BYOD freedom or collaboration? Think where you draw the line, says Salvation Army

Salvation Army is rolling out BYOD on a step-by-step basis so as not to ruin what it set out to achieve

"Effectively we've been doing BYOD for more than 10 years," said Phil Durbin head of corporate systems of the Salvation Army in the UK and Ireland.

"The difference is that now it's being driven by consumerisation whereas before IT had to force users to adopt it."

Durbin was talking at the Computing Enterprise Mobility Summit 2013, where he gave a speech about how the charity's strategy had evolved over the years.

Ten years ago a select few could connect their own laptops to the organisation's Citrix Metaframe server. However, with the advent of the tablet and smartphone Durbin said this strategy was broadening out to include more and more users, including core staff, church ministers, clients and people interested in the organisation and its work.

The benefits promised by BYOD are well known, he said, but the way it is rolled out is crucial if targets are not to be missed. He said a step-by-step approach is essential to keep people on board.

"When we started this journey we had no VPN in place," he said. "But we did find we had a lot of prerequisites already in place."

Already a user of IBM Notes/Domino for email and calendar functions, Durbin says staff can now take this with them on a secure USB stick, allowing them to collaborate anywhere in the world."

Notes runs under iOS in an app called Traveler. In fact, the Salvation Army has standardised on iOS and Windows for its mobility strategy, as Durbin explained.

"When we first rolled out the strategy, of all those who signed up to say they were interested, only five per cent were Android users," he said.

This does not mean that Android devices are banned from the system, only that they may not be able to collaborate fully, because of the difficulty in integrating the different platforms. For this reason, as well as for the purposes of ensuring control and data security, Android users cannot access the full range of apps and services.

"Do we want them to be able to pick any device they choose? No. Let's not break ability to collaborate by allowing too much freedom," said Durbin, emphasising that a line had to be drawn somewhere. However, he said, the organisation is keen not to discriminate against any users, and that policy is constantly evolving.

For example, at present full BYOD is restricted to C-level managers because of licensing costs. However, using Citrix XenDesktop has recently enabled the Salvation Army to bring 500 more staff into the BYOD fold using virtual desktops, with the remainder still able to collaborate using traditional laptops connecting via the existing Windows Server estate. The organisation has also increased the number of wireless hotspots and the bandwidth it provides, to cover the majority of the 100 homeless hostels it runs. Its homeless clients also want to have Wi-Fi access so they can keep in touch, he said.

While the Salvation Army places a great emphasis on education about acceptable use and places a lot of trust in its staff, nevertheless it has put significant security measures in place, including local and remote wiping technology, encryption of data and devices, sandboxing some applications using Citrix Receiver, and intelligent authentication of users and devices before they are allowed to connect. All Web apps are routed through ELDAP servers and use HTTPS to communicate.

However, Durbin took a liberal line on the work-life balance aspect, insisting that allowing employees to use the organisation's infrastructure for personal use during work time is fair exchange for their being on call effectively 24 hours a day.

Durbin is keen that BYOD is creating new ways of working, but when it comes to support he said that self service is the ideal, describing this as YOYO - you're on your own.