Digital transformation: Aarau and Baden improve administration efficiency with Atlassian cloud

Challenge: commIT, which manages IT for Swiss cities Aarau and Baden, needed a solution to improve collaboration and efficiency amid increasing project volume and complexity.

Solution: Together with Solution partner generativ, commIT's team optimized Jira Cloud processes and migrated Confluence to the cloud.

Impact: With Atlassian cloud solutions, commIT's team has modernized their infrastructure and ways of working, improving project management, efficiency, innovation and morale.

Improving efficiency and morale with Atlassian cloud

As the capital of the Swiss canton of Aargau, the city of Aarau is home to more than 21,000 inhabitants. Since 2023, the city has been pursuing an ambitious digitization strategy that aims to make the city administration completely digital by 2026. This includes, for example, a modernized infrastructure and the digitization of all user-oriented services.

commIT, which was formed in 2019 from the IT services of the cities of Aarau and Baden, has contributed to this. Responsible for a total of around 3,500 digital workstations, it operates the IT infrastructure and environment of the two cities. It supports public institutions in their digital transformation and provides advice.

In recent years, the number of projects and user requirements has risen continuously. The organization was under increasing pressure to set even stricter priorities, coordinate complex issues, and maintain an overview. Modern, networked tools have become indispensable and relevant to success in order to strengthen orientation, work together efficiently, and communicate effectively — both internally and externally.

As long-time users of Atlassian tools, such as Confluence and Jira, commIT worked with Swiss digitization expert and Atlassian Gold Solution Partner, generativ, to migrate Aarau and Baden's Confluence instances to the cloud and make collaboration more efficient by optimizing Jira processes.

With generativ's support, commIT established new standards, for example, for project or authorization management. The team also digitized processes, like project or portfolio management, and provided onboarding and training for the management of all 3,500+ employees. Together, they migrated to Confluence Cloud in just six weeks and implemented Atlassian Guard for security and easier access management.

With Atlassian's cloud solutions, commIT employees can not only manage information and projects transparently, but also map internal dependencies and set data-driven priorities — both within their teams and in collaboration with clients like the cities of Aarau and Baden. This increased transparency and connectivity strengthens not only internal knowledge management, but also the organization's ability to act and adapt in a dynamic environment. This way, commIT is becoming a visible driver of modern public sector administration.

Riccarda Stampa, Head of IT Operations, shares her perspective on the migration experience and how commIT is improving project management, efficiency, and morale with help from Atlassian and generativ.

The city of Aarau’s IT administrators have long relied on Atlassian tools. Why did commIT decide to further expand the benefits of these tools and migrate confluence to the cloud?

Riccarda Stampa, Head of IT Operations at commIT: In a rapidly digitizing world, expectations for the digital services of a public institution are rising, as are the demands on its appeal as a modern employer.

With every technological leap, the expectation to deliver faster results grows. This is reflected, among other things, in a noticeable decrease in our project volume. As a result, the demands on our knowledge management and internal coordination have also risen — often under considerable pressure. Our employees increasingly faced the challenge of managing multiple topics at once, while relevant information was scattered across various storage locations. This repeatedly led to frustration and slowed down decision making processes.

We did not just want to help our team stay on top of things — we wanted to create a work environment where information is connected rather than hidden, where collaboration brings clarity, and where there is space for impactful solutions to emerge.

At the same time, it was also important to us to make the exchange of information and transfer of knowledge between us and our customers more transparent and clearer, and to provide our stakeholders with guidance, for example, through transparent cost models. We knew that efficiency and knowledge management — and intelligent tools — were crucial for this.

Firstly, we needed a fully integrated and professional project management solution. This needed to be scalable and adaptable to the changing needs of commIT. It also needed to centrally bundle the most important information about the current status of all ongoing projects and programs, such as relevant KPIs. For example, we wanted to be able to quickly call up which projects are tying up how many resources, how high the input and output of the projects is, and how many topics can be processed in a certain period of time. We were able to achieve all of this with optimization of Jira Cloud processes.

At the same time, we were also faced with the question of whether we should migrate our Atlassian service products to the cloud. With a self-hosted data center, we would have to take over all aspects of operation ourselves: data security, availability, and the provision of hardware and infrastructure.

Therefore, after careful consideration, we finally opted for Confluence Cloud. In short, our main goals for the implementation and optimization of the two cloud-based Atlassian tools were to increase efficiency and improve project overviews. We want to be a strong partner for the digital transformation of our customers and improve the quality of our work for our end customers: the residents.

How did the process work together with generativ? Which individual steps had to be taken?

Riccarda Stampa: The process together with the four-person team from generativ took place in several carefully planned steps.

To optimize our Jira processes, the generativ team first supported us in introducing new, user-friendly workflows and templates to improve project management and collaboration. generativ took into account all specific management requirements for multi-project management.

Specifically, the team helped us to comprehensively document the projects, define goals and scopes, and identify project stakeholders. In addition, generativ integrated the requirements of the Project Management (PMO) into the organization and helped us completely replace Excel with Jira.

The next step was the migration of Confluence to the cloud, which we were able to complete with generativ in just six weeks. The team ensured that all technical aspects worked smoothly and that all information could be transferred to the cloud completely and without data loss.

In addition, generativ took care of the user connection and ensured that security was guaranteed at all times through two-factor authentication and single sign-on. Before the migration, the Solution Partner checked all existing apps and plug-ins and took over the entire content structure. After the migration, generativ then cleaned up the data and set up a new documentation structure in Confluence with many individual templates.

To make it even more secure and easier for our employees to access Jira and Confluence projects, we have introduced Atlassian Guard as part of the migration. As a central identity and security platform for all Atlassian cloud products, Guard is installed upstream of the entire instance. This allows us to manage all users centrally and uniformly, regardless of whether they use Confluence or Jira.

With a central identity platform for all Atlassian cloud tools, we can connect users to the Atlassian cloud sites within the company. It also allows us to link, deactivate, delete, and reset passwords in one central location.

How has day-to-day work changed at commIT since the cloud migration and optimizations?

Riccarda Stampa: Atlassian's cloud solutions have simplified our workflows and access to shared knowledge considerably, with a positive impact on our team dynamic.

Thanks to the optimized processes and central access to company knowledge, the mood in our team in particular has improved greatly. Our employees now work more independently and with greater clarity. This creates space for meaningful work and cuts down on meetings.

By recording decisions in one place and making information easily accessible, every team member can track decisions and actively contribute to shared knowledge. This helps everyone stay aligned — and having a clear view of completed tasks builds trust and boosts motivation across the team.

The use of Jira has also made our decision making processes more transparent and comprehensible. The processes are simpler and adapted to the needs of our customers, which has led to a significant increase in the use of the tool within six months. Even members who only use the tool occasionally benefit from improved information options.

Furthermore, thanks to the new Confluence Cloud solution, we no longer have to worry about updates, monitoring, or backups ourselves, and we can make flexible decisions about the application levels and the license model. In addition, the connection to Atlassian Guard makes it easier for us to manage user accounts. We also benefit from increased security, as we can restrict who can export content or who can access the Jira or Confluence interfaces.

The problem is not that there is a lack of email communication, but that knowledge remains inaccessible, disappears in heads or channels, and decisions are made in silos. When systems hinder collaboration instead of enabling it, it's time to rethink.

In short, project management, collaboration, and even morale have improved considerably thanks to the optimized Jira processes and the cloud migration of Confluence. We as an administration have taken important steps towards digital transformation and cloud-based working in the public sector.

I can only warmly recommend working with Atlassian cloud products to other organizations and public administrations. Curiosity, courage to change, and openness to new ideas are crucial for a successful digital transformation project.