The Basque Country Agglomeration Community manages various responsibilities for its member municipalities, such as economic development, urban planning, waste and water management, as well as social and cultural services. It can also address other missions according to local needs.
The Basque Country Agglomeration Community in figures:
- 312,218 inhabitants - 5th most populous urban area
- 158 municipalities
- 1150 agents
- Creation date: January 1, 2017
Their need?
The young urban area has a significant number of arrivals and departures each month and could no longer manage account creations and suspensions manually with only transfer sheets as a tool.
The agents who were in charge of creating accounts did not have common processes, and errors and approaches were numerous.
"Youzer met our needs, and we had a good feeling about the team. Youzer was invested in the project. The application evolved to match our operating system, which allowed Youzer to evolve in parallel."
Sébastien Perrot, Head of Information Systems and Security.
What was the initial situation of the Basque Country Community?
The conurbation used paper forms between HR, managers, and the IT department. These were used by managers to express their needs and by IT to create access and provide equipment. However, this process mode cannot be functional in a large organization.
Delays and dissatisfaction were quickly felt, and a solution had to be found quickly.
As for offboarding, it was very difficult to achieve, due to the specificity of the community of agglomeration, with renewable contracts.
How was the choice of an IAM solution like Youzer made?
The conurbation was looking for an IT onboarding solution for its users. Youzer quickly emerged, and what appealed to Sébastien Perrot was its ability to connect HR databases to bring up specific information.
💡 Youzer only 'collects' information chosen by the client in order to provide a complete view of active users within the organization.
Once the employee data has been collected, the creation of IT accounts is done quickly because the IT department has all the necessary information.
Youzer enables account automation, with creation in Azure and Active Directory environments done using workflows.
HR creates records via the help desk or via Youzer's forms.
Youzer was quickly recognized as the solution for managing all the specific requirements of the conurbation, and its implementation confirmed its relevance and the time savings for the IT department.
"When we chose Youzer, there weren't many offers adapted to our needs, or else they were gas plants or offers that didn't correspond to what we wanted or were too expensive."
Sébastien Perrot, CISO of the Basque Country Agglomeration Community.
Sébastien's team decided to start a POC (proof of concept) on the functionalities and quickly switched to a subscription because it matched their needs.
The excellent relationship with the Youzer teams and Youzer's investment in the project to develop the application in line with the needs of the conurbation were positive factors in the equation.
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How Youzer solved complex processes and a specific organization?
HR creates records for new arrivals, and from that moment on, a well-defined process is triggered.
Sébastien Perrot emphasizes that it is very simple to manage the ecosystem of software and applications via a single point of entry. It is also simpler to have a unified creation of accounts thanks to standardized fields.
Previously, each agent had their habits, and this created discrepancies between accounts. The five agents in the IT department no longer have 'freedom' in creating accounts, and there is good unification of fields, and errors have been eliminated.
"These five people can quickly have a slightly different way of doing things, and here it helps to standardize usage so that everyone does the same thing."
Sébastien Perrot
Today, new agents arrive and have their accounts ready, and they can change their passwords thanks to the temporary password they received.
This also made it possible to include interns who did not have a contract.
Youzer in daily use, what does it look like?
HR will complete forms with standardized fields, which will be submitted via forms within Youzer.
The IT department receives this information, then an email is sent within Youzer to the managers who list the hardware and software needs via another form, which completes the user file of the newcomer. Another email is sent to the building and office manager for physical access.
Next, the agents in charge of the accounts take care of the creations.
Youzer is connected to the payroll software, which allows the transfer of information from permanent, fixed-term, and internship contracts. For other contracts and arrivals, forms are used.
Forms are used to correlate information from the HR database and user ID.
For user creation, packages are used to create users in AD. Mapping tables are used to create users in the correct AD, within the appropriate community.
When an agent arrives, they are entered into a Youzer form for HR, but they will only be entered into the HRIS once their first salary has been paid, thus creating their employee number.
Youzer performs reconciliation between the first entry and the second entry in the HRIS. This allows the employee number to be associated with a user already present in Youzer.
The HRIS is very closed under an Oracle database, and Youzer's universal connector has made it possible to regularly connect and import contract information for the various agents.
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What are the advantages of an IAM solution like Youzer?
The conurbation also has a specific feature: it is responsible for several business incubators and public service centers (MSAP). In particular, it has to recharge the prints that are made in these structures, but with the difficulty of attributing the prints to a company.
Youzer assisted them in this refactoring by deploying a multi-instance account to manage each structure independently of the others, along with the PaperCut connector, which automates account creation/suspension.
"Nursery managers can manage Papercut directly from Youzer. We no longer have to manage this part. It's the managers who are autonomous on these account creations."
Sébastien Perrot
Youzer's gains
- Onboarding has been greatly facilitated, which frees up time for teams, and there are almost no more errors.
- Account creations have been standardized.
- It facilitates day-to-day administration.
- A global view of arrivals and departures: Active Directory is not designed to provide logs, update information, and actions that have been performed.
- If there is an error, it can quickly be noticed.
- Youzer can be delegated to non-technical people.
- It allows you to create secure passwords according to defined rules and not to let agents freely create insecure passwords.
- More and more fields need to be filled in, and Youzer clearly facilitates this administrative part.
- There is shadow HR with arrivals that are not notified to the HR department; Youzer will help clarify all of this.
- Youzer is currently used to restructure the departure process.
"Youzer aids in organization and provides a comprehensive overview, addressing what Microsoft fails to offer: a simplified or quick view of a group or Active Directory field. It can be complex and time-consuming to retrieve this information, but with a single click, all the necessary information is readily available."
Sébastien Perrot
What are the preferred functionalities?
- Packages and lookup tables
- Forms
But also standardization, the global vision of users and accounts.
"It allows you to manage a lot of things pretty quickly without having to get your hands into the Active Directory."
Sébastien Perrot
Would you recommend Youzer?
"I recommend Youzer because it really made our lives easier."
Sébastien Perrot
