Time and cost savings through automated access management
For the manufacturer of support systems for medical and industrial technology, which has been based in Hünfeld since 1945, the time factor plays a decisive role: as a development partner for customer-specific medical solutions and applications, the prompt and reliable implementation of all projects is always a priority. Secure access to the required file directories on the company’s globally distributed file servers is of great importance for this.
In search of a new access concept
Although Ondal Medical Systems GmbH had already been using a well thought-out and structured manual access concept based on the folder owner principle since 2007, the decision was made in 2016 to implement a solution for automated access management.
With the BAYOOSOFT Access Manager, a tool was found that not only ensured faster approval processes, but also freed up resources in IT, thus exceeding all requirements.
“The access assignment for the approximately 550 shares on our file servers in Germany, USA and China was previously done manually via AD groups. An Excel list was used to record who was responsible for which directories. The request for access authorization was sent by the employee to the User Help Desk by e-mail, and the responsible directory manager had to be copied. Only after their approval was the access authorization granted by the administrators and ideally documented in the Excel sheet,” reports Holger Drews, IT administrator at Ondal Medical Systems GmbH. “This workflow was often very time-consuming and the time of approval depended on the feedback from the directory managers.
However, the actual main task was to “educate” the users and admins to actually follow this path and to ensure that nobody was authorized to access the directory without the consent of the person responsible for the directory.”
Implementation of the BAYOOSOFT Risk Manager
With the use of the self-service portal, this process has been automated since the BAYOOSOFT Access Manager went live and the directory managers are directly involved in the operational authorization process. They issue the authorization for the directories for which they are responsible themselves, by accepting or rejecting the requests addressed to them – completely without the involvement of IT and permanently traceable via the audit-proof documentation and the easy-to-understand reports.
By actively involving the directory managers and without having to take the “detour” via the user help desk, the approval processes in the company could be significantly accelerated. The resources freed up in IT can now be used to bring IT services that were previously outsourced due to a lack of time back in-house and thus achieve cost savings.
“Another special feature of the Access Manager, in addition to the very good price-performance ratio, is the Real Time Permissions function, which enables access to be granted immediately without restarting the system. But the simple identification of retired users and the uncomplicated release of corresponding user licenses also stand out for us.
The comprehensive reports and the user-friendly interface also make our lives easier: all directory managers can now view the access situation at the touch of a button and don’t have to ask IT to laboriously search for it,” reports Holger Drews and adds:
“We were also very positively surprised that the Access Manager was so easy to implement and was so well received and immediately used by our employees in all areas right from the start.
