Today, we're shining the spotlight on a new Community Hero:
Joost was nominated by our previous Community Hero,
Joost has been working at Cegeka for 9 years now. After a few years on the service desk and as a team leader, he wanted something different, though he wasn't quite sure what yet. On a colleague's advice, he landed on Cegeka's TOPdesk team. That turned out to be a great fit: he's now been working there as a consultant for 4 years, and enjoying every bit of it.
From a solid foundation to optimisation
No two days look the same for Joost, since his work varies a lot from customer to customer. TOPdesk is always the starting point though: the reason to kick off the conversation about processes and IT landscape, or the reason workflow automation gets going in the first place. His approach is consistent — start with a solid foundation, steer towards best practices, and from there look at where things can be optimised and automated.
The fun, for him, is in the variation: "TOPdesk is set up differently pretty much everywhere," as Joost puts it, and it's the challenging questions that come with that which keep the work fresh and interesting.
Staying informed and thinking along
For Joost, the real value of the Community lies in the questions that come in. They keep him up to speed on what's going on and what people are running into. The creativity and range of possibilities that show up in the answers are exactly what keep him coming back. It gives him a good sense of what's happening with TOPdesk, how it's being used, and it hands him new insights and solutions he can take straight back to customers. He also appreciates the updates from TOPdesk itself: a good platform to keep track of all communications, and one that's kept tidy and well maintained.
Landing on the same answer, together
One of his favourite moments in the Community is the time he and Jeroen shared almost the exact same answer at nearly the same moment, as happened in this topic on JSON and operations management. He also enjoys coming across answers or functionality he hadn't thought of himself — every so often he'll spot Sanne or Jeroen suggesting something that he happily adds to his own TOPdesk knowledge.
His tip for new members
Getting started with action sequences? Take a look at the API documentation. When Joost was starting out, he had an experienced consultant who'd call him out if he didn't have it open while building action sequences — and it stuck. "I still use it every day, whether it's to quickly look something up or to lose an hour in it when I can't find what I need."
What he's proud of: automated BIO compliance checks
At a municipal organisation, a major challenge revolved around BIO checks — under Dutch law and regulations (Baseline Informatiebeveiliging Overheid, the government's information security baseline), various checks need to be carried out periodically across the application landscape. Within TOPdesk Asset Management, Joost extended the application template with a dedicated setup for these checks, with the different check types and their scheduled dates laid out clearly in a separate widget.
Based on these dates, action sequences then automatically create tickets whenever a check is due, describing exactly which steps need to be carried out. Once completed, documents are linked to the application where needed, stakeholders are informed, and the next check is scheduled automatically.
This setup now supports seven different check processes, each with its own automation — and it's built to scale, so changes can easily be made without having to redesign the whole process. A challenging and interesting problem where process design, compliance requirements, and technical automation come together. As Joost puts it himself: "I'm really happy with the solution we managed to build."
Joost is a Community Hero because he shows how much value you can add by sharing your knowledge, genuinely taking the time to write a good answer, and turning complex challenges into smart, scalable solutions.
Thank you, Joost, for your valuable contribution to the TOPdesk Community 💙