Energie Südbayern: Take the voltage off the IT-team

Company

Energie Südbayern (Energy Southern Bavaria) is a supra-regional energy service provider with offices around Munich. Together with its subsidiaries Energienetze Bayern and ESB-Wärme, Energie Südbayern forms the ESB Group, which employs around 450 people, including apprentices and trainees.

Challenge

Minimize the number of global administrators for greater security

Some of ESB's IT administration tasks were handled by external specialists. After moving to the cloud, they wanted to keep the number of global administrators small and in-house. Working with M365 Admin Center roles was only helpful at first glance, as administrator roles with fewer priviledges increase security but limit agency.

Performing standard tasks without high privileges

Dennis Graf, System Administrator at ESB, describes the challenge: "Not everyone can be a 'Global Admin'. That's why we created roles like 'Teams Admin' or 'SharePoint Admin'. This worked well until the first absences due to illness or job changes occurred." His goal was to ensure that standard tasks could be performed securely by all authorized users in the future.

He had heard about ScriptRunner some time ago and had already considered other use cases in addition to delegation, such as reporting, auditing and logging.

Solution

Extending the benefits of scripting beyond the experts

The company had PowerShell and Python experts who successfully used scripts to perform various recurring tasks. However, there was no centralized script repository or versioning, and an IDE was required to run the scripts. Running a script required full administrative rights to the system and involved multiple steps such as establishing a remote connection, launching PowerShell, and searching for the right command.

Since deploying ScriptRunner, Dennis Graf has noticed improvements on several levels: Script development is much smoother, and the latest script version is centrally stored and available to everyone. In addition, a single click on an action saves time every time, in his case at least 100 hours. He is also pleasantly surprised by the integrated ScriptRunner GUI. "It is all in one place, easy to edit – and as an administrator, I can determine exactly what choices I give the users." He can now confidently delegate actions to his helpdesk colleagues, who are now much more empowered. He adds: "The helpdesk team is excited and eager to solve even more problems with ScriptRunner. We are on it! New actions will be added on a regular basis. A win-win situation for administrators and the helpdesk team."

No tickets are generated at all! Example: Password reminder

The helpdesk regularly received calls from users whose passwords had expired and who could no longer access their system. Since ScriptRunner automatically sends emails reminding users 21, 14, 7, 3, and finally 1 day before expiration, the calls have stopped and the helpdesk has noticeably less work.

Copy phone logs, audit logging and AD reports

There are many small tasks that are now performed on a daily basis. One use case is copying and transferring data from the phone system to another directory. Another use case is audit logging in the group assignment area. Now it is possible to track who gave what rights to whom or changed something in the group assignment. When troubleshooting, it is very helpful to review the monthly AD report that is automatically generated and emailed.

User management – Small start, big plans

Dennis Graf and his team also use ScriptRunner for user management. "We have already created ScriptRunner actions for many different user management tasks. I can display group memberships, manage mailboxes and calendar access, edit delegations, whether Active Directory or Exchange," he summarizes, adding: "We are currently in the process of optimizing some larger processes in the first step and then automating them in the second step. Once the processes are optimized, automation makes even more sense. Existing actions can even be integrated. ScriptRunner will become a platform for comprehensive automation in the company.

Result

ESB's IT professionals are happy. Many routine tasks are now automated, freeing up time to push automation of larger processes. ScriptRunner also contributes to the attractiveness of IT jobs at ESB in several ways. First, there is no need to search for scripts - the latest script is always available. Second, by automating routine activities, the team now has more time to focus on important and complex tasks. Automation reduces the number of tickets and increases the speed with which the remaining tickets can be resolved. Good for internal SLAs and good for employee satisfaction.

Discover more success stories