Challenge:

The director of corporate IT at a digital media company manages a team of seven, which supports upwards of 800 people across the globe. As the leader of the IT department, he had two main areas he was looking to automate – user lifecycle management (ULM) and the management of SaaS apps, specifically Google Workspace. 

Initially, he was writing scripts himself to automate simple actions, like removing a departed employee from Google groups. However, he was only able to create a couple scripts on both the onboarding and offboarding side. 

The director previously found great value using BetterCloud at a different organization to solve similar challenges. He knew which SaaSOps platform the company needed, and ultimately championed the adoption of the product. 

“BetterCloud is more polished in terms of being able to create workflows than other solutions I have worked with,” he said.

BetterCloud simplifies the control over Google Workspace and makes up for the functionality Google’s admin console lacks. The director said, “BetterCloud is intuitive and easy to use, allowing my team, who’s not as technical in some areas, to be able to do what we need to do.”

Solution:

Automating User Lifecycle Management

The ability to automate ULM processes is one of the biggest benefits to the IT team. Before automation, offboarding an employee from Google alone was a complex process. It required many steps like removing the employee from groups, declining meeting invites, clearing passwords, and more. Completing the offboarding checklist typically took 15 minutes per account. “Offboarding is now seamless because we have a structured process within BetterCloud that triggers and performs the workflow automatically,” explained the director.

From day one, the IT team has seen huge value in time savings. “The fact that IT no longer has to spend 15 minutes per account offboarding employees frees up time to provide end user support,” said the director. Members of his team have time to tackle other responsibilities while the director’s reclaimed time is typically spent honing processes and further streamlining operations.

Like many organizations recently, the media company underwent a layoff of over 10% of their workforce. IT leveraged existing BetterCloud workflows to offboard all of the impacted employees. In the unfortunate reality of staff reductions, BetterCloud handled the process efficiently and quickly. 

“It was just myself and my lead working on the offboarding process. I cannot imagine him having to manually offboard all of the accounts. BetterCloud performed exactly as we expected it to. Automation is key,” the director said.

Maintaining File Security

Making sure files remain secure and within the control of the company is another win for the IT team. 

“BetterCloud helps us with tools and systems that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to automate on the security side of things,” the director explained. 

The IT team uses BetterCloud to transfer files to a holding account before deactivating the departed employee. They can then clear sessions, delete app-specific passwords, and suspend the accounts within various systems. This immediately removes access for former employees.

Enhancing Employee Experience

As the director strategizes for the future, one of his top priorities is to further improve the new hire experience. When an employee comes on board, IT uses BetterCloud to streamline the communication process by sending a welcome message and an explanation of the onboarding process. 

“There’s a few areas that we can improve. We will be looking to BetterCloud to help with this initiative,” he said.

Results: