The Communauté d'Agglomération du Pays Basque manages various responsibilities for its member communes, including economic development, urban planning, waste and water management, as well as social and cultural services. It can also take on other missions according to local needs.
The Communauté d'agglomération du Pays Basque in figures :
- 312,218 inhabitants - 5th most populous conurbation
- 158 municipalities
- 1,150 agents
- creation date january 1, 2017
Their need?
The young agglomeration has a significant number of arrivals and departures every month, and was no longer able to manage account creation and suspension manually, using only shuttle sheets.
The agents who handled account creation had no common processes, and there were many errors, as well as many different ways of doing things.
"Youzer matched the needs and we had a good feeling with the team. There was investment on Youzer's part. The application evolved to match our operating system and that allowed Youzer to evolve in parallel."
Sébastien Perrot, Information Systems and Security Manager.
What was the Basque Country Community's initial situation?
The agglomeration used to operate with paper shuttle cards between HR, managers and the IT department. This was used by managers to express their needs, and by IT to create access and supply hardware. However, this type of process cannot work in a large organization.
Delays and dissatisfaction soon became apparent, and a solution had to be found quickly.
As for off-boarding, it was very difficult to achieve, due to the specific nature of the agglomeration community, with renewable contracts.
How did you come to choose an IAM solution like Youzer?
The agglomeration was looking for an IT onboarding solution for its users. Youzer quickly came to the fore, and what won Sébastien Perrot over was its ability to connect HR databases to feed back specific information.
💡 Youzer simply 'collects' information chosen by the customer to provide a complete view of active users in the organization.
Once employee data has been uploaded, IT accounts can be created quickly, as the IT department has all the necessary information.
Youzer automates the creation of accounts in Azure and Active Directory environments, using workflows.
HR staff create forms via the help desk or Youzer forms.
Youzer was quickly seen as the solution for managing all the specificities of the conurbation, and its implementation confirmed its relevance and the time saved 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 at the Communauté d'Agglomération du Pays Basque.
Sébastien's team decided to start with a POC (proof of concept) on the functionalities, and quickly switched to a subscription model because it matched their needs.
The excellent relationship with the Youzer teams and Youzer's investment in the project to ensure that the application evolved in line with the needs of the conurbation were positive factors in the equation.
How did Youzer solve complex processes and a specific organization?
HR creates the forms for new arrivals, and from that point on, a well-supervised process is set in motion.
Sébastien Perrot points out that it's very easy to manage the ecosystem of software and applications via a single point of entry. It's also easier to create unified accounts thanks to standardized fields.
Previously, each agent had his or her own habits and this created discrepancies between accounts. The five agents in the IT department no longer have 'freedom' in the creation of accounts, and there is a 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, the new agents arrive and they have their accounts ready and can change their passwords thanks to the temporary password they received.
This also made it possible to include trainees who didn't have a contract.
What does Youzer mean in everyday life?
HR staff will fill in forms with standardized fields, which will be sent via forms within Youzer.
The IT department receives this information, then an e-mail is sent within Youzer to the managers, who list their hardware and software requirements on another form, thus completing the newcomer's user file. Another e-mail is sent to the building and office manager for physical access.
Then, the agents in charge of the accounts take care of the creations.
Youzer is connected to the payroll software, enabling information to be fed back for permanent, fixed-term and trainee contracts. For other contracts and new arrivals, forms are used.
Forms are used to correlate information from the HR database with user personnel numbers.
For user creation, packages are used to create users in the AD. Correspondence tables are used to create users in the right AD, in the right community house.
When an agent arrives, he or she is entered on a Youzer form for HR purposes, but will only be entered into the HRIS once his or her first payroll payment has been made, thus creating his or her personnel number.
Youzer reconciles the 1st entry with the 2nd entry in the HRIS. This makes it possible to associate the personnel number with a user already present in Youzer.
The HRIS is very closed under an Oracle database, and Youzer's universal connector made it possible to connect and regularly import contract information for the various agents.
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What are the advantages of an IAM solution like Youzer?
The agglomeration is also unique in that it is responsible for several business incubators and public service centers (MSAP). In particular, it has to re-invoice the printing carried out in these structures, but with the difficulty of attributing the printing to a company.
Youzer helped them with this rebilling by deploying a multi-instance account to manage each structure independently of the others, and with the Papercut connector to automate 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 earnings
- Onboarding has been greatly facilitated, which frees up time for the teams and virtually eliminates errors.
- Account creation has been standardized.
- It makes day-to-day administration easier.
- A global view of arrivals and departures: Active Directory isn't designed for logging, updating information and actions that have been carried out.
- If there's a mistake, you'll quickly realize it.
- Youzer can be delegated to non-technical people.
- This makes it possible to create secure passwords according to defined rules, rather than giving agents free rein to create insecure passwords.
- More and more fields need to be filled in, and Youzer makes this administrative part much easier.
- There's some HR shadowing, with new arrivals not notified to the HR department, and Youzer will help to clarify all this.
- Youzer is currently being used to restructure the departure process.
"Youzer is an organization aid and provides a global view, it makes up for what Microsoft doesn't know how to do: a simplified or quick view of an Active Directory group or field. Sometimes, it's complex and time-consuming to go looking for this information, and here, with a click of the mouse, you have all the info you need."
Sébastien Perrot
What are your favourite features?
- Packages and mapping tables
- The forms
But also standardization and a global view 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
