As a result of Finland’s healthcare and social services reform, the new Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava began operations on January 1, 2023. With this significant transformation, both permanent staff and external personnel—including temporary agency workers, external consultants, and council members—transitioned to using new systems. This shift required the development of a dedicated system to manage user accounts and access rights across these systems efficiently and securely.
The Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava implemented an Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution on the ServiceNow platform, utilizing Appmore’s ready-made “IAM Application” available in the ServiceNow Store. The solution enabled efficient and secure management of both employees and external personnel.
Sofigate was responsible for leading the project from requirements definition through to implementation. In collaboration with Appmore, the developer of the solution, the system was successfully deployed in just two months—an exceptionally fast timeline for IAM projects, which typically take years.
The system was built entirely from scratch, and its rapid deployment demonstrated the agile operating model and responsiveness of both Appmore and Sofigate in adapting to evolving customer needs. Thanks to close collaboration, the solution was fully operational when the wellbeing services county officially launched, supporting operations from day one.
The implementation of the Identity and Access Management solution remained strictly on schedule and was successfully launched on January 1, 2023. As a result, identity and access management for both permanent staff and external personnel functioned effectively from the outset.
The system automatically integrates personnel data daily from HR systems, enabling automatic creation and activation of user accounts on employees’ first working day. It also automatically assigns base access rights and distributes necessary licenses, such as Office 365.
For external personnel, a new form was added to the Vakka portal, allowing supervisors to request user accounts and access rights. Through the form, new individuals can be added, and existing contracts can be updated. The automated operating model delivered clear information security benefits: it reduced the risk of errors, ensured immediate removal of access rights upon termination of employment, created a transparent audit trail of all access changes, and guaranteed that the right individuals received the right access at the right time.
The solution significantly improved the efficiency and security of personnel management, particularly in relation to external users.
At the beginning of 2023, the social and healthcare services of the cities of Vantaa and Kerava, along with the Central Uusimaa Rescue Department, were transferred to the newly established Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava. The new organization is responsible for providing social and healthcare services to approximately 280,000 residents of Vantaa and Kerava, while rescue services cover approximately 470,000 residents across Vantaa, Kerava, and the Central Uusimaa wellbeing services area.
As a key part of the reform, the wellbeing services county decided to centralize identity and access management on the ServiceNow digitalization platform. The system currently manages approximately 7,000 identities, including both employees and external individuals such as agency workers, consultants, and council members. To meet this challenge, the “IAM Application” solution developed by Appmore and built on the ServiceNow platform was selected, offering the required rapid implementation schedule along with easy configuration and maintenance. Identity and access management played a critical role in the reform, particularly in managing daily changes to user accounts and access rights. The implementation timeline was only two months and included HR integration, development of external user management forms, implementation of a multi-contract model, integrations with Active Directory and Entra ID, and the definition of job roles that governed base access rights and account provisioning.
Regarding the implementation project and its execution, Niina Roth, Head of Information Management at VAKE, stated:
“The project was carried out at an incredible pace. We only had five weeks, and Appmore invested heavily to ensure everything was completed. Without their support, we would not have succeeded. That was extremely valuable to us.”.
When evaluating whether the application met the expectations set prior to deployment, Niina Roth commented: “The IAM Application has met our expectations, and it has strong capabilities and versatile features.” During 2023, the system automated approximately 250,000 identity and access management-related tasks.
A key tool of the wellbeing services county is the Vakka portal built by Sofigate and powered by ServiceNow technology, which serves as a centralized service management solution for employees. Through this versatile portal platform, employees can request support, submit service requests, and access a comprehensive knowledge base for guidance and troubleshooting. In addition, the Vakka portal enables identity and access management processes such as managing external personnel, requesting additional access rights, approving access requests, and reviewing personal and subordinate access rights—all from a single centralized source.
Sofigate, which built the service management solution, acted as a partner in this implementation project, being responsible for project management, requirements definition, and deployment in cooperation with the solution developer, Appmore. This required defining new systems and processes from the ground up and designing them to be as user-friendly as possible, ensuring personnel could manage the system effectively and securely while preventing duplicate accounts.
Following the initial deployment, identity and access management has continued to expand. Additional managed systems have been added, unit- and department-specific job roles have been introduced, and the telephony system has been integrated into the IAM solution to further enhance efficiency and security in critical processes.
Furthermore, integrations have been implemented with key systems such as workforce management for temporary staff, the patient information system, the case and decision management system, and the ERP system used as the master source of organizational data. Through these integrations, personnel information, job roles, and access rights remain continuously up to date, regardless of whether the individual is a permanent employee or an external worker.
Discussing the suitability of the solution for similar organizations, Niina Roth noted: “The benefit is that if ServiceNow is already in use, this IAM application fits perfectly on top of it. I don’t believe we will ever consider another IDM system again. We no longer plan to look at large standalone systems, especially as AI will support further development in the future.”
