Vocational College Spesia

Vocational College Spesia (Ammattiopisto Spesia in finnish) is a vocational special education institution where a significant amount of health information and other confidential data is processed, making information security and data protection critically important within the organization. With our support, the institution adopted Microsoft’s A5-level security features.

More than 1,300 students who require special support study at Spesia each year. The need for special support may relate to, for example, learning difficulties, physical limitations, or social challenges. The main campuses of the college are located in Jyväskylä, Järvenpää, Pieksämäki and Turku.

In 2020, Spesia launched a project to put into practical use the security features of Microsoft’s highest licensing level (A5), which had been previously acquired. Discussions with us were initiated, and a detailed project plan for the deployments was created.

“Microsoft’s cloud-based application package at the A5 level offers a wide range of security features, and it would have been foolish not to make use of them,” says Niko Koivisto, Head of IT at Spesia. “The role of information security and data protection in today’s digital world is important for everyone.”

Smart services put into use

The main focus of the entire project was to improve information security across several areas. Useful services were activated according to the project plan, in a good and logical order. One of the most essential updates was the introduction of multi factor authentication, which was implemented for staff and now applies to all 670 Spesia employees. Students, however, cannot be required to use two factor authentication.

Improvements related to data protection, on the other hand, affect everyone.

“As a special education institution, protecting health data and other personal information is especially important for us, and updates were made in that area,” Koivisto says and continues:

“Accessibility is also a key issue for us, and for example, our public website was rebuilt to comply with current accessibility requirements. We are now also planning to redesign our intranet from an accessibility point of view.”

The project progressed at a calm pace, and the pandemic year also slowed down the deployment of certain features. For example, two factor authentication, initially planned for early in the year, was only introduced in August once remote work had become familiar.

Deep expertise combined

Spesia has its own IT team with solid competence. This expertise was further strengthened with Sulava’s know how to ensure it could be utilized to its fullest.

“We mainly build our own technical environment ourselves. In this project, your consultants have acted more like behind the scenes advisors — they have trained us to take the services into use,” says system specialist Tero Mäkikangas.

According to Koivisto, collaboration with Sulava over the years has been extremely smooth. Our training oriented and participatory approach has had a significant impact on ensuring that the products’ best features have been put into real practical use.

“Your people are customer oriented and great to work with. Even on a tight schedule we’ve always received help and answers to our questions, and things have moved forward efficiently. The agreed work has been completed on schedule despite the ongoing coronavirus situation,” Koivisto says.

“The work never ends”

In an ever digitizing world, development is by nature continuous, and new ideas and needs constantly emerge — the same is true at Spesia.

“Microsoft is rapidly renewing features that we have already taken into use. In addition, many services are merging or consolidating, and this also creates actions on our side,” Mäkikangas comments.

“There are still many products and services within the overall package that we have not yet adopted, and we are considering how to harness them. This work truly never ends,” Koivisto describes.

Published: April 2021
Author: Juhani Lassila