CITY OF PLEASANTON CUSTOMER STORY
The City of Pleasanton’s Enterprise Technology Management Journey
The Challenges
The City of Pleasanton heavily relied on manual processes and spreadsheets to manage enterprise technology assets. This created several issues:
- A Subpar Customer Experience: Because of a lack of multi-channel service desk and asset management capabilities, the city of Pleasanton faced challenges in providing an exceptional customer experience.
- Visibility and Integration Gaps: Despite a pivot to Zendesk improving customer service, a significant gap in asset visibility remained, exacerbated by the reliance on spreadsheets and siloed technology management tools and data.
- Manual Audit Preparations: Audit preparations required highly manual and time-consuming workflows, so the IT department had to dedicate a significant amount of limited resources to compile necessary data and reports.
The Outcomes
Oomnitza’s modern IT Asset Management solution has markedly enhanced the visibility and control of technology assets, offering:
- Elevated Inventory Controls: The city gained complete visibility into their technology assets with Oomnitza, enabling dynamic tracking and effective lifecycle management.
- Streamlined Audit Preparation: The city simplified IT audits and its adherence to security benchmarks and regulatory compliance by leveraging Oomnitza’s direct access to reports and key data.
- Enhanced Security: With a centralized, accurate asset inventory that provided a single source of truth, the city strengthened its security posture, enabling quicker incident response times and proactive risk management.
- Increased Productivity: By automating workflows like employee offboarding, the city saved time and resources while improving financial efficiency.
Business Profile
INDUSTRY
Local Government
EMPLOYEES
450 full-time, 300 seasonal
LOCATIONS
Pleasanton, CA
About the City of Pleasanton
Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the Amador Valley, it is a suburb in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 census. In 2005 and 2007, Pleasanton was ranked the wealthiest mid-sized city in the United States by the Census Bureau.
ITAM Enables an Always Audit-Ready, Secure IT Experience
The City of Pleasanton significantly improved its customer experience by implementing Zendesk’s service desk. Still, manual processes and siloed tools meant they faced a significant visibility gap in IT inventory controls–for example, tracking assets from cradle to grave.
Additionally, rigorous IT audits required stringent compliance with security standards, making the manual data compilation for audits a daunting and time-intensive task. This challenge was compounded by the city’s responsibility for critical water infrastructure, necessitating strict adherence to cybersecurity laws and regulations. Recognizing the imperative for precise asset knowledge to ensure security, the IT Director and team acknowledged the pressing need to move beyond outdated manual methods to a more streamlined and secure asset management approach.
The City of Pleasanton entirely transformed its technology management by deploying Oomnitza’s modern IT Asset Management (ITAM) solution, greatly improving asset visibility and process automation across the entire lifecycle from procurement to disposal.
Their Oomnitza implementation has streamlined audit preparations, turning a formerly stressful process into a straightforward one by providing immediate access to essential reports and simplifying the entire audit process. They use Oomnitza’s intuitive Workflow Designer to automate essential IT processes, such as offboarding, by eliminating custom code and streamlining tasks from HR notification to asset recovery without manual intervention. Through Zendesk’s integration with Oomnitza, the city has streamlined IT operations by enabling real-time record updates within service tickets and eliminating the need for multiple system logins.
In security matters, the City of Pleasanton trusts Oomnitza as the definitive source for asset data, using it to reconcile discrepancies across tools and validate the authenticity of security alerts. The city has leveraged Oomnitza to minimize waste and ensure adaptability without financial or operational setbacks, reducing costs by proactively:
- Managing maintenance contracts
- Identifying unnecessary SaaS expenses
- Automating the integration of seasonal workers into their ETM system
The Impact of Tedious and Repetitive Manual Processes
Siloed Tools Lead To Reduced Productivity
Disjointed systems hampered the IT Director’s goal to monitor the lifecycle of the city’s assets from cradle to grave. For example, when updating service tickets for outdated computers in need of replacement, the IT staff had to inefficiently sort through multiple systems to ascertain essential details such as purchase dates, remaining lifespan, and recurring issues.
Preparing For It Audits was Very Time-Consuming
Preparation for IT audits was also far from a walk in the park. The City of Pleasanton’s financial audits assess their system controls annually, requiring compliance with standards like NIST and other security benchmarks. Since these audits often prompted extensive inquiries into the whereabouts and lifecycle of IT assets, their IT team needed to spend several hours devoted to data exportation into spreadsheets, typically extending over entire weekends
Improved Asset Management Needed To Enhance Security
The city’s annual risk assessment for cybersecurity insurance was especially crucial because the city manages critical water infrastructure, which is further scrutinized by the city’s asset management. Compliance with the American Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) and adherence to Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) standards for law enforcement data security were imperative, underlining the necessity of accurate asset knowledge.
IT Director Allen Hammon emphasized the importance of securing assets by first having accurate visibility, stating, “You cannot secure what you don’t know.” Consequently, the city’s IT team recognized the urgency for improved asset visibility, acknowledging that their current manual methods and spreadsheets were no longer viable for efficient technology asset management.
The retailer's environment
- Microsoft Intune for endpoint management
- Tanium for endpoint management
- CrowdStrike for endpoint security
- Meraki for network infrastructure management
- Google Workspace on all Android devices
- Microsoft Intune for endpoint management
- Tanium for endpoint management
- CrowdStrike for endpoint security
- Meraki for network infrastructure management
- Google Workspace on all Android devices
Leveraging ITAM to Automate Manual IT Processes and Manage Technology Assets
The City of Pleasanton has significantly advanced their IT asset management by deploying Oomnitza’s modern IT Asset Management (ITAM) solution, replacing labor-intensive processes with a streamlined end-to-end lifecycle asset management tool. Previously, asset tracking required constant invoice reviews and spreadsheet updates–a burdensome task, especially with the regularity of audits every few months. Now, asset tracking is transparent and continuous, from procurement to disposal.
Simplifying Audit Preparation
The City of Pleasanton now enjoys significantly simplified audit preparations with the implementation of Oomnitza, transforming IT audits from a stressful and time-consuming task into a straightforward process with all necessary data immediately accessible. Audit preparation is now just a matter of providing auditors direct access to the necessary reports from Oomnitza.
Optimized Service Desk Integration
The integration with Zendesk has further optimized operations, allowing IT staff to update records in real time within service tickets, a necessary step in their workflow. This has eradicated the redundancy of logging into multiple systems, thus streamlining the update process.
Reducing Costs with Modern Asset Management Technology
The city has also spotted opportunities for cost reduction. Maintenance contract lapses, previously resulting in added fees, are now proactively managed to avoid unnecessary expenses. The Oomnitza SaaS module also highlights areas for potential savings in software licensing, as it identifies inactive user subscriptions that continue to incur charges.
They’ve also invaluably relied on the platform to manage the substantial influx of seasonal workers, integrating with the IT Asset Management system to automate what was once a manual and error-prone process. Not only does this prevent waste but it also ensures that the City of Pleasanton can adapt to workforce changes without financial loss or operational disruption.
No and Low-Code Process Automation
Oomnitza’s user-friendly, drag-and-drop Workflow Designer has eradicated the need for custom programming, boosting productivity and eliminating the need to maintain and support custom-built automations.
When employees leave, their offboarding is automated. As soon as an account is deactivated, Oomnitza initiates the offboarding process, informs HR, and prompts IT to manage tasks, such as cell service deactivation. If assets are not reclaimed, IT can easily track them down.
Enhanced Security With A Single Source Of Trust For Asset Data
The City of Pleasanton trusts Oomnitza as the authoritative source for asset information. Whenever there are inconsistencies in data across different tools, the IT department turns to Oomnitza for accurate information.
For instance, when an endpoint detection system triggers an alert, IT consults Oomnitza for a detailed corroboration of the incident. With Oomnitza acting as the central hub for asset data, it plays a critical role in validating the veracity of security alerts.
“We rely on Oomnitza as our definitive source of truth concerning our assets. In cases of data discrepancies between tools, we turn to Oomnitza for clarification. While Oomnitza isn’t a frontline defense in our cybersecurity arsenal, it serves as an essential reference hub.”
Allen Hammond
Director of IT | City of Pleasanton
Automation That Delivered Immediate Results
The retailer reached out to the Oomnitza Customer Success team for assistance. After reviewing requirements, the Oomnitza team recommended the Separation-to-Recovery (S2R) Secure Offboarding Process, which was fully implemented within 10 business days.
The retailer leaned on Oomnitza’s powerful low-code workflow engine to deploy the S2R process and automate repetitive, manual, and error-prone tasks. By leveraging the flexibility and expandability of the solution, the company was able to quickly pivot their business in response to external economic and market conditions.
The results were almost immediate.
The retailer was able to process a large number of offboarding employees, with little or no manual interaction. Not only did they successfully recover most of the employee-assigned endpoints, but they also achieved security framework compliance and protected company data from unauthorized access.
As a result of expanding their use of Oomnitza, the retailer was able to realize significant cost savings, security improvements, and IT efficiencies.
Major Cost Savings
The home improvement retailer successfully reclaimed 98% of endpoints from departing employees. This, by itself, achieved savings of several million dollars.
Major Cost Savings
As the extensive number of manual processes for offboarding thousands of employees was reduced, their IT team was able to save hundreds of hours per month and keep their scarce IT resources focused on business critical projects.
Security Improvements
The completion time to remove access to key systems for departing employees as a result of using the automated S2R process was reduced to a few minutes, and they were able to achieve compliance with CIS and NIST frameworks. This dramatically reduced the risk of proprietary data exposure to unauthorized persons.
Zero-Touch Automation
The retailer extended their use of automation from technology lifecycle management to secure employee offboarding. They reduced the level of effort with over 40 manual touch points and help desk tickets down to a zero-touch automated offboarding process.
