Bruntwood implements CloudM to improve user search and self-service capabilities

In 2013, Bruntwood had migrated their Lotus Notes system to Google Workplace. Bruntwood is a family-owned and run property company that specializes in creating the right environments for a wide variety of businesses to succeed. Operating for over 36 years, they now own 110 properties across four UK cities, providing conventional office space, serviced and virtual offices, meeting rooms and retail premises to companies across a range of different business sectors.

After implementing Google Workspace, Bruntwood decided they needed an application that would allow the users to easily update their profile so that colleagues could search and obtain some basic information such as a photo, telephone number and location. Paul Bamber, Head of IT at the company explained.

“Bruntwood have nearly 500 users located across Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham so we needed a simple system to update and maintain to ensure all channels of communication were available. Additionally, this helps to build a sense of familiarity – a culture we are keen to foster. So, users get to see a photo, understand which department they’re in and where they’re located.”

Bruntwood looked at a couple of options before eventually deciding to go with CloudM.

“We much preferred the easy-to-use interface of CloudM and with the ability to re-skin it we were able to make it feel like an extension to our corporate systems”

Although CloudM delivers a powerful search tool for Google Workspace users it also offers a range of simple and fast self-service tools that users will find essential. Some of the great features included in CloudM are; Google Workspace integration, profile editing, organization management, data inheritance, logging and password policy, reset features, password recovery, 24-hour synchronization, on-premise integration and customization. All this for only a small amount per user per annum.

The Password Policy feature has allowed us to ensure our users have a minimum password complexity which is important when you consider that applications such as Drive and Docs as well as Gmail are linked to your Google password. Before we implemented Password Policy not all users opted to set a complex password, so it’s great to be able to give them a little nudge and ensure it’s enforced.

"Password Recovery is a must if you find yourself resetting a user's passwords with any kind of frequency. We've effectively handed this responsibility back to the users by allowing them to reset their own passwords by answering three questions and submitting their email address. Our users really appreciate the automation and the IT help desk have one less administrative task to complete."

Paul concluded,

“You can see this is a product that CloudM is serious about developing and they’re adding great features to it all the time. They’re really focused on customer feedback and coupled with their own knowledge you have a product which is full of useful and relevant functionality, unlike some of the other products in the market.”

Granting an application like CloudM access to your data means that your security level is lowered to the same as that of the application. So, it is necessary to fully understand the policies and procedures of the organization that have developed the application. As well as continually adding new features to CloudM, they are dedicated to ensuring that their product meets the highest standards of security to ensure complete peace of mind when you utilize it.