AI-driven learning company Docebo serves over 3900 global customers ranging from Bridgestone to Fannie Mae to Zoom. As an enterprise company in its own right, Docebo supports employees worldwide—requiring daily collaboration between human resources and IT.
That collaboration is seamless today—but it wasn’t always.
As headcount grew, HR processes like onboarding and offboarding took up more time and introduced more room for human error. Both HR and IT were hobbled by long timelines and mundane tasks such as shipping devices and following up with new hires that left little space for strategic initiatives.
Relying on manually updated spreadsheets presented an opportunity to improve IT inventory management at Docebo. The team saw a need to increase visibility around device availability, location, repurposing, and security. Coupled with Docebo’s impressive global growth, there was a clear need for streamlined solutions that empowered HR and IT teams to scale effectively and confidently.
One year ago, Docebo started a conversation with Firstbase and hasn’t looked back.
Here’s how they’ve transitioned from manual mayhem to a partnership that automates key workflows, outsources device management, and provides an equal experience for all Docebo employees.
Challenge #1: Streamlining HR and IT Collaboration
Docebo was adding new global offices in the US, Canada, UK, EU, and Australia—with no sign of slowing. Yet that growth came at a cost felt acutely by HR and IT team members.
As new office locations opened, roles blurred. The IT team started relying on local office managers to purchase devices and get them into employee hands. HR was in charge of providing employee start dates, end dates, and equipment needs, but the timeline could take weeks.
“It was different in every region,” says Shane Stephens, IT Service Team Lead at Docebo. “When global companies grow, the size of each office varies. Some offices have a lot of people, while others have just a few. With a hybrid workforce, some don’t even have a central office. It was becoming burdensome for us and our partners inside of the business.”
In the United States, IT would receive an onboarding ticket from HR. The office manager would then personally coordinate with the new hire to schedule the laptop shipment and meticulously track the device’s status using a simple spreadsheet.
Using office managers as an IT lynchpin quickly proved problematic; not all offices have one, and those that do have regular duties of their own. This meant that device procurement was often delayed.
New hires missing equipment couldn’t work—hurting both employee morale and company productivity. And when old devices were unaccounted for, it was an auditing nightmare waiting to happen.
Solution: Streamlined workforce transitions and better device management
Today, Firstbase integrations allow all new hires and terminations to flow through Okta, the identity access management and identity provider system that Docebo uses to securely manage all IT applications and conduct user authentication.
Docebo’s Human Capital Management System (HCM) speaks directly to Okta. Instead of an HR employee manually creating an onboarding ticket using the same information already available in the HCM system, now all HR has to do is update the HCM system and the new hire profile is automatically created in Okta.
Thanks to the integration of Firstbase automations, an API call from Okta then triggers an email that is sent from the Firstbase platform to the new hire.
This streamlined process ensures a consistent, standardized employee experience. Previously, IT followed a set policy for providing laptops. However, employees sometimes attempted to renegotiate their assigned devices, leading to inconsistencies and inefficiencies.
Today, Docebo employees receive a polished email from Firstbase upon hire, complete with a savvy user interface that allows them to select from eligible devices in just a few clicks.
“Firstbase has helped tighten up that process and facilitated equity across employees. If you're in a specific role, it’s clear what is available to you,” Shane says.
The new process greatly reduces HR email correspondence and eliminates office managers from the IT equation. It’s automated, seamless, and standardized: the holy grail for a growing global company.
Automated API triggers also help tremendously with employee offboarding.
“Certain employee events are hard conversations for HR. When they get off a termination call, they might want to take a breather. This can cause a delay in the gathering of equipment for IT, slowing next steps,” Shane says.
Now, whenever the HR team makes changes in the HCM, the IT team is automatically alerted about an upcoming termination.
“We're getting alerts when any notable HR lifecycle moments are happening. This ensures we don't miss anything and everything is properly tracked.”
— Shane Stephens | IT Service Team Lead, Docebo
Challenge #2: Maintaining Device Security
In the past, fostering security awareness presented a significant challenge for the Docebo IT team. While IT team members were well-trained to prioritize security in their actions, extending this mindset across the organization remained an area of opportunity. 
Every laptop contains sensitive company data and represents a fixed asset on your financial books. Misused or missing equipment poses both a security risk and a financial risk.
Solution: World-class device security across the company
Firstbase leverages zero-touch provisioning, meaning new hire laptops are fully encrypted during setup with Okta SSO requirements enabled.
Docebo devices are no longer ordered or shipped by individual office managers. Instead, they arrive at the employee's doorstep ready to use, with the appropriate security settings intact.
When used equipment is retrieved, it’s collected, wiped, and disposed of securely by Firstbase instead of by Docebo team members.
“Firstbase has mitigated a lot of possible security incidents. We’re able to make sure that our laptops are clean, wiped, and secure.”
— Shane Stephens | IT Service Team Lead, Docebo
Challenge #3: IT Expertise on a Global Scale
HR tasks and IT security risks snowball as a company grows, but perhaps nothing is more of a black hole than international shipping and customs. Meeting device deadlines in a timely and secure manner was—without question—the IT team’s biggest pain point.
Docebo would encounter these common issues while provisioning its globally distributed employee workforce.
Take the Docebo Australia office as one example. With no in-office IT personnel the office manager was often delegated to run out and buy devices on the fly for new hires.
When employees offboarded or upgraded devices, equipment piled up until an IT team member from another global office could fly out and process them.
Solution: Efficient global device procurement and shipping
With Firstbase, device shipping and customs nightmares are finally a thing of the past. Docebo knows exactly where devices live, and can rely on an outsourced global partner to provision and recycle equipment quickly and securely.
“Before, everything was on a spreadsheet with somewhat accuracy. We didn't really have the ability to understand our fleet. Now that we have everything through Firstbase, we understand our inventory.”
— Shane Stephens | IT Service Team Lead, Docebo
“Now that we have Firstbase running, we know what we have out there. It's in our span of control. We're on pace to actually use AI and other tools to get predictive,” says Shane.
Instead of regularly scrambling to ship equipment, Docebo can now plan ahead for technology upgrades and forecast budgets. For example, the Docebo team can estimate the number of laptops needed for a refresh for the next fiscal year by connecting their preferred AI integrations via Firstbase’s Integration Hub.
Along with accurate data and more free time, Docebo now has automated workflows and tightened security loops that are guaranteed to be a winning combination for growth in the months ahead.
Eliminate Error and Gain Peace of Mind with Firstbase
While human connection is the heart of successful human resources, device provisioning and security are tasks that should be outsourced to scale global operations effectively.
Partnering with Firstbase has allowed Docebo HR and IT to eliminate countless moments of time lost to manual effort and human error.
“We had had some misses in the past, and we don't have those misses anymore,” Shane says. “Automation ensures that all that HR information goes to us directly. Even if the office manager is out of the office, it's automatically happening whether or not a human is there at all.”
To get started on the right foot, Shane recommends following Docebo’s approach:
“If you’re a globally distributed enterprise, I recommend starting with Firstbase for your new hire and termination workflows within the region that requires the least support. This allows you to assess what works best for your company. Then, once refined, expand Firstbase across your organization and integrate it with your other systems to build a seamless, professional experience.”
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