Manufacturing Company Relieves Overworked Helpdesk
A leading South African industrial manufacturing company had growing concerns with slow user access and password resets, as well as an overworked and fragmented helpdesk. Much of this challenge is related to the wide and diverse landscape of systems within the company’s IT environment. Users would often require password resets from multiple authorization teams spanning Active Directory, IBM iSeries, and numerous SAP environments. When password resets occurred, the helpdesk agents often had to facilitate the process while interacting with multiple stakeholders, for a single user request. This creates slow turn-around, loads of manual effort, user frustration, and ultimately lost productivity.
Quantifying Lost Productivity Cost
A single-user password reset request could easily consume between 20-45 minutes due to the requirement to interface with multiple authorization teams. This impacted both the helpdesk assistant and the user making the request. This resulted in business time lost, ultimately leading to money loss. As an illustration of the impact this had on the environment, some fictional rates can be used to gain a clearer understanding of the effects on productivity.
Example Average Helpdesk Agent rate: R150 (per hour)
Example Average User rate: R300 (per hour)
Estimated Cost of Lost Productivity: Between R150 – R337, per password reset issue
A Focused Approach
Two key objectives were identified to increase user and helpdesk efficiency within the customer environment. The first is to provide users with an effective and simple solution to reset passwords across the complete IT landscape that includes, Microsoft Active Directory, Novell eDirectory, IBM iSeries (AS400), and multiple SAP instances. The second is to drive adoption of the solution within the user community and drive down any helpdesk interactions. To achieve this, MyPass Password Manager was integrated into all eight business systems and tested to ensure passwords were synchronized across these systems, whether password changes were executed by users or helpdesk agents. This was achieved using the MyPass Password Interceptor to capture any Microsoft Active Directory password changes. Additionally, specific steps were taken to update helpdesk procedures to follow specific new processes that drive the adoption of self-service rather than repeat interactions with the helpdesk. This process was possible due to the MyPass SSPR’s ability to assist with just-in-time registration while busy with helpdesk interactions, even if the user had not registered for the service before having issues with their system access.
83% Adoption Success
One of the key contributors to the success of the overall solution has been the widespread adoption of the platform. This is partly due to technical change strategies, underpinned by features of the MyPass SSPR solution, but also specific changes that have been made to the way helpdesk agents assist users with password reset, unlock and change requests.
An example of this is helpdesk agents using the MyPass SSPR helpdesk PIN feature to allow users the ability to just-in-time register for self-service. This allows the user to register for self-service while interacting with the helpdesk, which removes the need for helpdesk contact in the future. These changes allowed for the enrolment of close to a third of their IT workforce in the first two months of the solution going live.
Reclaiming Productivity for Users and Helpdesk Agents
Ultimately, the MyPass Cloud relieved helpdesk strain through the implementation of MyPass SSPR with Password Synchronization to allow users to reset passwords at any time, from any device – all while synchronizing changes across all systems in the company. The following vital metrics help to show how MyPass SSPR has reduced wasted effort on the part of users and helpdesk agents.
- 1395 users are registered for MyPass Password Manager – this equates to 83%
- On average, 470 Microsoft Active Directory password resets are done via MyPass Password Manager, every month
- On average, 2256 passwords are successfully synchronized to other lines of business applications every month
- On average, only 18 helpdesk interactions a month are still processed by MyPass for registrations or assisted password resets
Recovering Lost Time and Saving Money
With an average of 470 primary and 2256 secondary password resets every month, even conservative estimates show that huge direct (helpdesk effort, agent resources, etc) and indirect (user frustration and lost productivity) savings have been realized. For more information about MyPass SSPR or MyPass Identity Verification Manager (IVM) can help your helpdesk increase security and drive down overall password-related helpdesk interactions, navigate to www.mypass.co.za.