Customer Story
Nolte Küchen GmbH & Co. KG
Germany‘s most popular kitchen manufacturer maximizes visibility and IT operational efficiency for its HCL Notes clients with panagenda MarvelClient.
Nolte Küchen GmbH & Co. KG
Furniture (Kitchens)
1,300 with 750 HCL Notes users
HCL Notes Client Management
using MarvelClient
Challenges
Solutions
A comprehensive solution
Nolte Küchen was an early adopter of HCL Notes/Domino. Since their initial deployment in 1997, they have embraced the platform’s new features and functionality quickly to add value to their employees. Recent solutions like HCL Nomad were deployed immediately to enable easy access to Domino applications from mobile devices. The infrastructure is managed by an internal team of IT experts led by Dr. Dirk Kirchhoff, Team Lead of HCL Notes/Domino at Nolte Küchen.
Challenges for the IT team
The team learned from the early days of support and administration that using the default, manual tools would make efficient administration almost impossible. Like most IT software environments, Notes/Domino landscapes are dynamic – with new releases, regular fix packs, changes to operating systems, and client hardware upgrades. The result is a circulation of multiple Notes client configurations, where maintenance and updates become more complex and time consuming.
Nolte Küchen quickly came to realize that the free admin tools were lacking the necessary capabilities to effectively manage their Notes client installations successfully and keep up with release cycles and innovations. A powerful Notes client management solution was needed.
Comfort through modernization
In 2010 Nolte Küchen moved forward with the deployment of the MarvelClient solution from panagenda. The decision was made quite quickly. Already during the test phase, the administrative time savings were so significant that Nolte Küchen decided to use MarvelClient for this reason alone.
Time-intensive, administrative processes were digitized, standardized, and automated. Manual processes and process errors were reduced. The overall process and IT operational efficiency of the Notes client infrastructure was significantly increased.
Successful Notes client upgrades and harmonization Over the following 10 years Nolte Küchen has performed 8(!) client upgrades to keep pace with the release cycle for HCL Notes as well as their own requirements. Thanks to MarvelClient, Nolte Küchen has been able to upgrade their Notes clients by leveraging an automated process with complete oversight and tracking. All upgrade projects were seamless and successful with no impact to their users.
Even with an active virus scanner running, an average Notes client upgrade takes only 10-15 minutes. The last upgrade project used an independent, phased approach across different departments and completed 95% of the entire organization in less than 8 weeks.
Leveraging this step-by-step approach for Notes client standardization and modernization, the IT team has managed to reduce the time required to support their environment while also improving user productivity.
Reduced help-desk effort and reliable automation
During the upgrade, a previously defined standard configuration is simultaneously deployed on each Notes client. Using the self-healing functions of MarvelClient they were able to automatically reset any non-standard changes that were made by end-users inadvertently.
This way, potential Notes client problems are automatically resolved with every Notes start-up before they can trigger a fault or ticket. This not only leads to a significant reduction in help-desk workload due to inconsistent Notes client configurations, but also to highest possible reliability of Notes clients, minimal downtime, and high employee satisfaction.
Business Value Benefits
MarvelClient has enabled Nolte Küchen to optimize their HCL Notes clientmanagement and standardize all user installs with a consistent confi guration. If any modifications are made through user error, they will be rectifi ed and reset to the standard, supported settings on the next client start. These automated, self-healing functions enable the IT organization to ensure a consistent environment for their users and reduce the number of IT support calls caused by client installation issues.
Specific improvements to the management of HCL Notes include the following:
Business Value Benefits
MarvelClient has enabled Nolte Küchen to optimize their HCL Notes clientmanagement and standardize all user installs with a consistent confi guration. If any modifications are made through user error, they will be rectifi ed and reset to the standard, supported settings on the next client start. These automated, self-healing functions enable the IT organization to ensure a consistent environment for their users and reduce the number of IT support calls caused by client installation issues.
Specific improvements to the management of HCL Notes include the following:
Reduced Help-Desk Support Calls
MarvelClient has enabled Nolte Küchen to effectively reduce their support calls for Notes client issues. Hundreds of help desk tickets have been removed from the queue by enforcing a consistent implementation of the HCL Notes software on each computer, whether it is running on Citrix or on a standard Laptop or Desktop computer.
Standardized Client Deployments
Thanks to the MarvelClient selfhealing functionality for all client endpoints, practically all user problems are solved automatically by simply restarting the Notes client. This self-healing process ensures minimal downtime by resetting the Notes client confi gurations and notes.ini settings automatically.
Automated Client Upgrades
Enterprise software deployments require a regular refresh as new functionality and enhancements are rolled out. Desktop client software upgrades such as HCL Notes are complex due to the different endpoint operating systems, hardware processing speeds, and the required coordination of installation processes to reduce user downtime. MarvelClient helps streamline the entire process by empowering IT administrators with the deployment of a validated upgrade package for each type of endpoint computer, and the fl exibility to schedule user upgrades that meet the business timelines of each user.
Working Mobile in Citrix
Using HCL Notes with Citrix would be nearly impossible without the implementation of MarvelClient. By leveraging the integration of MarvelClient Roaming, Nolte Küchen has been able to exceed their IT support requirements for the Notes clients running Citrix and offer their employees a secure, mobile workplace.
Future Plans
Nolte Küchen is focused on simplifying administration for their IT group and improving productivity for their workforce. To assist Nolte Küchen’s IT group with accurate monitoring and automated client upgrade processing for their HCL Notes deployments, the new MarvelClient capabilities will be installed in 2021. This will enable their IT administrators to proactively identify and remediate any client issues before they become a problem.
Nolte Küchen is Germany‘s favorite kitchen brand.
As one of the world’s largest kitchen furniture manufacturers, Nolte Küchen stands for durability and a high level of precision since the 1950s. To this day, the family-owned company relies on German manufacturing and is characterized by the highest quality standards.
In order to deliver the best state-of-the-art furniture, Nolte Küchen constantly improves their products and manufacturing processes.
Every day, 880 kitchens are shipped to more than 60 countries around the world.
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