City of Pleasanton Customer Story
The City of Pleasanton's Enterprise Technology Management Journey
"I can't think of a better solution or platform that brings me such joy than Oomnitza. Every issue that was causing me stress and heartburn around our technology management and manual workflows has been resolved with Oomnitza."
Allen Hammond
Director of IT, City of Pleasanton
Business Profile
Industry:
Local Government
Locations:
Pleasanton, CA
Number of Employees:
450 full-time, 300 seasonal
Challenges
The reliance on manual processes and spreadsheets for managing enterprise technology assets led to several challenges:
- Subpar Customer Experience: The city faced challenges in providing an exceptional customer experience, suffering from a lack of multi-channel service desk and asset management capabilities.
- 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, with the IT department dedicating significant limited resources to compile necessary data and reports.
Outcomes
Oomnitza’s ETM solution has markedly enhanced the visibility and control of technology assets, offering:
- Elevated Inventory Controls: Oomnitza's solution provides a thorough overview of the city's technology assets, enabling dynamic tracking and lifecycle management.
- Streamlined Audit Preparation: Oomnitza offers direct access to necessary reports and data, facilitating the simplification of IT audits and adherence to security benchmarks and federal regulations.
- Enhanced Security: Improved inventory management and a definitive source of truth for technology assets contribute to quicker incident response times and proactive measures.
- Increased Productivity: The automation of workflows and processes, such as employee offboarding, has resulted in notable time savings and financial efficiencies.
Executive Summary
Challenge
The City of Pleasanton significantly improved its customer experience by implementing Zendesk’s service desk; yet still faced a significant visibility gap in IT inventory controls due to manual processes and siloed tools. For instance, tracking assets from cradle to grave was very challenging. 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.
Benefits
The City of Pleasanton revolutionized its technology management by deploying Oomnitza's Enterprise Technology Management (ETM) solution, greatly improving asset visibility and process automation across the entire lifecycle from procurement to disposal. The Oomnitza implementation has streamlined audit preparations, turning a formerly stressful process into a straightforward one by providing immediate access to essential reports, thereby simplifying the entire audit process. Oomnitza's intuitive Workflow Designer simplifies the automation of essential IT processes, such as offboarding, by eliminating custom code and streamlining tasks from HR notification to asset recovery without manual intervention. Zendesk's integration with Oomnitza has streamlined IT operations by enabling real-time record updates within service tickets, thereby eliminating the need for multiple system logins. In security matters, the City of Pleasanton relies on Oomnitza as the definitive source for asset data, using it to reconcile discrepancies across tools and validate the authenticity of security alerts. The City of Pleasanton has leveraged Oomnitza to reduce costs by proactively managing maintenance contracts, identifying unnecessary SaaS expenses, and automating the integration of seasonal workers into their ETM system, thereby minimizing waste and ensuring adaptability without financial or operational setbacks.
"Prior to Oomnitza, asset tracking involved a tedious process of reviewing invoices and updating spreadsheets manually—a considerable effort. And with audits occurring every two to three months, this manual labor had to be repeated frequently. Now with Oomnitza, we've established a comprehensive 'cradle to grave' process for our assets, spanning from procurement to end-of-life disposal. This system allows us to track the lifecycle and disposition of an asset from the moment it's ordered to when it becomes e-waste, with visibility at every step."
Allen Hammond
Director of IT
City of Pleasanton
About 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 middle-sized city in the United States by the Census Bureau.
The Impact of Tedious and Repetitive Manual Processes
The City of Pleasanton's initial challenge in enhancing their internal customer experience led to the adoption of Zendesk for their Service Desk, which quickly improved user satisfaction and resource tracking. Despite this, the visibility into IT asset usage remained a significant gap due to the reliance on manual workflows and siloed technology tools.
Siloed tools lead to reduced productivity
The IT Director’s goal to monitor the lifecycle of the city's assets from cradle to grave was hampered by these disjointed systems. 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 very time-consuming
Preparation for IT audits also presented considerable challenges. The City of Pleasanton's financial audits assess system controls annually, requiring compliance with standards like NIST and other security benchmarks. These audits often prompted extensive inquiries into the whereabouts and lifecycle of IT assets, necessitating several hours devoted to data exportation into spreadsheets by the IT staff, typically extending over entire weekends.
Improved asset management needed to enhance security
The city's annual risk assessment for cybersecurity insurance, especially crucial because the city manages critical water infrastructure, further scrutinized 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.
Game-Changing Outcomes
The City of Pleasanton has significantly advanced its IT asset management by deploying Oomnitza's Enterprise Technology Management (ETM) solution, replacing labor-intensive processes with a streamlined 'cradle to grave' asset management solution. 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 implementation of Oomnitza has significantly simplified audit preparations, transforming IT audits from a stressful and time-consuming task into a straightforward process with all necessary data immediately accessible: Audit preparation is 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 Enterprise Technology Management
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. Furthermore, the Oomnitza SaaS module highlights areas for potential savings in software licensing, as it identifies inactive user subscriptions that continue to incur charges. The platform has proved invaluable in managing the substantial influx of seasonal workers, integrating with the IT Asset Management system to automate what was once a manual and error-prone process. This not only prevents waste but also ensures that the City of Pleasanton can adapt to workforce changes without financial loss or operational disruption.
Process automation without developing custom code
Oomnitza's user-friendly, drag-and-drop Workflow Designer has eradicated the need for custom programming, thereby 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
In the realm of security, 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.
"Oomnitza's integration with Zendesk streamlines our process significantly. Now, the IT staff can update the necessary fields in real time—they don’t need to schedule a separate session to log into Oomnitza. This seamless connection between Oomnitza and Zendesk means that updates can be made directly within the service ticket, which the staff has to finalize in any case."
Allen Hammond
Director of IT
City of Pleasanton
Leveraging ETM to automate manual IT processes and manage technology assets
The City of Pleasanton is progressively enhancing its IT operations by leveraging Enterprise Technology Management (ETM) to automate increasingly more of its manual processes. This transition to automation is a strategic part of their ETM journey, which aims to achieve a highly autonomous and efficient IT operation.
"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
Interested in learning more?
Experience Oomnitza Up Close
Schedule a demo with one of our Enterprise
Technology Management experts today.