Early Learning Coalition of Palm Beach County Gets a Head Start on Secure Access with Idaptive

Early childhood education is crucial in the development and lives of kids. It’s when they first learn basic skills, how to interact with others, and develop interests that will stay with them throughout the rest of their lives. For the past 20 years, the Early Learning Coalition of Palm Beach County, Florida has ensured that families in its community have access to high-quality early learning programs and services that children need to succeed in school and life. 

Threatening its own growth and development though, were technical constraints and the need to build out a cloud infrastructure to support its rapidly growing team. 

“We didn’t have the infrastructure or services necessary to handle the anticipated increase in employees,” said Luis Mena, Director of IT at Early Learning Coalition (ELC). “So we were under a tight deadline to roll out entirely new infrastructure.” 

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ELC had decided to bring their services in house and offer them directly to the public. This major undertaking would require 100 new employees as well as the opening of new satellite offices. To do this, ELC would forgo building on-premises infrastructure in favor of the ease and speed of the cloud. 

Mena began searching for a platform that could provide authentication and single sign-on for such a cloud, two-factor authentication for their new remote users, and was compliant with state and local regulations such as HIPAA. He also needed to find a complementary solution to manage security for their mobile devices – critical tools for keeping caregivers and parents connected. 

To make all this happen, ELC needed not only a strong technology solution to serve as a primary building block, they also needed a guiding hand to help them through this transition. Enter Idaptive to secure identity and access during this ambitious digital transformation overhaul. 

Idaptive was able to provide not only the technology needed, but also strategic advice for their move to the cloud. Today, every time an ELC employee logs into their system – whether on company-owned or their own personal devices – they get automatic access to email, Box.com, and a number of other corporate apps. According to Mena, authentication through Idaptive is so seamless that users don’t even know it’s happening and IT can easily set up new users from any location. 

“We have new users starting every day and I set them up remotely with one password that allows them into their computer and virtually all the services they need,” said Mena. “And when employees leave, it’s as simple as disabling one account and all their services are disabled with it. It simplifies onboarding and offboarding and saves time and money. And now, weeks go by without us having to reset a single password or unlock an account.”

The result is that when users log in from home (or anywhere) they rest assured that devices and information are secure at all times. ELC, too, is confident that they are meeting their state’s demands for keeping Social Security numbers and other sensitive info from parents and children stowed away safely. Or more simply put, this means easy access to critical applications whether in the classroom, the office, or on the move. 

With this move to the cloud — and identity and access secured for both employees and parents through Idaptive – the Early Learning Coalition can now carry out its mission to provide incredible early learning environments that benefit the children and families of the region now, and throughout their development.