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Michigan Knights of Columbus: Supporting a Nonprofit’s Large Statewide Membership and Network
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
Applicable Functions
- Human Resources
Use Cases
- Remote Collaboration
- Remote Control
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
The Michigan State Council of the Knights of Columbus, a statewide fraternal organization affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, was facing challenges in administering a statewide email system to facilitate communication throughout the organization. The Council provides remote support to approximately 2,000 state directors, local Grand Knights, and other local officers using the email system. However, the varying technology skill levels of the members and the geographical spread across the state of Michigan made it difficult to provide in-person support to everyone. The State Technology Support Director was spending a lot of time on the telephone trying to walk members through setting up their email and sometimes just helping them log into the system itself. The inability to see their computer screen or know whether they were following directions correctly made the troubleshooting process very aggravating for both parties. As a result, they decided they needed a remote support solution to better serve their members.
About The Customer
The Michigan State Council of the Knights of Columbus is a statewide fraternal organization affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. The Michigan State Council has approximately 70,000 members located throughout the state. From its beginnings, the Knights of Columbus have promoted the principles of charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism. Knights contribute to the welfare of their parishes and communities, and seek to help the needy through financial and volunteer support. The Michigan State Council administers a statewide email system to facilitate communication throughout the organization. The Council provides remote support to the approximately 2,000 state directors, local Grand Knights, and other local officers using the email system.
The Solution
The Michigan State Council of the Knights of Columbus decided to implement Bomgar's remote support solution to streamline the support process and improve the user experience for Knights of Columbus members. The Council chose to implement the Bomgar solution through a hosted license rather than having an appliance on-site due to the organization's structure of having one small office with two employees and its local and statewide officials performing work for the organization from their homes or offices. An important consideration in choosing Bomgar was security. With Bomgar, the Council knew that remote support sessions would employ 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard SSL to encrypt all application communications. The Bomgar solution was easy to use and improved the ability to help members by allowing the support team to log in and take a look at the situation rather than having members try to describe everything or read error messages. The support team could point members to the Bomgar log-in page or send them a link by email and with one click could immediately start troubleshooting their issue.
Operational Impact
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