Challenge
Approximately 7,800 mobile devices needed to be migrated to a dedicated Workspace ONE instance—without losing any personal data, in a simple manner, and in collaboration with existing partners.
Our solution
Thanks to EBF Onboarder and a collaboration with Telstra and MobileNetwork, the migration to a different Workspace ONE operating model went smoothly.
The result
Fulton Hogan received all solutions from a single source and was able to migrate the devices without much effort for administrators and users.
Challenges at Fulton Hogan
At Fulton Hogan, a civil infrastructure company based in New Zealand, many employees work in the field. They spend most of their time on construction sites, carrying out numerous projects for various sectors in New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. To work efficiently, it is important that employees can access construction and project plans and emails from anywhere and communicate with colleagues, partners, and customers. Fulton Hogan uses a number of proprietary public apps to enable employees to work on the go, securely and efficiently.
Whether it’s sending emails, documenting construction site progress, or recording working hours, all of this must be done on the go in real time.
Mobile devices therefore play a central role for Fulton Hogan, which in turn makes it necessary to manage the devices centrally in order to make mobile working efficient and secure. In 2013, Fulton Hogan therefore decided to introduce VMware’s AirWatch unified endpoint management system (now Workspace ONE) to manage the twelve devices that were in use at the time. The implementation was carried out by the telecommunications provider at the time – on an instance used by several companies. The number of devices has since risen to 7,800 – mainly due to a number of customer-specific mobile applications that enabled Fulton Hogan to optimize and digitally map many separate paper-based processes, thereby generating significant added value for the company.
In December 2018, Fulton Hogan decided to switch UEM solution providers and use Workspace ONE on its own dedicated instance in the future in order to be more agile, have full control over the solution, achieve the desired performance metrics, and optimize app delivery. Fulton Hogan chose MobileNetwork as its UEM solution provider; Telstra and Spark remained the telecommunications providers.
Fulton Hogan faced several challenges in the migration project: Around 7,800 different mobile devices had to be migrated to the new VMware Workspace ONE instance—in addition to a large number of iOS devices (mostly in Apple’s Device Enrollment Program), there were also some older Android devices. The company had to ensure that the devices could continue to be managed and that no personal data would be lost during the migration. The migration also had to be as easy as possible for end users, as Fulton Hogan employees have very different technical skills. Completely wiping the devices was not an option.
Fulton Hogan was therefore looking for a competent partner who could make the migration as easy as possible and also cooperate with the company’s existing partners so that all solutions related to the mobile landscape could be provided from a single source.
Our approach at Fulton Hogan
Fulton Hogan chose EBF as its migration partner – with exactly the right tool and expertise. With EBF Onboarder, EBF has developed a tool that enables migration from one UEM system to another as well as a change of operating model – without significant effort for administrators and users, and with a wide range of source and target systems. Over 800,000 devices have already been successfully migrated for other customers. In addition, EBF has a large partner network that includes Telstra, Australia’s leading telecommunications company, and MobileNetwork, one of Australia’s leading mobility services providers.
EBF and MobileNetwork worked closely together to ensure that the migration went smoothly. EBF experts familiarized the MobileNetwork team with the intricacies of the migration tool, and thanks to the ease of use of the EBF Onboarder, the MobileNetwork team was then able to carry out the migration completely independently.
The experts at MobileNetwork created a migration concept for Fulton Hogan and conducted an intensive 6-week test phase to ensure a smooth migration later on. It became clear that, due to Fulton Hogan’s security guidelines (anti-phishing), the migration could not be started as usual via a link in an email. Instead, a customized solution was developed that made it possible to start the migration via a web clip. This allowed all users to initiate the migration process without violating company guidelines.
The EBF Onboarder, with its largely automated, easy-to-understand principle, is particularly advantageous in areas where users do not have in-depth technical knowledge. To further support the process, end users also received clear instructions for the migration.
The EBF team was available to the MobileNetwork team at all times to answer questions and resolve problems, and the MobileNetwork team in turn was available to Fulton Hogan’s colleagues. The migration of all 7,800 devices was successfully completed in just five months – half the time Fulton Hogan had originally expected for the migration process.
During the migration process, the monitoring function of EBF Onboarder was a great added value for Fulton Hogan: it allowed IT to track the migration status at any time. Users who had not yet migrated could be specifically reminded by IT using the notification function of EBF Onboarder, thus improving the migration rate.
The selection function was also helpful, as it made it possible, for example, to call up users from a specific region or with a specific function for migration. This allowed the communication strategy to be implemented in a focused manner.
Opting for a UEM system on a dedicated instance offers companies the advantage of being able to tailor it precisely to their requirements, while retaining full control over the system and data, as well as responsibility for administration, security, and maintenance. Thanks to the successful migration to the dedicated VMware instance, Fulton Hogan can now enjoy precisely these advantages and rely on reliable mobile device management.
The cooperation between MobileNetwork and EBF was a great advantage for Fulton Hogan. It was MobileNetwork that first brought the EBF solution to Fulton Hogan’s attention and informed them about the simple migration options. Previously, the company had feared that the change would require the assistance of numerous IT specialists who would have had to carry out the migration on site for the end users.
Fulton Hogan was now able to obtain all mobility solutions from its UEM partner and received a solution that was precisely tailored to the company’s needs. In addition, the company benefited from the well-coordinated processes of its local contact.
The result
Fulton Hogan was now able to obtain all mobility solutions from its UEM partner and received a solution that was precisely tailored to the company’s needs. The company also benefited from the well-coordinated processes of its local contact.
A solution that makes migration projects a success.
“The EBF migration tool saved us a lot of time and effort! It was a huge advantage for us to be able to carry out the migration in a controlled manner and divide users into groups based on geographical considerations or functions. We are grateful for the excellent support provided by EBF whenever changes or problems arose.”
“We are very grateful to EBF and its partners for making the implementation of such a large project much easier. We had already anticipated that many IT specialists would have to travel through New Zealand and Australia, but with the help of EBF Onboarder, this was not necessary.”
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