Products
Details“R”Us
1/1/0001 By:
By Ellen Ullman
With all the things your IT department does, keeping track of your district’s computers, along
with their OSs and software, shouldn’t be an added burden. Thanks to asset-management
software, it isn’t. This product takes the onus off your IT department and offers an efficient,
effective, and easy way to get a handle on all your equipment.
GLENDALE–
RIVER HILLS
SCHOOL
DISTRICT
Glendale, WI
WHAT DO
YOU USE?
JAMF CASPER SUITE,
WWW.JAMFSOFTWARE.COM
WHY DID
YOU BUY
THIS
PRODUCT?
When technology coordinator Jeff Johnson
came to the district three years ago, he needed
tools to manage the infrastructure more
efficiently and effectively. “I had worked in
other districts for 10 or 12 years, but here I’m a
one-person department.” He heard that Casper
Suite would let him automate software installation,
and though it was costly, he thought it
would help him be successful.
LIKES/
DISLIKES
It is a little expensive, but he’s worked it into the
budget. He has no dislikes on the user side, saying
it’s both well designed and well developed.
“It works out of the box. There are three or four
ways to do things, and you can customize the
program, which is really helpful. There’s an
active online community and an email newsletter
with lots of information.”
EASE OF
USE
JAMF has a three-day training that Johnson
recommends. “They don’t make you get the
training, but it’s a good idea. It takes a bit of time
to understand the functions. It’s a complicated
system, but JAMF wants you to be successful
right away. The average person won’t just get it.”
WHAT DO
YOU
TRACK
WITH IT?
“I can track our computers, in real time, to find
the last time a specific computer was online
and the software installed on the computers. If
the board wants a report, I can access the
information quickly.”
WHAT IS
THE
COST-BENEFIT
OR ROI?
Johnson estimates that there’s a savings of
$60,000 every year. “Since I’m a one-person IT
department, this allows me to not have to hire
another person on my staff, and a medium-level
person would cost about $60,000 a year and
this is a fraction of that cost. Plus I get the
efficiency of being able to generate information
on the fly. I do inventory searches every day.”
REFUGIO INDEPENDENT
SCHOOL DISTRICT
Refugio, TX
WHAT DO
YOU USE?
CROSSTEC EMS,
WWW.CROSSTECSOFTWARE.COM
WHY DID
YOU BUY
THIS
PRODUCT?
“We were looking for something to help us track
our users and monitor where they were going
online,” says Matt Jones, district technology
director and network administrator. “Even though it
does asset management, we didn’t buy it for that
purpose.”
LIKES/
DISLIKES
“I like being able to track all the users and that
I can pull up a seven- or 30-day snapshot to see
all the Web sites visited and ranked in order. If
an administrator needs to know which sites
were visited, I can do that easily.” He doesn’t
like some of the interface options, but that is
just a small concern.
EASE OF
USE
It’s easy to use, especially because Jones was
familiar with Remote Control.
WHAT DO
YOU
TRACK
WITH IT?
Jones tracks users and online destinations. Next
year he’ll buy new computers with Windows 7,
so he’ll start using the product to track OS
upgrades and more traditional asset-management
concerns.
WHAT IS
THE
COST-BENEFIT
OR ROI?
This isn’t applicable yet, but Jones is confident
that once he takes over inventory management
from the library, he’ll see a return on his
investment.
JOHNSTON COUNTY
SCHOOLS
Smithfield, NC
WHAT DO
YOU USE?
FOLLETT SOFTWARE’S ASSET MANAGER,
WWW.FOLLETTSOFTWARE.COM
WHY DID
YOU BUY
THIS
PRODUCT?
Diana Freeman, executive director of instructional
technology and library media services,
noticed that library records were beginning to
list equipment in addition to reference materials
and that this was throwing her reports off.
She had been using Access but wanted to combine
records for all 30 schools. Since there was
no standardized solution, she searched for a
new one to fit her district’s needs.
LIKES/
DISLIKES
Johnston County had used Follett’s Library
Manager for three years, so learning Asset
Manager was easy. The media coordinators and
tech facilitators knew how to enter data and
had trained the central service team, who in
turn had trained feeder schools. “Everyone is in
charge of his or her data. That’s powerful,”
Freeman says. The only negative—and it’s a
necessary evil, she adds—is that it took a lot of
training in the beginning.
EASE OF
USE
“It’s a piece of cake to use, but as we lose
media coordinators or add new schools, we
have to keep people trained.”
WHAT DO
YOU
TRACK
WITH IT?
When an item is entered, the replacement time
is also entered, and this helps track service
needs. “We don’t have to ask schools to tell us
where their PCs are, and we can make all decisions
that affect them.” The software also
tracks licensing and copyright information, specialized
software details, PC memory, processor
speed, and financial information.
WHAT IS
THE
COST-BENEFIT
OR ROI?
The district bought 100 laptops for a group of
roving teachers. Before Asset Manager, 10 or
more laptops would have been “lost.” Now,
Freeman says, none are ever lost. “That goes
for remote controls and smaller items as well.
It’s a whole new level of accountability.”
SHARON PUBLIC
SCHOOLS
Sharon,
WHAT DO
YOU USE?
SCHOOLDUDE’S ITAMDIRECT,
WWW.SCHOOLDUDE.COM
WHY DID
YOU BUY
THIS
PRODUCT?
The district has about 1,350 PCs to keep track
of, says technology director Leo Brehm. “I sign
out about 100 for individual use. It’s particularly
important to track of when things are aging,
when hardware needs to be upgraded, and so
on.” He also likes being able to audit software
usage. “If a license is specific and I have a
limited number of seats, I can redirect that
resource.”
LIKES/
DISLIKES
“I like that it’s software as a service; I don’t
have to maintain hardware or servers to support
it. It’s not dependent on another system.” He
wishes the project template could be expanded
and is working with the company to accomplish
this. “I’d also like an iPad client, which I’m sure
will come.”
EASE OF
USE
It is Web based and very easy to use, Brehm
says.
WHAT DO
YOU
TRACK
WITH IT?
“I can track warranty, location, and ownership. It
helps me plan for replacement and see who is
using devices in classes and in public areas. It tells
me about hardware type, which slots the memory
is in, and if a stick of RAM goes missing. It allows
me to track the amount of service done on
machines.”
WHAT IS
THE
COST-BENEFIT
OR ROI?
“The return comes at the back end. I have more
efficient utilization of the hardware, I’m able to
know what my resources are, and I can reallocate
when needed.” Previously, Brehm could not
analyze anything. Now he receives accurate and
accessible information that allows him to get
longevity out of the machines. “The little I spend
to track our two million dollars’ worth of hardware
is a drop in the bucket and worth every penny.”
ACADEMY SCHOOL DISTRICT 20
Colorado Springs, CO
WHAT DO
YOU USE?
Dell KACE 1000 Management Appliance (formerly known as the KACE KBOX appliance), www.kace.com
WHY DID
YOU BUY
THIS
PRODUCT?
“We were looking to do two things: gather software inventory and push software out so our
building technicians didn’t have to sneakernet anymore,” says Shelley Kooser, chief information
officer. Formerly, she had to ask each building administrator to do inventory by hand, and
accounting for the district’s approximately 6,500 machines was frustrating and time-consuming.
LIKES/
DISLIKES
At first there was a problem with Macintosh integration, but that has been fixed. The only
other, minor difficulty is that if a machine isn’t checked in for 90 days, it drops off “and we
lose visibility,” Kooser says. Her biggest likes are that she can run reports quickly to gain
insight into her machines. “The product allows the building techs to tie help desk into it, and
we can see if a piece of hardware is problematic. Trending is a big thing for our help desk and
software and hardware. That plays a big part in our inventory audit process.”
EASE OF
USE
It is easy to use, Kooser says, but as with anything deployed for the first time, it was challenging
at first to manually install a client on every machine. Now there is a replenish cycle and
deployment server, so it’s part of the imaging.
WHAT DO
YOU
TRACK
WITH IT?
Software applications on the district’s current inventory of 9,500 machines (up from 6,500), OS
version numbers, and help-desk information.
WHAT IS
THE
COST-BENEFIT
OR ROI?
The IT department saves more than 15,238 hours annually and achieved ROI in less than one
year. Using the Management Appliance reduced the time spent on inventory and audit by 75
percent and saved $65,000 in help-desk costs.
Other Asset Management Software
¦ ABSOLUTE
SOFTWARE’S
COMPUTRACE
www.absolute.com
¦ ALTIRIS ASSET
MANAGEMENT SUITE
FROM SYMANTEC
www.symantec.com
¦ NETSUPPORT DNA
www.netsupport-inc.com
¦ SASSAFRAS SOFTWARE,
INC.’S K2 (KEYAUDITOR
& KEYSERVER)
www.sassafras.com