Field notes · small-org & government IT
Field notes from a small government IT shop
Practical automation, security, and civic tech for people who are the whole IT department.
I'm Ryan Bertram, an IT director for a mid-size city in Michigan. I write about the unglamorous work of keeping a lean public-sector IT operation running, generalized from real projects so you can reuse it.
Expect PowerShell that provisions accounts, Python that moves the data nobody wants to touch by hand, Flask apps that replace a spreadsheet and a prayer, and hard-won lessons about doing more with a small team and a smaller budget.
Latest
HR-driven provisioning: hires and exits as data, not email
IT is always the last to know. How I wired hires and departures to the HR system with a 20-line export diff, and why the trigger beats any script.
Microsoft 365 onboarding: licenses, mailbox timing, Teams
Directory sync runs every 30 minutes and a new mailbox is not instant. How I sequence sync, licensing, and mailbox checks so day-one access actually works.
When to delete a former employee's account (and how)
A disabled account should not sit forever. My 90-day grace period, the pre-delete checklist, and the retention questions to answer before anything is gone.
Views here are my own and do not represent any employer. Nothing on this site describes the specific systems, data, or configuration of any organization I work for.