4-page Case Study - Posted 7/2/2008

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Glenn County Human Resource Agency

County Agency Eases Compliance, Reduces Desktop Support by 40 Percent with Software Upgrade

Glenn County Human Resource Agency provides social services and programs to the residents of Glenn County, in California’s Central Valley. To take full advantage of its three-year software licensing agreement, the agency chose to upgrade to Windows Vista®. With enhanced security and centralized management features, the Windows Vista software is helping the agency more easily meet federal security requirements for desktop computers. In addition, the agency’s IT department has already experienced a 25 percent reduction in the time spent on providing desktop support, due to the ease of use of the operating system. As employees become more familiar with Windows Vista, the department expects to see a further 15 percent reduction in its desktop support tasks.

Situation

Glenn County, an agricultural community located halfway between Sacramento and Redding in Northern California, is home to more than 1,188 farms producing rice, almonds, dairy products, prunes, and live-stock. To assist the county’s residents, the 165 employees of Glenn County Human Resource Agency (HRA) administer a variety of state-funded social services and programs, including child and adult services, employment services, housing and energy assistance, in-home support services, and more.

Windows Vista is making it much easier for the agency to comply with FDCC regulations.  Merrie Wales Information Systems Manager Glenn County Human Resource Agency

In 2007, the agency was nearing the end of a software-licensing agreement that included the Windows® XP Professional operating system running on Glenn County HRA’s desktop computers. At about the same time, the agency was initiating compliance with the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC), a U.S. Office of Management and Budget mandate that requires the standardization of desktop operating system settings to strengthen IT security and reduce the opportunity for hackers to access and exploit government computer systems.

To achieve FDCC compliance, the agency needed to have tighter control over employees’ access to the settings and configuration of the operating system on their computers. But, in order to use the DynaComm terminal emulation software to access applications and data at the state level, employees needed to have administrative rights on their local computers.

This need for access presented a dilemma. With administrative rights, a user can also inadvertently modify system settings, disable antivirus software, or compromise the security of sensitive information. Merrie Wales, Information Systems Manager at Glenn County HRA, says, “We needed a more secure model for installing and using applications on the desktop, and we felt that the security features of Windows Vista® Enterprise would enable us to more easily comply with the FDCC standards.” She adds that, because the agency wanted to take advantage of the upgrades it was entitled to before its licensing agreement expired, “the time was right to upgrade.”

Solution

In late 2006, Glenn County HRA planned and initiated a process for upgrading employees’ computers from Windows XP Professional to the Windows Vista Enterprise operating system. Glenn County HRA had also decided to deploy the 2007 Microsoft® Office release to its employees. Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Matson & Isom Technology Consulting (MITC), which provides ongoing consulting and support services to Glenn County HRA and other Glenn County agencies, helped with the deployment.

First, Wales’s team, with the support of MITC, completed a thorough application compatibility assessment in a test lab, using Windows Vista and the agency’s in-house applications. Test results necessitated minor adjustments, including changing how the terminal emulation program was installed, so that all users would have the same resource and configuration file. The team then deployed Windows Vista Enterprise to “people at the agency who are interested in exploring new technologies, and who were willing to give feedback,” says Wales. “We included Windows Vista and Microsoft Office Professional 2007 in the pilot image so we could get feedback on how the software worked together.” The team also took the opportunity to test some Group Policy settings, including security settings in the Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 browser, standardization of the desktop background image, and user logon settings.
 

With Windows Vista, users can run with standard user rights instead of administrative rights.... This is a much safer method … because access to critical settings is locked down.  Merrie Wales Information Systems Manager Glenn County Human Resource Agency

The deployment team used feedback from the pilot, which ran for approximately six weeks, to arrive at the operating system settings and configuration that it would use for the deployment of Windows Vista to the entire agency. “We tweaked some settings and reset some values to achieve an optimal deployment,” says Wales. Her team then deployed Windows Vista to half of each department, and then to the second half, to prevent downtime.

Glenn County HRA completed the migration of 250 computers to Windows Vista in March 2007. This number includes the agency’s computers as well as computers in a lab that the agency shares with Butte College, a local two-year community college; a pool of computers available for public use; and computers used in one of Glenn County HRA’s social service programs, Services Toward Empowering People.

Benefits

By upgrading to the latest Windows operating system, Glenn County HRA has enhanced the security of its desktop infrastructure, enabling it to more easily meet federal regulations for computer security in government settings. It has also simplified and streamlined deployment tasks for IT and daily tasks for employees, significantly reduced the amount of time spent on desktop support, and advanced business process efficiency and collaboration initiatives countywide.

Tighter Desktop Security

Glenn County HRA relies on the Windows User Account Control feature to provide users with access to the applications they need to do their jobs, while also taking steps to protect core areas of the operating system by preventing users from modifying settings or downloading malicious software that can compromise security. User Account Control enables users to perform most common tasks as standard users, without administrative rights. However, when an employee needs to perform a task that does require administrative rights, such as using the Dyna-Comm terminal emulation software, Windows Vista can prompt the user to enter valid credentials for that specific task or application.

“With Windows Vista,” says Wales, “users can run with standard user rights instead of administrative rights on their local computers. This is a much safer method for using applications on the desktop because access to critical settings is locked down.” Wales adds that in addition to User Account Control, the expanded Group Policy settings in Windows Vista “give us more granular control over security settings and policies. We have many different types of employees, and they require many different levels of access to data and information. We have a lot more flexibility now for creating a variety of access scenarios, and this enhances the overall security of our files and data. Windows Vista is making it much easier for the agency to comply with FDCC regulations.” 

Jim Umenhofer, General Manager at MITC, adds, “We work with other government agencies and have found that the enhanced security features and flexible configuration options in Windows Vista allow these agencies to much more easily achieve and maintain FDCC compliance.”

As a taxpayer, minimizing costs is important to me. Windows Vista integrated with these other technologies will help us be more fiscally sound.  Merrie Wales Information Systems Manager Glenn County Human Resource Agency

Simplified Deployment

Greg Delorey, MITC’s Network Solutions consultant who helped with the imaging process and deployment, says, “With the BDD tools, we were able to create highly customized images to meet the needs of Glenn County HRA’s complex environment, which required the use of both new and legacy applications. Meeting this requirement could have been difficult, but the BDD tools allowed us to create the images we needed much more efficiently.”

Wales adds, “Our application deployment was significantly easier with Windows Vista than with Windows XP because the images were much easier to create, test, and deploy. And, we’ve seen much higher stability in deploying application packages and updates to client computers running Windows Vista.”

40 Percent Reduction in Desktop Support

“Our IT staff has spent 25 percent less time on desktop support since we’ve implemented Windows Vista,” says Wales. “As users become even more familiar with the operating system and learn more about its features and functionality, we expect our support tasks to decrease an additional 15 percent.” Wales attributes this reduction in help-desk support to the ease of use of Windows Vista. Employees easily adjusted to the operating system, and in addition are better able to accomplish everyday tasks without help from the IT department. “There was some fear that the transition was going to be rough,” she says. “But the early recipients had a very smooth experience.” Wales says that Instant Search in Windows Vista has been a key difference. “Employees can search their local computer as well as network drives straight from the Start menu to find files, programs, e-mail messages, documents—all they need to know is one attribute of the item they are looking for.

“Employees also like the look and feel of the user interface,” she adds. “They’ve expressed enthusiasm for the Windows Flip 3D feature; they say it has really enhanced their Windows experience.” The Windows Flip 3D feature, part of the Windows Aero® user experience, renders live thumbnail images of the contents of users’ open windows, letting people switch between applications and documents more easily than in Windows XP. “Overall, they find Windows Vista to be more intuitive,” Wales says. “They can find what they need more easily, and as a consequence, they are more productive and less reliant upon the IT department.”

Better Integration, Lower Costs

In addition to deploying Windows Vista, Glenn County HRA has also deployed Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and is in the process of upgrading to Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and implementing Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Wales explains, “We’re building a highly integrated environment based on Microsoft products and technologies, to enable the agency—and the entire county—to collaborate more effectively and automate manual, inefficient, paper-based processes.”

To give an example of a business process that Glenn County HRA is working to streamline, Wales describes a highly manual payroll process. “Through better data integration and the use of electronic signatures, we hope to improve this process. Windows Vista is a key element of achieving this integration,” she says. “Every Glenn County department head is interested in any technology that results in less data entry, less room for error, and, generally, more seamless IT processes. As a county, we need to operate at higher capacity, with lower costs. As a taxpayer, minimizing costs is important to me. Windows Vista integrated with these other technologies will help us be more fiscally sound.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Matson & Isom Technology Consulting products and services, call (530) 891-9146 or visit the Web site at:
www.mitcs.com

For more information about Glenn County Human Resource Agency products and services, call (530) 934-6514 or visit the Web site at:
www.hra.co.glenn.ca.us

Windows Vista

Windows Vista can help your organization use information technology to gain a competitive advantage in today’s new world of work. Your people will be able to find and use information more effectively. You will be able to support your mobile work force with better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And your IT staff will have better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security, data protection, and more efficient deployment and management.

For more information about Windows Vista, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsvista

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published July 2008