Smooth communication is essential in today's hybrid working world. That's why the largest Dutch healthcare provider, Zorg van de Zaak, makes it a priority to provide its employees with the contact details of all colleagues on their iPhones from day one. The contacts are synchronized and made available via the cloud-based solution sync.blue® .
sync.blue® at Zorg van de Zaak – The Highlights at a Glance
Automated deployment of the central Microsoft Entra ID (formerly “Azure AD”) address book via Microsoft Intune on 1,300 iPhones
Flexible integration of multiple on-premises and cloud sources
Security-by-design approach for secure and GDPR-compliant
Scalable and high-performance provision for massive concurrent access
Manufacturer-independent solution for a wide range of applications
Still largely unknown in Germany, Zorg van de Zaak is a household name for practically every employer and employee in the neighboring Netherlands : The company, whose name roughly translates as “care for the matter,” has made it its mission to enable people to participate consistently, fulfillingly and in a customized way in working and social life.
About Zorg van de Zaak
Zorg van de Zaak is a Dutch company that provides services in the field of occupational health and work ability management . The company offers a wide range of services designed to support employers and employees in all matters relating to health, prevention of work incapacity and reintegration into the work process. The company, based in Utrecht, is present at over 40 locations in the Netherlands and currently employs around 1,300 people .
Communication is Key
In order to do justice to this broad range of tasks, the employees of Zorg van de Zaak rely on smooth communication in many respects : when dealing with enquiries in offices and authorities, when talking to employers and employees – but above all when communicating with their own colleagues:
Because we want our supervisors to be reachable and able to make decisions at all times, every colleague receives an iPhone on their first day with all the applications they need in their daily life – and an up-to-date address book in which all internal contacts are stored
explains Jeroen Kahle, IT manager at Zorg van de Zaak .
Fully Automated, Cloud-based Service
The starting point of the project was not atypical: Zorg van de Zaak operates a modern, largely cloud-based infrastructure in which the contact details of employees are centrally stored in Microsoft Entra ID (formerly "Microsoft Azure AD") and carefully maintained. In practice, however, making this database available on employees' iPhones proved to be complex in several respects:
The manufacturers Microsoft and Apple do not yet offer a dedicated interface for this form of synchronization. The integration of the services therefore had to be realized via an additional manufacturer-independent cloud platform.
As part of the project, Zorg van de Zaak wanted to keep the option open of expanding the existing address data with additional data from other sources. The solution should therefore be as open as possible and be able to include data available both in the cloud and on-premises.
Since the contact details of employees are sensitive personal information of EU citizens, the integration had to meet strict security requirements and legal regulations – keyword: GDPR .
For Oliver Baltz, Managing Director of sync.blue®, this is a very representative list of requirements:
Thousands of companies around the world are now faced with the challenge of integrating Microsoft and Apple. Technically, this task is best solved with an external cloud platform such as sync.blue®, which takes the contact data from Entra ID or Azure AD and, thanks to Microsoft Intune, makes it available fully automatically in real time on employees' iPhones . This is exactly the approach we took at Zorg van de Zaak. But as is often the case, some individual configurations were required to cover all requirements - for example with regard to the required enrichment of contact data from various external sources.
Consistent Security-by-Design Approach
The synchronization service implemented by sync.blue® scored points from day one as a simple and intuitive solution that operates largely automatically and requires virtually no manual intervention – an important advantage for Zorg van de Zaak.
Even more importantly, access to contact data is reliably protected at all times by a strong combination of password and client secret, and the data is hosted exclusively in the EU. This consistent security-by-design approach is crucial for the team with regard to security and compliance - especially in view of the strict GDPR requirements and industry standards that the company must meet as a European healthcare provider.
Further Areas of Application in Sight
Today, about six months after implementation, Jeroen Kahle’s assessment of the project is entirely positive :
In sync.blue® we have found a partner who has understood our pain points exactly – and who has done everything from day one to implement our wishes without compromise. In this way, we now benefit from a professional and flexible solution that our employees can rely on at all times – and which ultimately benefits our customers above all. We are now very much looking forward to working with sync.blue® to explore how we can expand the platform in the future, for example with a view to connecting additional sources or integrating multiple internal and external identities.
About sync.blue
sync.blue® is a service for synchronizing contacts across different applications and devices. sync.blue® enables seamless synchronization of your contacts and supports one-way and two-way synchronization. sync.blue® is known for its broad app compatibility and compliance with the highest data protection standards such as GDPR data protection standards.