The Customer
The Diocesan IT Consortium (known as the Consortium) comprises the three Church of England dioceses of Guildford, Winchester, and Portsmouth who act together to procure shared IT services to support approximately 270 staff, including senior clergy and volunteers. Their region covers the counties of Surrey and Hampshire, as well as reaching into the borders of London, Sussex and Dorset.
The Challenge
The Consortium needed to replace laptops across the organisation as they were nearing the end of their lifespan. The laptops were previously managed using on-premises Microsoft’s Active Directory and Group Policies (GPO), however they were unable to manage laptops that did not connect to the company network, such as those used for working remotely.
The Consortium engaged with us to devise a more automated solution that could build and image over 200 laptops with a quick turn-around, shipping the laptops directly to the end-user and requiring no further configurations. The end goal was to support virtual teams and manage all laptops regardless of the network they were connected to – corporate or remote.
What Transputec Did
Transputec were selected to undertake this project across the Consortium’s sites Guildford, Portsmouth Winchester as well as home workers. After a series of engagement and explanation sessions with key stakeholders, Transputec recommended the best option would be to leverage the capabilities of Microsoft Endpoint Manager, Intune and Autopilot.
This cloud-based endpoint management solution aims to help organisations manage employees’ devices so they can access shared information and applications. It can be used to manage users wherever they may be working as well as enable device management across devices, including mobile, desktop computers, and virtual endpoints.
The key steps we took to get the Intune project delivered included:
- on-premises discovery and migration of users
- upgrading existing Microsoft 365 licenses
- setting up MS Azure Active Directory tenant and synchronising with the on-premise AD servers
- implementing an IPSEC VPN tunnel from our configuration warehouse to the client network
- configuration and agreement of image for new laptops
- imaging laptops and customisation for shipping to all end users
- managing QA and despatch of equipment to end user addresses
- engagement with users to confirm satisfaction of deployment
Our team managed the end-to-end lifecycle management, imaging deployment, software deployment, patch management, compliance and security policies across all devices. We were also aware of those service users with lower technical confidence and so provided supported to those employees where needed.
The Outcome
Microsoft Intune allows organisations to manage end user devices – both personal and company owned, by enforcing policies, ensuring compliance and improved security through a true cloud platform. As well as these benefits, the Consortium’s network of employees have benefitted from improved productivity and employee experience, enabling effective, shared working across all service users.
Transputec delivered the requirement successfully and we continue to work with the Consortium to develop and deliver their digital roadmap.
Relationship with Transputec
Transputec provided a fantastic service from start to finish. They completely understood our requirements and executed the project in a way that aligned with our long-term objectives. The Team communicated very well and any reported issues were handled quickly and seamlessly.
Vinay Chavda – IT Services Manager
July 2022
