Golden Communications streamlines productivity with intuitive password management

Founded: 1996

Industry: website design and managed web services

Employees: ~ 50

Credentials to manage: 3000+

Location: Newport Beach, CA

Golden Communications specializes in marketing agency services including professional website design, managed web, and digital market services. Headquartered in Newport Beach, CA, Golden Communications and its 50 employees support hundreds of clients from start-ups to SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. With four locations over three continents, the growing agency prides itself on being a global company with a diverse set of customers.

Golden Communications needed to manage and securely store over 3,000 credentials associated with their clients’ website and cloud hosting ecosystems. To address this challenge, the Golden Communications team initially used LastPass for password management. 

While the solution solved some initial challenges, it also introduced new issues for the team. 

First was LastPass load times, meaning employees couldn’t quickly access their vaults and passwords when they needed them, which negatively impacted user productivity. 

“The driving force for the switch away from LastPass was lack of speed, especially on the  Chrome extension,” said Chief Technical Officer, Andrew Nguyen. “It was painfully slow for our users who complained several times over the years.”

LastPass administrative and end-user functionality was also complex and difficult to use. “Their admin console was very confusing to navigate,” said Anya Pitre, Client Services Representative. “Sometimes I would remove people and it would send an email out to the whole company that a person had been removed. And I could not figure out how to turn that off.” 

Golden Communications would also regularly use valuable company time to troubleshoot issues with using the solution across multiple devices. According to Nguyen, “Once a week or once every two weeks a team member would use a different type of device that doesn't work too well unless you know how to do certain tips and tricks. It's very exhausting to have to go through that process.” 

Lastly, LastPass price options did not fit the needs of a growing business. To benefit from the business-specific security features the company needed, Golden Communications was forced to purchase additional seats, even if they didn’t need them.

“We had to purchase a minimum amount of seats to get certain business features, so we ended up paying for unneeded seats we weren’t using, which I thought was a little ridiculous.”

A few Golden Communications team members had Bitwarden personal accounts and recommended it to Nguyen. “They've been using Bitwarden over the years and they really like it for their personal use.” said Nguyen, “Pitre and I signed up to test drive and see if Bitwarden was everything they claimed it was.”

After seeing the difference in speed, intuitiveness, and price, Nguyen decided it was time to make the switch from LastPass to Bitwarden.

With Bitwarden, Golden Communications has experienced greater productivity with faster load times on the Chrome browser extension, enabling employees to focus on what matters most — their clients. “I really like the Bitwarden Chrome extension, it's easy to use and easy to navigate,” said Pitre. 

Bitwarden has also minimized the need for additional support and questions from Nguyen’s team.

When Golden Communications decided to make the switch to Bitwarden, the migration was easy. Nguyen recounts, “When we exported from LastPass and imported to Bitwarden, it was a very smooth transition. I was impressed because we had mountains of data that we migrated and it was very simple.”

The seamless import was powered primarily by the Bitwarden public API and command line interface. “We used a command line to remove thousands of folders in a split second, it was a smooth and easy process,” said Nguyen.

With Bitwarden, the team is now able to easily navigate administrative settings. Pitre mentioned, “It's definitely just been easy to navigate the admin. Unlike LastPass, which has a bunch of different policies that you have to enable or disable, Bitwarden provides a much more streamlined experience.” 

The onboarding process for new employees has also been more straightforward with Bitwarden. Nguyen noted that the Bitwarden explanatory UI made it smoother for new employees to adopt the password manager.

Golden Communications needed a flexible password management system that could tailor to their specific needs as an agency. With 3,000+ credentials to manage, Golden Communications regularly accessed customer websites and servers with alternative login information, in addition to standard usernames or passwords. 

With Bitwarden custom fields, Golden Communications can now easily autofill that information. According to Nguyen, “there are many other labels that go into the website, not just using a password, but other aspects of it. This custom field can be very handy for us.”

Nguyen and his team also took advantage of the flexible administrative and organizational setup in Bitwarden by using collections and user groups to fit their agency needs. “We use collections, essentially, for each of our clients,” said Pitre. The team then designates a user group for each department on which they define access permissions, keeping all client information organized. 

As Golden Communications continues to expand the use of Bitwarden, Nguyen looks forward to enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) via Duo, as well as single sign-on integration. “We actually have a Duo account for everyone here at Golden Comm,” said Nguyen, “And hopefully, with Bitwarden, two-factor authentication, and single sign-on, we will maintain tight security.”