Structure and automation in M365: How riha WeserGold saves significant time
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, riha WeserGold Getränke GmbH & Co. KG has been relying on Microsoft Teams to enable reliable collaboration even under changed conditions. The introduction was carried out quickly and pragmatically at the time. In the following years, the use of other Microsoft 365 products was continuously expanded.
The dynamic growth of digital collaboration created a diverse environment in which clear standards and structures were not yet established everywhere. This presented the IT Team with new and challenging tasks, particularly with regard to transparency, naming conventions, and the control of external access.
In order to use Microsoft 365 in an even more structured and future-oriented way, riha WeserGold decided to introduce Teams Manager and External User Manager from Solutions2Share. Since then, the company has benefited from a much better overview, clear processes, and noticeable time savings thanks to automated workflows.
“We immediately realized that this was exactly what we needed because we were looking for a manager that offered an automated approval process and clear reporting.“ Dmitri Morgenstern, IT System Administrator riha Wesergold GmbH & Co. KG
Challenges at riha WeserGold
The biggest task was to bring more structure and clarity to the established Microsoft 365 environment. Due to the rapid introduction, Teams was initially used flexibly and according to need, with uniform rules and clearly defined responsibilities still being established. Tracking external access also involved increased effort. The focus for IT was on establishing a transparent and efficient approval process. The goal was to clearly control the creation of new teams and external access without restricting employee flexibility or burdening the IT team with additional manual work. riha WeserGold therefore specifically sought a governance solution that combined structure, control, and overview and reconciled both the requirements of IT and the needs of users.
Our solution for riha WeserGold
With Teams Manager and External User Manager, riha WeserGold found exactly this approach. The decisive factors were the clearly defined approval process and the central control of teams and external users. A template was first set up in Teams Manager to define naming conventions, metadata, and lifecycle rules. Since then, new teams have been requested via a regulated process, which is currently still approved by the IT admin team. In the future, however, different approver groups will be involved depending on the department and metadata. The External User Manager handles the onboarding of external users, which requires, among other things, the signing of the privacy policy. External users are correctly created in Entra ID and are fully traceable at all times. Regular access reviews help to critically examine whether access is still necessary.
Benefit for riha WeserGold
The use of Teams Manager and External User Manager has not only made team and guest management at riha WeserGold more secure and transparent, but has also reduced the time spent by the IT team in this area by half. The automated request and approval process even saves around 90% of the time required for this activity. In addition to the functional relief, riha WeserGold appreciates the continuous development of the Solutions2Share applications and the extensive knowledge base.
