software. And we do have great feedback and user stories, many of which you can see on our website.
We use the term delightful intentionally. We want people to feel joy when they use our software.
For example, a woman in university administration at a huge institution told us she used to spend late nights struggling to keep up with her paper and PDF process for reimbursements in student clubs. But now, she is using our Kuali Build product, a no-code tool that allows someone to create any form or workflow they want. And she was actually crying when she told us about how she's not having any more of those frustrating late nights because the whole process is finally automated, engaged by Kuali Build. That kind of story is so satisfying to us, because we want to make people's work more productive and rewarding with software they enjoy.
We want to make people's work more productive and rewarding with software they enjoy.
So that's one really big thing, responding very intentionally to poor software with delightful-to-use software.
Grush: What's the second trend you're responding to?
Dehlin: A second trend that we're trying to respond to is that a lot of big administrative systems are aging, and there's pressure for people to replace their SIS or their financial system or HR system.
We're trying to make it so that people don't have to think so much about replacing their entire system, instead augmenting it with solutions that integrate well and are more modern.
We're trying to make it so that people don't have to think so much about replacing their entire system, instead augmenting it with solutions that integrate well and are more modern.
What we're telling people is, if your SIS or your HR system doesn't have the forms or workflows that you need, that's okay. You can add some forms or solutions or workflows with relevant Kuali tools.
Grush: I guess the message there must include something about interoperability.
Dehlin: Yes, and that's another way we're responding to current challenges — we're prepared for a rapidly changing marketplace by ensuring compatibility and interoperability. Our software solutions are expanding into quite a few different areas now. People are using our software in HR departments, finance departments, the registrar's office, the Provost's office, the research office, in clubs, in sports, in admissions — really all over the institution. We've focused on making sure that our software solutions work well together.
We're prepared for a rapidly changing marketplace by ensuring compatibility and interoperability.
So, if you're using our software solutions independently, that's fine: We integrate well with lots of different systems, and we make it easy to share data. But, if you're using multiple Kuali software solutions together, that integration is absolutely seamless.
We integrate well with lots of different systems… But, if you're using multiple Kuali software solutions together, that integration is absolutely seamless.
Grush: Great points. Is there anything else you'd want to mention?
Dehlin: The last thing I'd mention in terms of big shifts we're responding to is AI. There's such an opportunity for AI to enhance people's work, but there's also such an opportunity for things to go off the rails. We've already embedded AI heavily into our systems, in thoughtful ways that safely help improve the timeliness and quality of work, with guidance from the institution. Our approach with AI lets the customer think of creative ways to use AI, and we're seeing really cool ideas come out of it.
We've already embedded AI heavily into our systems, in thoughtful ways that safely help improve the timeliness and quality of work, with guidance from the institution.
Grush: You often talk about an integrated user experience. Do you have an example of why that's important?
Dehlin: Faculty don't play with software for a living. They use software to get their actual work done. Software should help, without getting in the way. As a faculty member, I might be a principal investigator, filling out forms for projects I'm sponsoring, or IRB forms because I'm doing research with human subjects… but I might also be teaching a class and recommending curricular changes, and filling out a Conflict of Interest form, plus literally a thousand other forms. This shouldn't be a burden. The system should act the same way in each case, and it should know a lot of the data already and pre-fill it for me. The experience should be light and quick.
Grush: What's in the future for Kuali software? Do you have any hints you can give me about upcoming software announcements?
Dehlin: We're continually working on new stuff! But I can provide a little hint here about what's stirring interest right now.
For the Research suite, we have all of the major protocols, COI/COC, and pre/post award now. We're seeing great interest so far.
We have early success with our new Internal Opportunities module, which allows people to post (or apply for) internal sponsorship opportunities. We're also working on a new Animal Management Module.
For the Registrar/Provost, we're testing a new Syllabus module and working on a couple other new products.
We'll have a press release in October, which will provide more on these and all the announcements for Fall 2024. So watch for that and join us at EDUCAUSE for the official and in-depth introductions!
Grush: Kuali development has certainly evolved over time, starting with its beginnings as open source in a fledgling software company, and maturing with the Kuali solutions suite.
What are some of Kuali's underlying development principles now?
Dehlin: One of the things that we've done is to create a platform that we use internally to create new modules very quickly.
It's part of what is allowing us to flesh out the entire research suite, without acquiring other companies, and without trying to integrate software that doesn't fit well together. It's allowing us to create new modules where the workflow is the same as our other products.
Grush: And your designers and developers can benefit from that consistency, for their work internally?
Dehlin: Yes. For the form designer we have a nice drag-and-drop form design tool, and a drag-and-drop workflow tool. If you're creating forms or workflows, it's a very simple — again, we'll use the term delightful — experience to create these forms.
Grush: So Kuali is making work a more delightful experience for both its users and for its own developers?
Dehlin: Definitely. And today we're talking about users who are able to solve problems. People used to have to stand in line for developers to develop for them, but now they can just configure forms and workflows themselves. And they do all that in a safe way that IT feels great about.
Today we're talking about users who are able to solve problems. People used to have to stand in line for developers to develop for them, but now they can just configure forms and workflows themselves.
Grush: Please tell us a bit about how the cloud has affected Kuali development.
Dehlin: We got our start by providing the code to institutions who would have developers customize it. We found that institutions would quickly get out of sync with the latest code base, and then wouldn't be using the latest features, enhancements, bug fixes, and security patches because they had customized so much that they couldn't reintegrate our code with theirs. Our customers told us plainly that they valued speed of development and richness of feature sets over optimizing for local hosting.
We turned our focus to becoming a cloud company. At first, we took the original Kuali code and hosted it in AWS on behalf of our customers. We standardized all of the customers on the same code, but we were hosting an instance for each customer. Technically, it was in the "cloud," but it wasn't yet a multi-tenant system. We had one code base for sponsored programs, another code base for compliance, another for curriculum management, another for business continuity, and so on.
As we signed up more and more customers, we ultimately created single-instance, multi-tenant cloud solutions.
The next thing we found is that the multi-tenant, one cloud system that we created for sponsored programs was very similar in many ways to the ones we created for compliance, and similar to the ones that we created for continuity planning, and similar to the ones we created for curriculum management, and so forth…
So we unified them all. And that's one reason why the experience across solutions is so similar — it's the same code base.
Once you've integrated single sign-on with one of our products, it works with all of our products. Once you've created an integration to the SIS with one of our products, it works with all of our products.
And once a person has been trained in how to do form or workflow design on one of our products, they know how to do it for all of our products. And as I said, if a faculty member, staff, student, or family member has to fill out more than one form from any of our systems, they all work the same way. And all of that makes internal training, integrations, and implementations just so much faster.
Once a person has been trained in how to do form or workflow design on one of our products, they know how to do it for all of our products… that makes internal training, integrations, and implementations just so much faster.
Grush: That leads me back to strategies for the future. How are you looking toward the future in your development methodologies, as well as for the user experience?
Dehlin: I'll mention a couple of ways we're always thinking toward the future.
One began 10 years ago. When we first started the company, I would hear people talking about higher education institutions feeling like they're special snowflakes. And that was said in a bit of a derogatory way, as if that's a bad thing. My feeling is that there are very logical reasons why colleges and universities should want to do many things in different ways.
For example, Southern New Hampshire University and ASU, both Kuali.co customers, are very, very innovative in how they provide services to students. And they use our products in very, very innovative and different ways. One reason they're able to do that is because we've built software that supports universities and colleges doing things in the unique ways that they need to, safely so that they don't work themselves into a corner by over-customization.
We've built software that supports universities and colleges doing things in the unique ways that they need to, safely so that they don't work themselves into a corner by over-customization.
It is important to us to offer software that allows colleges and universities to innovate safely.
So that's one way that we make our software ready for the future — to enable institutions to innovate without making it difficult for them to upgrade the software.
Another way that we try to be prepared for the future is to keep a very clean code base and avoid technology debt.
When your software has a lot of technology debt, it means that you've taken shortcuts in writing your code. It's a debt that you have to go back and pay later. If you don't pay that technology debt off, you're going to come across some performance problem, or some stability problem, or some security problem.
It's a serious debt because you're going to have to go back and fix it eventually. What we find is that the more technology debt that you have and the more bugs that you have in your code that you don't fix, the more it slows your developers down.
The more technology debt that you have and the more bugs that you have in your code that you don't fix, the more it slows your developers down.
So we focus on fixing bugs immediately and avoiding technology debt as much as possible.
Some people worry that addressing bugs in your software slows you down in the short term, but we feel that fixing bugs now can actually speed things up later. We're always keeping our code clean, keeping it safe, keeping it fresh, keeping it fast. So when we come up with new features, or a customer innovates, the developers are working in a code base that is clean.
We're always keeping our code clean, keeping it safe, keeping it fresh, keeping it fast. So when we come up with new features, or a customer innovates, the developers are working in a code base that is clean.
Grush: I'd like to ask one last question, relating to the community. I can remember attending the very early and very memorable Kuali Days… How are the Kuali Days of the past similar to or different from now?
Dehlin: We just recently had our first face-to-face Kuali Days since COVID. I think if you would have been there, you would have felt that same spirit of collaboration we have always seen with the Kuali community.
The energy was amazing. At Kuali Days it's not so much about code any more. It's more about how the software is being used than how the software is being developed, which I think is a fantastic evolution.
At Kuali Days it's not so much about code any more. It's more about how the software is being used than how the software is being developed, which I think is a fantastic evolution.
You can see the energy, and the appreciation that people in the Kuali community have for each other. On the homepage of our website there is a video clip of attendees who talk about their appreciation for being in this community with access to brilliant people from institutions they can identify with.
For those who were around for the early Kuali Days, I think they'd recognize it today, but they'd be intrigued by how much it's grown and how the focus has shifted from developers to end users. I know you'd recognize the spirit of the conference.
And it's a phenomenon that we're careful to nurture. Back when we started the company, I went to one of the Kuali meetings with a group of Kuali users from different institutions. And it became really clear to me that — even if we wanted to — we in fact couldn't disrupt that spirit of collaboration and joy.
Today, we've got forums that people can communicate and share in. We've got customer advisory boards that meet with customers to see and discuss the latest features.
We have a cadence of delivery with which we're delivering new features instead of every few years, sometimes every week, and sometimes every day, or at least a couple times a month. New capabilities are coming all the time and we're involving customers in that idea pipeline, just as we did in the past.
It's a wonderful community. They help validate our designs and they receive the benefits as those features come online.
And as much as we make progress as a company, we're bringing forward Kuali's legacy of community and leadership.
[Editor's note: Image by AI: Image Creator in Microsoft Designer]