Autonomous IT

In this episode of IT Insiders, Maddie Regis interviews the team behind Automox University (AXU), including Katie Bleichman, Shereen Al-Jaff, and Amelia Vacante. AXU was developed to enhance the customer education and support experience by providing self-paced, digestible, and accessible content. The courses offered by AXU help customers learn how to access and make the most of Automox's endpoint management solution. To get started with AXU, check out  university.automox.com. 

Creators & Guests

Host
Maddie Regis
As the host of the Automox Insiders podcast, Maddie offers an exclusive glimpse behind the curtain of Automox. Each episode, crafted with care under Maddie’s direction, delves into the personal journeys, professional milestones, and the rich, diverse experiences of the individuals who fuel Automox's innovation. Through her engaging storytelling, insightful conversations, and sense of humor, Maddie not only highlights the technological prowess of Automox but also brings to light the human spirit driving its success.

What is Autonomous IT?

Go from monotonous to autonomous IT operations with this series. Hosts from Automox, the IT automation platform for modern organizations, will cover the latest IT trends; Patch Tuesday remediations; ways to save time with Worklets (pre-built scripts); reduce risk; slash complexity; and automate OS, third-party, and configuration updates on all your Windows, macOS, and Linux endpoints. Automate confidence everywhere with Automox.

Maddie (00:00)
Hey everyone, this is Maddie Regis, Paid Media Manager at Automox, bringing you another new episode of IT Insiders, which is Automox's podcast that introduces you to the people behind the product. And we've got a really exciting podcast recording this week. We have more than one guest for the first time. So we are talking with our team that runs Automox University. That's Katie Bleichman, Shereen Al-Jaff, and Amelia Vacante. So thanks so much for joining us, ladies, and super excited to talk about AXU and more.

Amelia (00:31)
Thanks for having us.

Maddie (00:48)
Awesome. Okay, so let's get right into it. How about each of you just introduce yourselves, tell me a little bit about your career background and your roles here at Automox. And Amelia, we can start with you.

Amelia (01:00)
I'm a Senior Instructional Designer on the Customer Enablement Team here at Automox for Automox University and I come to Automox from the realm of higher education where I was an instructional designer and worked in Tier 1 help support roles previously but jumped at the chance to join Automox and help teach our customers how to access our product and solutions as best they can.

Maddie (01:32)
Awesome, Shereen?

Shereen (01:34)
Hi, I'm Shereen. I'm an instructional designer at Automox. I help create the content for AXU. I've been at Automox for about a year and a half. Before working at Automox, I was a teacher. So I come from that realm of education and I have loved working in customer education and helping our customers learn about how to make the most of Automox.

Maddie (02:01)
Awesome, and last but not least, Katie.

Katie Bleichman (02:04)
Hi, I'm Katie Bleichman. I'm Senior Manager of Operations and Enablement on the customer experience side at Automox. And I came to Automox by way of very different path. I was a 20-year elementary school educator, and I was a teacher. I was a trainer of teachers. I was a literacy specialist. So my background is in training. And believe it or not, there's just a lot of parallels that exist between customer success and

technology. So if you think about students as you know what I was teaching in the classroom, you've got your customers. If you think about the curriculum that you were teaching, that's our product and the way you get there is by all the instruction that Amelia and Shereen build out.

Maddie (02:51)
Awesome, very cool. Yeah, so we've got a lot of educational background, but yeah, I think that totally makes sense with what you guys do day to day, and I think it's probably almost even more helpful in some ways than having certain technical skills, because it's all about the learning. So let's get into it. Let's talk about Automox University. Let's go around the table, tell me little bit about it from your perspective and kind of the reason we developed it, know, who's it for, what does it do, all that good stuff. So start back again with Amelia.

Amelia (03:21)
Sure. So, Audimax University was really developed to help enhance the customer education and support experience and to help customers just obtain the information, the knowledge and the skills that they needed faster on their own time. So, self-paced, digestible and accessible content that, you know, customers and prospects can leverage at any time.

And with an endpoint management solution as powerful and complex as ours, we really try to take our AXU courses to the next level by enhancing them with real life scenarios and relatable use cases that our customers and prospects can relate to.

Maddie (04:11)
Very cool. Shereen, from your perspective, you know, what is AXU? All that good stuff.

Shereen (04:17)
AXU is a great place for all Automox customers, regardless of whether you are new with Automox or you've been using Automox for a while. The content we have can help you get started, but it can also help you upscale and learn how to make the most out of new features. You can learn best practices and best workflows to make your experience with Automox even better.

Maddie (04:46)
Awesome, very cool. Katie?

Katie Bleichman (04:49)
I would just say that we live in a world of trying to be self-sufficient and fishing for ourselves. So in my opinion, Automox University provides that for our customers. They don't have to sit on the phone and get their questions answered or dig around. It's all right there for them in a really easy navigable way. So I would say it increases self-sufficiency.

Maddie (05:13)
Yeah, love that. Definitely makes it a lot easier. And I have to commend you guys. I did take the Automox Level 1 cert last week. And obviously I'm a marketer, so not in the world of endpoint management from day to day. And yeah, it was super easy to navigate, really easy to use. So you guys have definitely hit the nail on the head with the accessibility and all of that. But I wanted to talk a little bit more about the courses, because I know there's obviously a variety of them.

What would you each say in your opinion is the most popular course? I don't know if we have any data on that, but even just a gut feeling. And then what's your personal favorite course or maybe something that you've worked on in the platform? So Amelia, we can start with you again.

Amelia (05:57)
Sure, that's a good one. Our "Getting Started" series is always a hit for sure. It's our first resource to get customers up to speed quickly. So that, of course, is one of our most popular ones.

Maddie (06:12)
And is there anyone in particular that's like your favorite or that you worked on a lot or, know, has a special place?

Amelia (06:21)
Yeah, well, think Katie was going to steal my answer before, but "Worklets Behind the Scenes" is probably one that resonates with me, that means a lot to me. Just the practical application, the technical depth of that course. I think the real value in it is helping customers understand how to interpret Worklet scripts, how to understand what they're reading in those, you know, scary code blocks, I think has been the biggest thing that

I've just felt a lot of connection to for sure.

Maddie (06:56)
Love that, that's awesome. Yeah, we love our Worklets here on all the Automox podcasts and within the Automox product, obviously. So you can check out some other episodes if you're listening to this around Worklets specifically. But yeah, that just adds to the accessibility and ease of use for Worklets. So love that. Shereen, what about you?

Shereen (07:14)
I would go with Worklets 101 off of that. It's just a great place to start, especially if you're new with Worklets. That course can help you figure out what they are, how to use, how to configure them, and then also walks you through setting one up and deploying one. with that course, you can get started with Worklets right away.

Maddie (07:41)
awesome. Katie?

Katie Bleichman (07:44)
And Amelia's right. I am going to do the "Worklets Behind the Scenes." I mean, when you use Worklets, you free up time in your day. And so for those customers that aren't in our catalog grabbing Worklets because of, you know, the unknown, it's like a world of, I just don't know exactly how everything works. It's color coded. It's designed to really walk you through step by step what each line of code means and what it does. So to me, it's, you know, it's, it's a great course.

Maddie (08:12)
Awesome, yeah, definitely sounds like some good ones to check out for sure. And Katie, I'll just throw this question over to you. We'll make everyone repeat it because I think it'll be the same answer since there is only one answer. But how can someone actually get started with Automox University? How could they go there and start getting educated on the platform?

Katie Bleichman (08:31)
it's so easy. You just go to university.automox.com and you can create a login. We always encourage people to use their work emails so that we can better support them. But yeah, it's free. They can access content at any time as often as they want. yeah, university.automox.com.

Maddie (08:53)
Okay. Well, ladies, thank you so much for all of that great overview on AXU. If you have listened to this podcast before, you know that I always sort of wrap up with a little game with my guests. So I figured I would quiz you on what you're working on all the time. So I put together, if you remember, there used to be a show called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? So I put together a few questions for Are You Smarter Than an Automoxer from the Level 1 AXU cert that I took last week. So.

I'll throw these questions out there. You guys can use your hive mind. Whoever thinks of the answer first, go ahead and shout it out, but we'll get started here. So my first question is, how much memory does the Automox agent need? And is it A) 10 megabytes, 20, 25 or 35?

You got it right. Awesome, Amelia. Okay, and next question is around some of the different Automox reporting. which Automox report shows you the most recent policy runs? Is that the Pre-Patch Report, the Overview Report, the Activity Log, or the Policy Results Report?

Katie Bleichman (10:29)
Shereen, on three. One, two, three. Policy Results!

Shereen (10:31)
Policy Results!

Maddie (10:36)
Awesome, that is correct. Okay, last question for all the money, which is actually none in this case, but you know, all the recognition. Which of the following categories can you filter devices by in the Automox platform? IP address, host name, operating system version, or all of the above?

Amelia (10:58)
all of the above.

Maddie (11:01)
Yes, yeah, you guys got it. All right, awesome. You did great. I mean, you know the platform inside and out, so great work, ladies. And real quick, just going to leave a discussion topic for the Automox community. So my question this week for everybody in the Automox community is have you completed an AXU cert or similar certifications before? And what benefits did you gain from it, whether in your day-to-day job or just educationally?

Amelia (11:03)
Yay!

Maddie (11:30)
Okay, well thanks so much for joining us ladies. And remember we have new Autonomous IT Automox podcast episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. So we will see you back here then.

Katie Bleichman (11:43)
Thanks for having us.

Shereen (11:44)
Thank you.

Amelia (11:45)
Thank you.