Illinois National Bank Deploys Alloy Navigator To Support Goals, Growth

Illinois National Bank Deploys Alloy Software

Launched in 1999, the Illinois National Bank (INB) is a full-service banking institution whose charter entailed successfully merging cutting-edge technology with the very best in traditional financial services. The end result? A premier small- to mid-sized community bank that now exceeds the service level of its larger competitors.

Meeting the INB’s premium standards – as well as for staying competitive in today’s rapidly changing banking industry – requires the successful management of a wealth of IT assets. Rick McCord, INB’s Information Systems Manager, was pivotal in moving the control of the bank’s fast-growing IT infrastructure from a fragmented, spreadsheet-based system to a fully consolidated and fully automated one.

“I started with INB in May 2003,” says McCord, “and asset management was my first objective. I also wanted to set up a formal help desk.”

McCord researched various tools, but had no luck finding one that could properly identify the copious number of specialty financial software programs that they use for lending, accounting, etc., at the levels he required; that is, until he discovered Asset Navigator. Accurate software recognition is absolutely critical as the INB constantly pushes out financial software updates to its end-user employees.

The tool had to have the ability to identify the financial programs we use – lending, accounting, and so forth. Asset Navigator does a really good job of software recognition.

Rick B. McCord
Information Services Manager
Illinois National Bank

And, of course, McCord wanted to be able to accurately determine the status of all of their software licenses. “Asset Navigator does a really good job of software recognition,” he says.

McCord’s solution of choice was the Asset Navigator Medium Business Pack, which is the Professional Edition with 200 audit licenses, 5 user licenses, and the IT Help Desk. With a complete inventory of his network, McCord can run a slew of software-related reports, including reports that compare the software products purchased against the software products used, and reports that show all their installed software to assess what a software upgrade might entail.

Implementing Asset Navigator

McCord employed a staggered approach to implementing Asset Navigator. He began with the main branch where he ran his first audit and tested the consistency of the collected inventory data. It helps him to

When that test passed, he moved on to the next location, running an audit there and checking that data. Several months later, McCord now runs an automated network audit once a month and says “I can always take a glance at what’s out there.” Although McCord had been too busy to quantify the time and money INB was expending before deploying Asset Navigator, he says, “It was a mess. I know how much time and money we’ve saved!”

McCord administers Asset Navigator centrally from his main-branch PC, with the help of an IT staff comprising two network administrators/senior technicians who run Asset Navigator on a central server, and an administrator who manages the Technician’s Web Help Desk module.

In addition to accurate software recognition, McCord’s solution had to provide him with another crucial benefit: helping the INB plan for the timely replacement of a myriad of hardware assets. With a total of 7 branches, 219 computers comprising end user PC’s and 12 assorted servers, 1 remittance center, and over 175 employees, it’s easy to see that world-class service would require the kind of tight IT control that can only result from an asset management and help desk system.

To achieve his hardware management goals, McCord relies heavily on Asset Navigator to quickly obtain accurate data about all the hardware models and configurations, and to track which hardware is coming off depreciation or is ready for phase-out.

Deploying the Web Help Desk

The perfect partner to automated asset management is Asset Navigator’s Technician’s Web Help Desk. Armed with current data about all their PC’s, McCord was able to implement the Help Desk phase of his infrastructure solution. Before purchasing Asset Navigator, the INB had been using a “flaky shareware product,” according to McCord, “which we basically outgrew within a couple of months.” McCord configured Asset Navigator’s convenient Mail Connector to set up a dedicated Help Desk email account. End users can still pick up the phone to call for support, but now they have the option to email their support requests right to the Help Desk. (The Mail Connector automatically imports these emails, at set intervals, into the local Help Desk as trouble tickets, auto-populating the Summary, Description, Requester, and Submit Date fields).

Asset Navigator has greatly simplified and organized things since I started. It’s been a really good tool for us. It’s incredible having the Help Desk with the Web. That’s been a remarkable module.

Rick B. McCord
Information Services Manager
Illinois National Bank

The INB’s Help Desk administrator runs the Technician’s Web Help Desk, either entering new tickets in response to calls or further defining the auto-generated ones, and then assigning tasks to the appropriate technician. McCord says, “Asset Navigator has greatly simplified and organized things since I started. Before, users would call the techs, but they lost track of the things that needed to be done and when they needed to be done. And we didn’t even know what was out there. It’s been a really good tool for us.” He adds, “It’s incredible having the Help Desk with the Web. That’s been a remarkable module.”

Using Favorite Features

McCord is also interested in maintaining an accurate representation of his employee end-users, including their office location, department, and job function, since he works closely with INB’s Human Resources department to keep information about new hires and former employees up-to-date. (When PC’s are audited, they’re automatically mapped to their logged users, and Asset Navigator automatically creates basic contact records for logged users.)

Asset Navigator provides key benefits to Illinois National Bank:

  • Software license reports that help them stay in compliance
  • Network Inventory data that helps plan hardware replacements
  • Reports that give department managers details about their systems in use
  • Comprehensive software installation reports that help them plan for new applications
  • Web-enabled Help Desk that streamlines the entire technical support process

In addition, McCord runs reports quite often. Some of these reports are for internal IT use, while others are requested by
various managers in such departments as retail and lending so that they can have factual data about the systems in their departments. Another feature that McCord finds useful is External Tools. This lets him integrate Asset Navigator with his remote control software, enabling him to provide solutions for all of his end users from anywhere on the network. (In Version 4.3 and later, you can invoke external tools for peripherals as well as for computers.)

Moving into the Future

The INB is poised to move to the SQL-based Enterprise Edition during the third quarter of 2004, confident that Asset Navigator will support their IT infrastructure as the bank continues its steady growth path. The Enterprise Edition will give them plenty of room to grow as they continue to add more users and workstations: McCord is forecasting the addition of two more bank branches by the end of 2004, and between 20 and 30 more systems and users and at least a couple of much larger branches sometime in the year 2005!

Oklahoma University’s Athletic Information Systems Chooses Alloy Navigator

Oklahoma University's Chooses Alloy

The business world is hardly the exclusive domain of the Fortune 500. Collegiate sports have long been big business on campuses all across the country, and the University of Oklahoma (OU) is no exception. OU may be a doctoral degree-granting university enrolling about 29,000 students with 1,900 full-time faculty members and 19 colleges, but its Athletics Department has a respectable track record of its own.

Over the years, the OU Sooners have combined for 22 team national championships. OU is part of the Big 12 Conference, a league of 12 regional schools covering 7 states for 4,500-plus student-athletes in 21 sports.

Any business organization of this size must have a solid IT infrastructure, and OU Athletics Information Systems is clearly a major player. Athletics Information Systems comprises a full time director, two full time technical staff, and at any given time, 3 to 4 part-time support personnel. Together, this team manages the formidable task of supporting a total of 475 student-athletes and 37-plus departments.

With Asset Navigator’s PC auditing feature, the overall cost savings is absolute.

Terrie Taylor
Director, Athletic Information Systems
University of Oklahoma

Not a job that the team can afford to take lightly.

Athletics Information Systems runs an enterprise network on 13 servers with about 500 computers installed campus-wide – 200 of them exclusively for student-athletes and the rest for the athletics staff. This makes the department the largest athletics IS group in the entire Big 12.

From a centralized location, Athletic Information Systems handles the entire administrative responsibility of managing all of these technical assets as well as providing round-the-clock technical support to more than 1,000 athletics-related users on a dedicated web-enabled Help Desk.

Assessing the Business Need

To help manage this infrastructure even more effectively, Director of Athletic Information Systems’ Terrie Taylor recently made a crucial business decision to switch from Intuit’s Track-It to Alloy Software’ Asset Navigator Enterprise Business Pack.

“The Track-It database really wasn’t populating all that well,” says Taylor. “When a friend showed me Asset Navigator’s Enterprise version, I immediately saw the potential it had to give us what we needed. I decided that we should implement it right away. The fact that Asset Navigator costs several thousand dollars less than Track-It also makes a huge difference. I’d much rather use that money to buy newer PCs, or use it for other expenses.”

Summarizing the Solution

Taylor purchased Alloy Software’s Asset Navigator Enterprise Business Pack (EBP) with audit licenses for 500 nodes and 10 technician licenses. EBP is Alloy’s SQL-based solution for asset management, inventory tracking, and integrated User and Technician Web Help Desk. Taylor reports that the team had Asset Navigator up and running in a single day.

Delivering the Benefits

Asset Navigator’s software licensing compliance and PC auditing features offer Taylor the most valuable benefits in terms of meeting her business needs. “Maintaining the legal status of all of our software licenses is key,” says Taylor.

Asset Navigator is the tool that IT uses to know where we are and where we are going. We can lower the costs at the Help Desk, and lower the cost of the overall technology.

Terrie Taylor
Director, Athletic Information Systems
University of Oklahoma

Another benefit is the instant availability of information detected from each PC’s BIOS. Because OU contracts with the Dell Corporation to lease all of its PCs, the ability to quickly see lease data has resulted in a significant cost savings. Taylor says, “No more making phone calls to check on the leases; no more going someplace completely different to locate the paperwork. The overall cost savings is absolute.”

A third major benefit comes from the Knowledge Base. Taylor says, “I do feel that time spent on each Help Desk call is being reduced.”

And when talking about the training costs typically associated with the hiring of new support staff, Taylor adds, In IT today, people are trying to create slimmer departments yet they want higher skills and increased overall productivity. It’s not cost-effective for an administrator to train new staff. The Knowledge Base is a self-training tool. It will help the existing staff bring the new staff up to speed.

In the few short weeks since deploying Asset Navigator, Taylor and her team at Athetics Information Systems have already realized the following benefits:

  • Saving time and money with an automated PC audit
  • Verifying software licensing compliance
  • Facilitating faster resolutions to hardware and software problems
  • Increasing overall productivity
  • Reducing the time of Help Desk calls
  • Reducing the cost of the Help Desk
  • Lowering the overall cost of technology
  • Planning for the Future

Taylor is quick to point out that as technology continues to advance in the future, she expects to see plenty of pressure. In the IT field, Taylor says, time can cost you a fortune. However, she adds, Asset Navigator is the tool that IT uses to know where we are now, and where we are going.