San Joaquin County transformed from a “pre-foundational” state with zero visibility into IT operations to a mature, organized operation in just three years. Management gained comprehensive insight into workloads and resource allocation through a unified platform, enabling informed strategic decisions across all 25 departments.
The entire TeamDynamix environment serving 10,000 employees across the county is managed by just half an FTE. This lean administration model freed up valuable IT resources to focus on strategic initiatives rather than platform maintenance, proving the solution scales without requiring additional headcount.
Beyond IT, departments like HR and the Public Defender’s Office moved from spreadsheet and email-based manual workflows to standardized, trackable processes, giving customers visibility into request status and dramatically reducing manual tasks and errors.
Industry: Public Sector
End-users: 10,000
Previous System: BMC Track-It
San Joaquin County faced fragmented service management across 25 departments and 10,000 employees, operating with outdated systems that provided no visibility into IT operations.
As Thomas explained, “When I came into this role four years ago, I saw they had a fairly basic ticketing system in place with a product called BMC Track-It. They weren’t differentiating between the types of work or requests, and there really wasn’t high adoption or consistent use of the tool as a result. This meant the management team did not have good visibility or control over what the IT team was doing.”
To remedy this, CIO Mark Thomas implemented TeamDynamix as a comprehensive IT Service Management (ITSM) and Enterprise Service Management (ESM) platform, transforming the county from a “pre-foundational” state to mature IT operations within three years.
The results included automated financial processes, streamlined workflows across multiple departments and remarkably efficient administration—all managed by just half an FTE.
“We needed a comprehensive platform that also included project portfolio management capabilities,” Thomas said. “We saw, with TeamDynamix, that we could support the platform without a lot of dedicated resources. By bringing everything together in a single tool, we are able to get a comprehensive view of everyone’s workloads and better manage the resources we have. Having that single pane of glass view has been really, really helpful.”
San Joaquin County serves one million residents through 25 diverse departments employing 10,000 workers. Thomas describes counties as “medium-sized conglomerates,” noting, “The range of services we deliver goes from healthcare all the way to public defense, each with its unique challenges.”
As Thomas explained, prior to implementing TeamDynamix, the IT department was ripe for change.
The county’s IT operations suffered from poor visibility and inefficient processes, which caused several challenges, including:
Legacy ITSM Infrastructure – Because the main ticketing system, BMC Track-It, was so “pre-foundational” in its implementation, there wasn’t a strong adoption of use across IT and other departments.
Fragmented Operations – There were multiple unlinked ticketing systems across distributed IT teams, separate project management systems that isolated task management, email-based request handling that bypassed official channels and no unified platform connecting the county’s diverse departments.
Visibility and Control Gaps – “Management had zero insight into where the work was happening or if it was even being tracked,” Thomas said. “It left us unable to make informed decisions about resources and strategy.”
Enterprise-Wide Service Delivery Issues – “HR managed services in spreadsheets, email inboxes or personal drives,” Thomas said. “Customers really had no visibility into the status of their requests and sometimes hadn’t heard back in months or longer.” The Public Defender’s Office faced labor-intensive manual tracking for expungement requests that moved through several agencies. “There was no consistent way to track these requests,” Thomas adds.
Complex Financial Processes – “We are a 100% chargeback operation,” Thomas said, so being able to transparently track and recoup all expenses for work done is critical. Prior to TeamDynamix, staff were responsible for tracking and keeping those records themselves – manually coding it all.
San Joaquin County selected TeamDynamix to address these multifaceted challenges through a strategic, phased implementation.
“We started an envisioning session,” Thomas said. “It was a call to arms, really, and we brainstormed together, trying to identify where we had similar problems and challenges, and how we could solve them.”
Central IT focused on education first: “Self-service adoption depended on us making sure everyone understood what incidents and service requests look like,” Thomas said.
“By bringing everything together in a single tool, we are able to get a comprehensive view of everyone’s workloads and better manage the resources we have.”
Because service is so distributed, there was a need to expand the use of TeamDynamix across several departments outside of IT. This included:
“Instead of central IT doing everything,” Thomas explained, “we empowered each department to handle its own content and service items. That’s made our platform agile and responsive to real business needs.”
Another reason behind the decision to move to TeamDynamix was the ability to integrate the TeamDynamix ITSM platform with other third-party systems.
As Thomas explained before, the IT department is a chargeback organization, meaning they aren’t funded directly through the general fund, but instead get funded by the work they do for their clients.
“Connecting TeamDynamix to Workday via TeamDynamix’s integration and automation layer was a game changer,” Thomas said. “Now labor hours are tracked automatically, and the process has transparency. We’ve removed a lot of the manual processes and burdens on our staff in making sure we’re recouping the costs from our clients.”
San Joaquin County achieved transformative improvements across multiple areas, including:
Operational Maturity – In only three years, the county has moved from pre-foundational chaos to a mature, organized operation.
Administrative Efficiency – “Our TeamDynamix environment is run by half an FTE,” Thomas said. “He helps administrate other tools, and has a number of other duties, but spends some of his time supporting TeamDynamix county-wide.”
Financial Process Automation -“The process of charging the department runs on a monthly basis and is entirely automated now,” Thomas explained. “Staff members no longer have to try and keep those records themselves.”
Enterprise Scalability – “Adopting TeamDynamix has a platform for the entire county has allowed us to create a system where Central IT can coordinate much better with distributed teams and departments,” Thomas said, noting many of the other teams have adapted well to the ITSM components of the tool, especially when it comes to self-service.
“Ultimately, with a more comprehensive system, we have the ability to measure service delivery across all departments and services now and then apply continuous process improvement to continue to improve – we couldn’t do that before,” Thomas said.
Modernizing San Joaquin County’s service management demonstrates the power of strategic platform selection and phased implementation.
Key success factors included foundational education, stakeholder engagement through envisioning workshops, a quick-win pilot, and leveraging the platform’s flexibility to delegate administration efficiently. Integration with existing systems automated critical processes, while the no-code tools enabled tailored workflows without technical barriers.
Looking forward, Thomas is optimistic: “Our Parks Department is super excited about using the ESM functionality for everything from making it easier for the public to report issues at the parks to asset management and preventative maintenance – all those sorts of things.”
