The customer is a part of the UK public sector’s cybersecurity arm, working in an advisory and facilitatory capacity, similar to The Digital Transformation Service and iTECS in Scotland – two organisations that Bluewave has worked with previously. This organisation is a collaboration of key strategic stakeholders within the public sector, all brought together to focus efforts on improving cyber resilience across the region in a coordinated and coherent way.
The organisation’s goals are to increase security effectiveness and impact, avoid duplication of effort across government bodies, increase communication and knowledge sharing, evolve the region’s cybersecurity community, and to help local businesses and organisations access security information, guidance, and support. Our client focuses on providing and facilitating the availability of solutions for online threats, such as being the intermediary between penetration test providers and applicants.
The customer wanted to improve their testing application process and upgrade their internal systems. As the client is an intermediary between applicants and penetration testing providers, the system would have to provide two elements seamlessly: portal access for applicants, as well as portal entry for providers. Pentest providers specifically would need their own entry to the portal so that they could set up the appropriate scoping meeting and share details about meeting arrangements, as well as to upload invoices for their agreed services.
Due to government accessibility guidelines, multiple forms for data entry were required in the portal environment, in order for the build to progress without issues. Additionally, the customer required the ability to verify all submissions and manage each case that was raised, using their own internal specialists.
Bluewave proposed a Salesforce-powered, interactive portal build, crafted using Experience Cloud and Service Cloud, and designed to allow applicants from within the public sector to request penetration tests through our client’s systems, as well as provide details around their requirements.
Experience Cloud is designed to help organisations interact with customers across multiple channels, through connected websites, portals, and applications. This solution allows users to create customer-first digital experiences and evolve those experiences fast, thanks to the flexible, trusted, Salesforce platform. Experience Cloud can be used to create self-serve customer service portals, channel management solutions for businesses and their partners, responsive account portals, forums, or something completely bespoke. These portals can be easily branded to suit any organisation, can be adapted for use on any device, and can integrate data from any source, allowing users to increase engagement, track and optimise portals and platforms, and keep information organised and accessible.
Service Cloud is designed to help users provide industry-leading support, solve problems fast, and provide customers with an all-digital, end-to-end experience. The solution’s suite of tools allows users to support customer interactions on any channel, automate business processes, get shared,actionable insight into every customer interaction, and increase efficiency by harnessing the power of AI.
Bluewave built out an Experience Cloud portal using Salesforce with MFA, which would be used by the customer’s applicants and penetration testing providers. The pentest providers would have their own respective page variations, designed to suit their specific set of functions. This required the addition of purpose built flows, which were needed to progress the pentest process. Controls were put in place for portal registration and validation and portal admin functionality was put in place for existing portal users to recommend new users for portal access.
Our technical experts also utilised Service Cloud to build out a system that the organisation’s in-house team could use to manage and triage cases. The platform was also crafted with automatic notifications built in, to inform the next stakeholder to continue the process and allowing users to seamlessly follow an internal journey.
The build was carried out collaboratively and fluidly, as the customer was in the process of finalising an agreement with Resillion – a penetration testing provider. Due to the addition of this new function, our experts had to optimise and enhance the build in real time, as more benchmarked ways of working became apparent throughout the testing phase. Working in an agile manner is something that our technical team is used to, so this challenge was not a significant barrier to the success of the project. Utilising the strong communication skills we are known for, and applying our deep Salesforce knowledge and experience from previous projects, our team was able to work with our client’s leadership team, project managers, and technical experts to deliver a great result.
“The solution we built is designed to allow applicants to apply for penetration test services, submit specific requirements for their needs, and for pentest providers to work through the process all the way to invoice submission and completion – and for the customer to facilitate and monitor all of this activity at every step of the way.
As the organisation was moving to a new penetration test provider, the main issue was to time the testing appropriately to onboard the new service providers and give them enough time to feedback as needed. Additionally, as a new team was being onboarded into an existing environment with multiple teams, regression testing was essential to ensure all existing processes continued to work as intended.” – Senior Consultant and Technical Lead at Bluewave
The Bluewave Way is our agile implementation process, which has led to the delivery of over 250 successful Salesforce projects and engagements over the last decade, with this customer now counted amongst them. Communication with our client flowed easily and was kept up regularly between our experts and their team. The whole process was handled expertly by our project managers who kept the lines of communication open at all times and were able to delegate tasks to our technical team.
“The customer’s team were excellent to work with. All documents and information were sent to us in a timely fashion, which allowed us to move forward with the build quickly. Our team and the client’s team aligned very well, which led to a very smooth project and produced an excellent end result.” – Senior Project Manager at Bluewave
“Working with this customer was a great experience, they responded to all emails quickly and with the requested information and were happy to jump on calls with us where we explained functionality or any issues we were having. All issues were resolved promptly and the build was collaborative and enjoyable throughout.” – Senior Consultant and Technical Lead at Bluewave
The project was completed in October and officially went live on 2/10/2024, with no reported issues whatsoever over the past three months. The customer now has the capacity to invite all public sector stakeholders to apply for penetration tests for their sites and systems, as well as for pentesting providers to connect to those applicants, understand their requirements, and fulfill their function. The portal is fully branded in alignment with the design and colours that allow it to fit in seamlessly with other public sector portals and websites. Our client can also oversee the entire process with a full 360 view of applications, applicants, and provider progress. The organisation can view case progress in Service Cloud and ensure validity and best practice throughout, while also progressing the case to the next stages with just a few clicks.
