Saving 350 Hours for BMC Software in the First 2 Months After Implementation

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The Challenge

A Disciplined Approach to Production

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With an open-source DevOps process, BMC needed help to navigate the sandboxes and spreadsheets required to merge code streams and sync multiple release trains before production deployments. Developers would often step on each other’s toes and overwrite changes — leading to long hours and late nights.

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“It required significant manual effort to prepare deployments, reducing the time developers could spend building new features and increasing deployment windows,” recalls Riggan. “It wasn’t efficient. The faster we can get something deployed, validated, and into the business’ hands, the faster we’re back to business as usual.”

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Another concern: How many developers needed admin access for code deployments. This increased the possibility of serious mistakes and heightened the risk of accidental security breaches and data leaks.

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Key Challenges

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The Solution

Automating the Equivalent of 2 Full-Time Employees with Copado

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BMC implemented the Copado DevOps Platform after taking stock of its current process and realizing that it could automate a great deal of work, the equivalent of two full-time employees.

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“We looked at the amount of time it took us to deploy,” says Riggan. “How many hours do we spend to create, test and deploy a package to production? How many incidents do we see in the code? How many deployments do we average per year? We aggregated the numbers and realized we were using the equivalent of two full-time employees on things that weren’t adding business value.”

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Another critical reason BMC chose Copado: Organization-wide standardization. BMC is a large enterprise with thousands of employees and dozens of teams across the globe. A standardized Salesforce DevOps Platform with an admin-friendly (low-code) toolset lowers the learning curve and reduces change management.

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“As we rotate people into other teams, having a familiar process means quick adoption and no need to master a new toolset,” says Riggan.  

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With Copado, BMC has explicit control over admin privileges within the production environment. To lock down security, they can grant access to a service user, eliminating the need to grant individual developers admin access in production. The DevOps platform allows BMC to instantly address hiccups by rolling back individual User Stories. Finally, Copado gives BMC end-to-end traceability to help them meet audit requirements for Salesforce.

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The Outcome

More Automation, Faster Deployments, and Happier Developers

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Copado tackles tedious deployment tasks for BMC — freeing up developers to build enhancements and deliver new capabilities that add value to the business. BMC runs production deployments every three weeks and can easily deploy within a few hours to tackle show-stopping defects.

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“We can do faster deployments if there’s a critical security issue or business functionality we want to launch to deliver value,” says Riggan. “But we typically follow a 3-week cycle to reduce change management and customer impact.”

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Shaving 30 Minutes Off Each Sandbox Deployment

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Thanks to Copado, BMC has already saved 350 hours in production deployments within the first two months post-implementation. The IT team leverages low-code automation to save 15 minutes on User Story and package creation (77 hours in total savings). Copado has automated 300+ code commits and shaves 30 minutes off each sandbox deployment.

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"My Salesforce director did a great job evaluating Copado and convinced me we'd see ROI with Copado," says Riggan. "And it's worked out for us. Developers don't like pulling together audit information, manually remediating issues, or working weekends. Copado has helped team morale and work-life balance aspects."

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The Copado DevOps Platform improves the IT leader's flexibility and agility by eliminating manual work and keeping developers focused on value-adding activities that drive innovation. The more BMC can automate, the more work it can achieve. By saving hundreds of hours, Copado accelerates BMC's productivity and revenue generation.

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The Future

Expanding Copado to Future-Proof the Autonomous Digital Enterprise

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After rolling out a pilot program and achieving instant success, BMC plans to expand its usage of the Copado DevOps Platform and purchase enough licenses to cover the entire development team.

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"We're always looking for ways to digitize and automate as much work as possible so our team can focus on delivering value," says Riggan. "With Copado taking care of tedious, repetitive, tasks, my team can focus on business value creation."