How CoreView Helps HALO Secure Global Microsoft 365 Estate

The HALO Trust is the world's largest humanitarian mine clearance charity, with projects in 36 countries including war-torn Ukraine. 

Lately, HALO has sought better control and visibility over its fluctuating user base, which includes temporary and local workers who are based in difficult terrain. 

The admin workload with frequent staff movement is burdensome to say the least, and this user lifecycle management problem also has the potential to open up security risks if certain accounts remain active longer than necessary. 

Helping Halo Trust in its mission is CoreView, a comprehensive management and governance platform that can optimise and secure Microsoft 365 environments.

The charity has now deployed CoreView's Microsoft 365 governance and security platform right across its global operations. 

The implementation was delivered with support from Microsoft partner Cyber Vigilance and is designed to streamline identity management, strengthen security oversight and improve operational efficiency. 

"The expansion of our underlying Microsoft licensed estate is a core component of HALO's technology strategy,” says Dan Dickinson, Global Director of Information Systems at The HALO Trust.

“Deploying CoreView technology has allowed us to delegate responsibility, whilst maintaining full control and improving visibility. 

“We had CoreView operational within weeks and deployed into our Ukrainian operations soon after, adding real value in very challenging conditions.”

Automating user lifecycle management 

Among the primary drivers behind the deployment was the need to simplify user lifecycle management within Microsoft's cloud ecosystem.

CoreView's platform automates the processes, enabling user accounts to be provisioned, modified and deactivated with far less manual intervention. 

The automation not only reduces administrative overheads but also supports stronger governance by helping to minimise the presence of dormant or over-permissioned accounts.

The platform also allows administrative responsibilities to be delegated to local teams while preserving central oversight.

This balance is particularly important for humanitarian organisations, where field teams often need to act quickly without waiting for approvals from a central office.

Balancing local autonomy with centralised control

The challenges faced by HALO are not unique, it reflects a broader trend across the humanitarian and non-governmental sector. 

Organisations operating in multiple regions often need to balance local flexibility with strict governance requirements – this is particularly true when managing sensitive operational and personnel data.

For HALO, this challenge is amplified by high staff turnover in certain programmes and the need to onboard and offboard temporary workers efficiently.

In such environments, delays in removing access rights can introduce security risks, while excessive restrictions can hinder operational effectiveness.

Andrea Sivieri, Chief Product and Technology Officer at CoreView, believes the project demonstrates how governance can remain effective even in highly demanding conditions.

“The HALO Trust operates in environments where most enterprise IT assumptions simply do not hold - high staff turnover, remote in-country teams, active conflict zones,” Andrea says.

“This deployment demonstrates that with the right operational layer in place, organisations can maintain genuine central control without sacrificing the local autonomy that field operations depend on.”

Licence management and visibility 

Beyond security and governance, the deployment has also delivered greater visibility into Microsoft 365 licence usage across HALO's global estate.

As staffing levels fluctuate across different programmes, maintaining oversight of software licences can become difficult. Without clear visibility, organisations risk overprovisioning licences and incurring unnecessary costs.

CoreView's reporting and analytics capabilities provide HALO with a clearer view of licence allocation and utilisation, enabling the charity to identify inefficiencies and optimise spending.

For organisations operating with finite resources and global responsibilities, those savings can be redirected towards mission-critical activities.

With support from Cyber Vigilance throughout deployment and training, the project was completed within weeks, highlighting how cloud governance and cybersecurity tools are becoming increasingly important for organisations operating in some of the world's most challenging environments.