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Photography: Aad Hoogendoorn

OPENING DOORS WITH TOPDESK AND UMRA

Mohamed Baroud of the Municipality of Lelystad

Text: Timme Hos

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Its not that different from Star Trek, jokes IT specialist Mohamed Baroud, discussing one of the futuristic-looking footbridges. It is clear that the Municipality of Lelystads building and services are being modernized. TOPdesk and UMRA support this development.

The interior of the Municipality of Lelystads building has been almost completely renovated, boasting many modern features: from flexible office spaces with thin clients to state-of-the-art presentation rooms and an impressive plant wall. Were in the middle of a renovation and change process, emphasizes Baroud.

Facilities service desk, which checks who you are and which doors you can open. Employee data is registered on these passes. Why should we keep registering it manually? TOPdesk and UMRA have made this manual task a thing of the past. UMRA automatically reads out the Active Directory, and the user data is supplied to TOPdesk. New municipality employees head to the HR service desk, where all their information is ready. The only thing they need to do is pick up their pass. Baroud: Its great that you can now see how the different desks exchange information and collaborate more.

All desks in one TOPdesk

Baroud is an IT specialist in an IT team of 20. They face the challenge of translating developments within the municipality to concrete IT solutions. Like HR, IT has been included in the Facilities supporting department, comprising about 120 people. One of the steps taken to improve services is bringing together all the desks. HR had its own desk, Facilities had its own desk and IT had its own desk, says Baroud. We wanted to help internal customers the same way when they had a question, complaint or call. The central desk became Meldpunt 8877, which completely utilizes TOPdesks Self Service Desk. All municipality staff now call one phone number, 8877. They then use a menu to ensure their call finds its way to the right destination.

THANKS TO UMRA, WE GET ALL INFORMATION FROM ONE SOURCE

Mohamed Baroud IT specialist

UMRA: all information from one source

In addition to bringing together all desks, Baroud and his team searched for a way to link the various supporting IT systems. The goal was to simplify and automate the supporting processes. This primarily concerned the management of staff data and the IT landscape, but also the access checks for employees and visitors. The Municipality of Lelystad now uses UMRA to achieve this. Thanks to UMRA, the municipalitys TOPdesk, Active Directory and staff and access systems are linked. You have to see UMRA as something that does things for us under the hood, explains Baroud. Now we get all information from a single source.

Improved municipality licence management

Now UMRA is running, Baroud and his team make a sport of reusing all information as efficiently as possible. We register all of the Municipality of Lelystads software in TOPdesks Configuration Management module, says Baroud. Authorization for standard software is automatically allocated via UMRA. This is done based on employee data, such as job, department, location and budget holder. Moreover, employees can request extra software via a webshop. One of the municipalitys challenges is to utilize the budgets including the one for IT as responsibly as possible. The savings for software licences are already visible, as Baroud explains. Imagine: a municipal project group requires an expensive software licence. We provide licences only for those who need it. And if a licence is only required for three months instead of a year, we have to be able to arrange this and create an accurate report.

TOPdesk and UMRA open doors

What are the actual results of this link? Baroud demonstrates by opening the door to one of the bridges using his employee pass. All employees get a pass, says Baroud. This is registered by the

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Looking to the future

TOPdesk has been a mainstay for the Municipality of Lelystads facilities matters for a number of years. UMRA is also working well and helps achieve the desired synchronization of the various supporting systems. However, that does not mean that Barouds IT team can put their feet up. They continue opening doors to the future: a new UMRA environment, implementing Office 2013 and creating a SharePoint environment are just a few of their current projects. And to return to the beautifully renovated building: the municipal staff will soon be able to make optimal use of it thanks to the smart use of IT. We are currently working on Reservations Management, explains Baroud. He points to the displays behind him. You will be able to use these to view room availability. Who has booked what? The overview will be sent to a restaurant to help organize the days catering.

Want to know more about TOPdesk and UMRA?

UMRA (User Management Resource Administrator) simplifies access and identity management. The link between TOPdesk and UMRA is made possible by our partner Tools4ever. Contact your local TOPdesk branch for more information about the possibilities.