How the City of Sacramento Took Control of Password Management

"PortalGuard has significantly reduced help desk calls related to account lockout and password resets. This product has alleviated security issues that we had prior to implementation." - Curtis Chiuu, Principal Systems Engineer

The City of Sacramento is the sixth largest city in California with a population of 500,000. Their state/local staff ranks to 4500 employees, and all of them use a mix of Microsoft Office 365, Adobe Sign, and other applications.

With a large staff, support calls and many failed login attempts became commonplace. Once a user is locked out of their account, many other users within their department and in supporting departments are also affected, which is detrimental for the City of Sacramento.

To summarize the password access management challenges:

• Too many IT support calls to the Help Desk to reset user passwords.
• Too many logins, with 4500 employees, the chances of failed logins also increased.
• There was no 'one size fits all' answer for all 4500 users.

Measured Benefits and Outcome

Now, 78% of password resets are done using PortalGuard. Only 22% are performed by contacting the Help Desk, meaning the user had to pick up the phone and had to talk to somebody. This has become beneficial for the City of Sacramento, as due to the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), many of the employees are working from home.

Now users are able to reset passwords on their own. Additionally, users are self-initiating password resets, meaning the work lag caused by failed login attempts can be removed.

PortalGuard Desktop for the City of Sacramento, also provided additional self-service capabilities. This allowed users to go to a secure, branded portal website and change their own password on the spot, making users more self-sufficient.

Lastly, due to City of Sacramento's current setup, using Office 365, they were close to paying $250,000 annually in additional software costs from Azure in addition to their current costs for a staff of 4500. However, with PortalGuard and the cost model, PortalGuard provided the solutions City of Sacramento were looking for without the excessive licensing costs.

City of Sacramento's Key Takeaways

The City of Sacramento had several key takeaways from using PortalGuard and their solutions.

• Understand your users and their unique needs and/or their limitations for security methods. With a staff of 4500, City of Sacramento knew a 'one-fits-all' solution wouldn't cut it, but working with PortalGuard gave them the flexibility to support all of their users and their unique needs.
• Self-service password reset (SSPR) is essential for success. With 4,500 users onboard, being able to utilize SSPR eliminated user and password issues while keeping the workflow moving.
• Don't assume the vendor you know and use is the right one for the future. While Office 365 and Azure are both within the Microsoft Suite, there are alternatives that work better for your users.
• It is possible to reduce overall licensing costs and achieve a comprehensive password access management strategy. The City of Sacramento dodged a hefty software cost of $250,000 by implementing PortalGuard, and this is still in consideration of delivering the best solution to your users.

Learn more about how you can get control over password management.

Read more into detail in our case study about City of Sacramento or watch our on-demand webinar when we interviewed Principal Systems Engineer, Curtis Chiuu about how BIO-key and PortalGuard delivered a flexible password access management solution to address their needs.