Something old, something (very) new

 

 

Amsterdam is always on the move

With construction projects, innovations and residents coming and going, the City of Amsterdam is always on the move. From garbage collectors to council memebers, from community police officers to financial specialists, every day, around 23,000 municipal employees dedicate themselves to the 900,000 inhabitants of our capital. With eight districts, it is unique in terms of its administrative structure, as its day-to-day management is more de-centralised than in the other large urban municipalities in the Netherlands.

“The city of Amsterdam has set the standard for other large municipalities and government institutions: if such a gigantic and diverse organization dares to take this step, it will hopefully encourage other government institutions to follow suit."
Jurgen van den Broek, Lead IAM Sogeti

Need for standardization

The city focused on standardizing its IT policy for greater efficiency. It wanted to redesign its workplace environment, including an improved IAM system. The aim was to achieve less costly customization and greater standardization, without compromising on IT innovation capabilities, resulting in a better and more effective service.

Replacing the IAM was a major challenge. The system had evolved over many years and comprised many custom solutions. Once intended to address specific needs, this customization now resulted in an IAM that was patchy, complex, and costly to maintain. The latter was partly due to needing external experts to resolve issues.

Tightened laws and regulations meant stricter security measures within the IAM system. Plus, the influx of around 300 new employees each month brought additional challenges. Access rights had to be assigned manually, which led to delays, errors and low productivity, all increasing the need to streamline the login experience. It needed to be more secure, less complex, and more user-friendly.

Safer through uniformity

Sogeti offered the City of Amsterdam a Managed Service for IAM and took care of both the development and its implementation. The delivered solution consists of a HelloID platform from Sogeti partner Tools4Ever, supplemented with Microsoft IAM services. Together with Sogeti, the municipality linked the IAM solution to the business-critical target systems such as WMO, AFAS and AMI.

The City of Amsterdam uses the Sogeti IAM Managed Service, with AFAS as the central data source, for the entire organization. This allows employees to login in a standardized way. And if there is a change in AFAS, it is automatically implemented in the linked target systems. Thanks to the standardized IAM process, all 25,000 employees enter the digital environment through the same 'door'. This gives the municipality clarity and control over who logs in, where and when. This results in a safer environment. The standard functionalities that are integrated into the digital work environment make the IAM solution even more user-friendly. Many of these processes are automated, and the IAM solution offers opportunities for further standardization and automation in the future.

Increase in productivity

Previously, it took a service desk agent about ten minutes to guide an employee account through the change process. They would have to ensure that an employee was given the correct rights, the right manager, and create their e-mail account. Now this is automatic. With approximately 300 employees coming in and moving on per month, the municipality achieves significant time savings.

With the new IAM solution, IT administrators have instant access to a clear and organized view of account status, essential for resolving issues quickly. They can trace where any delays or issues occur, regardless of whether the causes are human or technical in nature. This makes it possible to proactively develop strategies to prevent future issues.

Within the self-service environment, administrators and employees manage and request authorizations themselves, resulting in faster access and greater productivity. Reports provide detailed insight into authorizations granted, helping ensure transparency and accountability. The new method automatically assigns authorizations based on job groups or departments, and in an planned upgrade the process will be even more specific, by automating rights per individual function.

Better user experience through streamlined login processes

After logging in once with single sign-on, employees now have access to around 1,200 different applications; previously each application required logging into individually. In addition, the new environment offers self-service options for employees to perform administrative actions themselves. Think of changing their address details or requesting a password reset. Not only is this easier, it's also safer.

Managers benefit from the new reporting which makes audit trails visible, as they can see who is authorized for which systems, and can find who viewed or changed data, and when. In addition, the authentication process ensures security, checking that rights granted are valid. As a result, the City of Amsterdam can be sure the authorizations are continuously aligned with the actual job profile of an employee.

With new services, the City of Amsterdam now has the tools to standardize and automate the access processes throughout the organization, for every department and every employee. This not only leads to more efficient ways of working for the service desk and administrators, but also offers a clearer overview and strong control.

The end result is a safer work environment with solid governance and demonstrably better regulatory compliance.

Benefits for the City of Amsterdam