Alloy Navigator Is Makita’s Answer

Help Desk Software is Extensible and Helps Regional Offices

In the enterprise, help is always a phone call away. IT staff have the most robust tools and phone system and can usually track support calls effortlessly. In smaller companies, those luxuries often do not exist. For Makita USA (www.makitatools.com), a pro power tools company, the problem was not necessarily size; the global company employs more than 9,000 people worldwide. The problem was that the organizational structure with many regional offices across the United States did not lend itself to a central help center.

“I have been with Makita just over six months, and when I came onboard, there was no help desk software,” says Alex Oliva, IT Director for Makita USA. “Users would just call a central phone number, and there were two help desk personnel who could track calls on a notepad and Excel spreadsheets. Now we have an optimal help desk system; most problems are solved in the same day or within 24 hours.”

Makita chose Alloy Navigator, an integrated ITSM and ITAM solution,  partly because of the easy user interface, partly because the support agent who helped the company with presales calls was a good example of expert-level phone support, and partly because it is extensible with other modules like Network Inventory and Knowledge Base and custom development, explains Oliva.

“I was doing research on help desk systems and came across Alloy Software,” says Oliva. “I was just about to choose another package and decided to set up a demo. The customer service I received during the demo stages and the ease of install were major factors in solidifying my decision. We were looking for a package that did not force you to use one interface and is customizable. No one package can meet all your needs, so we wanted to make sure we could add modules and custom development.” Alloy Software uses an open interface that can be customized and can be extended with the use of additional databases.

Pricing Flexibility, Excellent Presales Support

Another important criterion for Oliva has to do with pricing structures. Most help desk systems charge for each user who accesses a tracking portal, but Alloy provided a corporate pricing plan. For Oliva, it was important that the help desk support regional offices that are scattered throughout the country without charging each office for access to the help desk system. “Alloy is priced for customers like me who have more people outside the building than inside,” he says.

Oliva explains more about how the presales process helped him make the decision to choose Alloy: The agent he spoke to was knowledgeable and friendly. Oliva asked questions about whether the help desk could tie into an existing Access database, and the agent knew the answer. For other support issues, the agent operated a demo remotely, set up a Webinar to show how the software worked, and generally showed good customer service, an example that Oliva wanted to follow.

I just can’t give it enough praise. Customer service is an art form of sorts, and Alloy knows the meaning of that.

Alex Olivia
IT Director
Makita USA

In terms of the actual installation, Oliva says he had no problems. There was a minor glitch involving a database that was not compatible, but he says it was an internal issue. Even then, he says Alloy was able to work with him on the phone to troubleshoot the problem and find a solution. One important point Oliva makes has to do with the customer service: He was never put on hold for long periods, and the agent did not have to call back repeatedly with suggestions. Oliva and the agent troubleshot over the phone, which revealed to Oliva that Alloy Software knows customer service and troubleshooting.

After the initial installation, Oliva wanted to make sure there was a single sign-on for regional offices. He was able to configure the software to work with Active Directory. In fact, once a user is authenticated in Windows, he says, there is no need to log in to the help desk tracking software because of the link between the two authentications. “Our users didn’t have to remember a different username and password for the new help desk system, which just made the process easier,” he notes.

The installation and training time took about two weeks, says Oliva. There were no major issues with integration into existing systems in the data center, end-user support with the Web portal, or any issues with training support personnel on how to use it. “They [Makita’s users] took to it like fish to water,” he says. “The Web portal is so simple. Our users understood how it worked right away. I don’t recall getting any calls from users learning the portal.”

Process Integration

Oliva notes that Makita did not have any other technical challenges, but it did need to work through some issues in business continuity. It had to integrate business rules into the system where an IT service desk  request involving new expenditures had to be approved by two managers. For example, if an end user requested a laptop replacement, a senior manager and a finance officer might need to approve it, and there are scenarios where an executive must make the final approval.

We now take the help desk for granted as part of our daily lives.

Alex Oliva
IT Director
Makita USA

Oliva did not want to burden executives who needed to approve these requests by having them log in to and learn the help desk software, so Makita and Alloy built a separate Web portal that interfaces with Alloy and allows the executives to approve or deny a request. The approval portal even works with the executives’ email as a link that they can click to access the portal. “That process took an extra week and was the biggest hurdle we had,” Oliva says.

When asked about whether he would change the process of installing Alloy Navigator, Olivia says he couldn’t imagine changing anything. He says it was impeccable timing because Makita chose the help desk software and was able to install it just a few weeks before a major ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) rollout, one of the biggest rollouts in the company’s history.

“It was good timing when we implemented it, and it was just a coincidence, but with any major software rollout there will be lots of questions,” Oliva says. “Alloy provides a beautiful interface for people to use and communicate over help desk issues.”

Future Plans

Oliva says the Navigator help desk software has been an easy rollout, and he now plans to start thinking about a “phase two” where he installs Alloy’s separate auditing package that he purchased along with the help desk system. He wanted to make sure users were comfortable with the new help desk system first.

“We now take the help desk for granted as part of our daily lives,” he says. “I just can’t give it enough praise. Customer service is an art form of sorts, and Alloy knows the meaning of that.”

Alloy Navigator 5 Serves Leo Burnett’s Growth

Customer Profile

Started in 1935 as an advertising agency by Leo Burnett (the agency’s venerable namesake), the Leo Burnett company has grown from 3 employees and 3 clients into a global communications network with 96 offices in 84 countries.

One of these offices is the headquarters of the Leo Burnett Group (LBG) of Companies, Middle East and North Africa, located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Customer Challenge

With 90 new employees added to LBG in the year 2005 alone, the IT director realized the need for an integrated Service Management and Asset Management solution to handle the company’s skyrocketing growth rate.

Solution

Alloy Navigator 5 with licenses for 7 technicians and 400 computers.

Benefits

  • Flexible and scalable system to manage company growth and the fast pace of their activities
  • Leveraging a multi-level ticketing process to support their unique service demands
  • Workflow automation that streamlines service support by automatically routing tickets
  • Providing compliance with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
  • Empowering end-users and enhancing satisfaction with a web-based Self-Service Portal and Knowledge Base

Yesterday and Today

In 1999, Bassem Aboukhater joined Leo Burnett Dubai as IT director, when the company had just 75 employees. By 2006, the company could boast a total of 700 end-users from Leo Burnett Group and Starcom MediaVest Group, both part of the second largest communications group in the world: Publicis Groupe holding company. Approximately half of these end-users, collectively supported by eight staff members from the IT department, are located in Dubai. The rest are geographically distributed throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, including Saudi Arabia, Beirut, Cairo, and Morocco.

With hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure and real estate projects, it should come as no surprise that the booming urban metropolis of Dubai is where the Leo Burnett communications network would establish a strategic foothold. Since its inception, the Leo Burnett company has taken well-deserved credit for some of the world’s most memorable advertising campaigns, including:

    • Tony the Tiger (for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes)
    • The Dependability People (for Maytag appliances)
  • Morris the Cat (for 9 Lives cat food)
  • Fly the Friendly Skies (for United Airlines)
  • Charlie the Tuna (for Star-Kist)

Home to approximately 17 percent of the world’s construction cranes as well as The Palm Islands, the three largest man-made islands in the world, Dubai’s newest ambition includes plans to build the world’s largest airport. To service the business needs resulting from such colossal expansion, the Leo Burnett Group has grown accordingly to include 7 companies that encompass advertising, media, public relations, and digital Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

By the time 90 new employees were added to Leo Burnett Group in the year 2005 alone, Aboukhater had already realized the critical need for a IT Service Management and Asset Management solution that could effectively handle the company’s skyrocketing growth rate.

Implementing Alloy Navigator

When Aboukhater first began his association with Leo Burnett Dubai, the company had been growing steadily year after year. However, despite this continual growth, there was no ITSM and ITAM tools in place — that is, until Aboukhater discovered Alloy Navigator –  IT Service Management and IT Asset Management  solution from Alloy Software on the web.

Over the years, he continued to upgrade all the way to Asset Navigator V4.5. In the process, he identified two new pressing requirements:

When Aboukhater contacted Alloy about these issues, Alloy responded in kind about its impending Alloy Navigator 5 solution. When Alloy released Alloy Navigator 5 in January 2006, Aboukhater immediately upgraded. “Version 5 would answer all my questions,” he states.

Thanks for all the help and support. You’ve been of great assistance in getting us up and running as quickly as possible. We’re very impressed with what we’ve seen so far, and I’m sure we still have lots of great features to be discovered. The whole team at Alloy Software has done an excellent job.

Bassem Aboukhater
IT Director, Leo Burnett Dubai

After installing Alloy Navigator 5, they created a new blank database, then used the Active Directory Import tool to automatically import persons from the Active Directory. Next, they used the Network Inventory module to automatically audit all hardware and software assets on the network and populate the new production database with all of their infrastructure assets. Aboukhater tested the new system for about three to four weeks before officially implementing it. “All in all,” he reports, “it’s been a good experience.”

Favorite Features

“Alloy Navigator has tons of features,” Aboukhater states, “and we’re not even scratching the surface yet.” These features include the Library, Reports, and Business Logic. About the Business Logic function, Aboukhater says, “I’ve done some rules, and I can see the potential for supporting specific applications.”

What I really like about your software is how intuitive it is and how simple it is to use. It has a lot of functionality in a very elegant way. Alloy Navigator 5 has one of the best user interfaces I have ever seen.

Bassem Aboukhater
IT Director, Leo Burnett Dubai

For example, emails can be sent to a specific mailbox, then be automatically converted into support tickets, and then be automatically assigned to a specific technician group.

He says, “This is really, really powerful, and I like the way it works.”

One element of Alloy Navigator that Aboukhater truly appreciates is the design of its user interface. He says, “What I really like about your software is how intuitive it is, and how simple it is to use. It has a lot of functionality in a very elegant way. Alloy Navigator has one of the best user interfaces I have ever seen.” He adds, “It’s really simple, and doesn’t require a lot of training and reading to use the product.”

Streamlining More Processes

Several other service-related processes that Aboukhater says have benefited from their implementation of Alloy Navigator 5 include:

  • Change Management – Using Alloy Navigator’s Change Request tickets to officially authorize changes to their infrastructure
  • Knowledge Management – Using the Knowledge Base to publish “how-to” articles that can answer end-users’ questions about such common applications as Word and Excel
  • Facilities Management – Including setting up phones and other tasks relevant to a constantly changing work environment

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

Leo Burnett Dubai is also using Alloy Navigator 5 to help ensure its compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, known informally as “SOX.”

One of the major provisions of SOX is that public corporations furnish independent annual reports to verify to auditors that internal control and structure exists for ensuring accurate financial reporting.

IT has a major role in these internal controls, since financial reporting is driven by IT systems.

Aboukhater states, “We need it for SOX compliance. It’s a great tool to keep track of everything. SOX mandates a lot of things, makes you responsible for things. SOX compliance puts a lot of pressure on IT for compliance. There are lots of controls and procedures, and we need to prove authorization. The tracking in Alloy Navigator is excellent. Whenever you need to prove these things, the Alloy Navigator requests and Work Orders are a big help.”

He continues, “SOX mandates that you should be able to prove what you say you’re doing.” Aboukhater cites the hiring of new employees to illustrate a specific example: Whenever a new employee is hired, a representative from their Human Resources department submits a request to the IT department that a new person is coming on board. To submit their requests, Aboukhater provides all LBG end-users with the option to use any one of three support channels:

  • Phone
  • Self-Service Portal
  • Email (sent to a Help Desk account and automatically converted to Incident tickets)

Once the IT department receives this request, they’ll create a new network account for this person. Their Active Directory is synchronized with Alloy Navigator’s database; that is, whenever the Active Directory Import tool is run by Alloy Navigator’s Automation Server, a new user account for this person will automatically be created in the database.

If 90 new employees were hired in a given year, according to Aboukhater, the SOX auditor would want to see documentation about all these new hires.

In this case, he can go right back to the Alloy Navigator database and show the initial requests to order and install new computer systems for these new employees.

He can also use the activity logs in Incident and Work Order tickets to easily demonstrate an accurate trail of all the tasks related to getting new employees up and running.

Fully Scalable for Future Growth

In this way, Aboukhater is not only using Alloy Navigator 5 for service support and asset management, he’s also using it to “trace their business processes,” he says. He states, “It’s helping us manage the growth, the support, and the assets. Alloy Navigator is making life a lot easier, keeping track of what’s going on.”

In fact, one of Aboukhater’s many current projects includes a total re-working of one of his company’s floors, which currently houses between 50 and 60 end-users. This requires a tremendous amount of help from the IT group, including temporarily shifting all of these employees around.

And Aboukhater has a steady flow of new employees coming in each week. He says, “This is not an average workload, and it has been this way for over a year!”

Aboukhater can clearly count on Alloy Software’s scalable Alloy Navigator solution to successfully manage the unprecedented amount of work generated from such a rapid expansion rate. By using Alloy Navigator to streamline their service processes, the IT group can deliver highly efficient support, which further enhances business productivity and drives continuous revenue growth.

About Leo Burnett Worldwide

Founded in Chicago in 1935 with eight employees and three clients, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc. today operates a global network of over 200 operating units including a variety of specialty marketing services and 94 full-service advertising agencies in 82 countries. Leo Burnett creates ideas that inspire enduring belief for many of the world’s most valuable brands and successful marketers, including McDonald’s, Disney, Procter & Gamble, Marlboro, Altoids, Heinz, Kellogg and Nintendo. Leo Burnett Worldwide (www.leoburnett.com) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Publicis Groupe (www.publicis.com).

Alloy Software Assists Growth at UK’s Blitz Games

The Customer

Blitz Games is one of the top 5 independent game developers in the United Kingdom with over 20 years of experience in the games business. Publishers of Blitz Games have included such notables as Universal, Disney Interactive, Sony, THQ, Empire Interactive, and Hasbro Interactive.

This award-winning company is headquartered in Leamington Spa, north of London. The region’s Midlands Business Insider magazine recently ranked Blitz Games as #17 on their list of the 50 fastest-growing companies in the West Midlands.

The Problem

After much growth, Blitz Games needed an integrated solution for IT asset management and software licensing compliance.

The Solution

Asset Navigator Professional Edition Version 4.3 with current licenses for 550 nodes and 5 users.

The Benefits

  • Software inventory data to ensure licensing compliance
  • Coomplete, accurate, and up-to-date network inventory
  • Helping make decisions about purchasing assets and properly allocating them
  • Accurate project cost analysis
  • Flexible filtering of list views
  • Quick-and-easy retrieval of data for audits and budgets
  • Powerful reports module
  • All-in-one system that readily supports future IT growth

Building an Infrastructure

When James Corrigan joined Blitz Games six years ago as its first IT manager, the company’s primary focus was, as he puts it, “Games. Plus administration.” At the time, Blitz Games employed about 70 people who worked locally on about 100 machines.

And their IT department? It was a Windows 98 diskette and a single PC server.

According to Corrigan, everything was outdated. There were no backups, standards, or procedures. They had minimal infrastructure, and there was no asset management. As Corrigan wryly states, “It was a shambles, but we were surviving.” Since that time, Corrigan reports, “We’ve grown up quite a bit and are now very structured.”

More than ready for the task at hand, Corrigan worked hard to begin building the IT department from the ground floor. He started by using a dual system of spreadsheets and Word documents to track equipment and software licenses. He also built an Access database to monitor the lending of around 4,000 library items and to track IT Service Desk tickets.

The database did a good job for about a year, although Corrigan found it to be clumsy. This piecemeal approach worked fairly well for the next three years and helped him put together a much-needed structure. However, he says he had to prove to management that the structure was actually a good idea!

Finding Asset Navigator

Somewhere around the three-year mark, Corrigan decided what he really needed was a complete package that comprised asset management and software licensing compliance. He eventually tried another leading PC asset inventory tool, which was, he states, “Very slow, so we could only use it once a month. And there were no reporting tools anyway, plus it was hard to set up and hard to maintain.” Clearly, this tool was not the solution.

Two years ago, Corrigan found Asset Navigator while surfing the web. After downloading the demo, he says, “I didn’t realize there was a full software system out there. I was quite amazed that it did everything we wanted it to do.” As he puts it, “It was an all-in-one system.” He started with the network audit and slowly developed a full system. Now, he says, “We use pretty much every bit of it.”

I didn’t realize there was a full software system out there. I was quite amazed that it did everything we wanted it to do.

James Corrigan
IT Manager
Blitz Games

Today, Corrigan’s IT department comprises an IT administrator and an IS coordinator, whose daily use of Asset Navigator includes reporting and managing the library as well as moving all their equipment around. (At Blitz Games, the emphasis on game projects requires the constant reassignment of assets to the right location.) On the technical side, Corrigan has a network manager and an IT technician who manages the network and provides daily support.

As a whole, the group currently maintains an infrastructure of around 260 machines for 120 employees – around twice the size as when Corrigan started.

About Blitz Games

Blitz Games began as the tale of two twin brothers who loved computer games. While Philip and Andrew Oliver’s philosophy obviously encompasses the concept of fun (and games), their incredible success story is more about talent, dedication, and hard work than it is about rocketing to the top in record time. Blitz Games has now designed over 100 premier games across all platforms, and in the process, has earned numerous prestigious industry awards, including the first UK-based Application of Technology Award for their Fairly OddParents game. Blitz Games uses its exclusive internal FUSE engine technology in the development process. This accelerates the creation of their game prototypes and allows the company to stay well ahead in the very competitive games business.

Several recent Blitz Games titles have included:

  • Fairly OddParents: Breakin’ Da Rules, a cartoon-style adventure based on the Nickelodeon show
  • Bad Boys II, an action game inspired by the 2003 movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence
  • Disney’s The Little Mermaid II, an underwater adventure based on the Disney movies
  • The Mummy Returns, an action adventure based on the movie
  • Disney’s Lilo & Stitch: Trouble in Paradise, a children’s game based on the Disney movie

Using Favorite Features

One of Corrigan’s favorite Asset Navigator features is filtering, especially when he doesn’t want something as formal as a printed report. He says, “The way you can filter views, drag headers around ‘ it’s really quite brilliant. If someone comes along and wants to know how many playstations we have in the building, it’s an absolute breeze. We can get the information in seconds.”

The support has been brilliant. It’s second-to-none every time that we’ve needed it.

James Corrigan
IT Manager
Blitz Games

And he adds, “We use the reporting tool to create our own reports. We have some fantastic reports. The data is all there, so it’s just knowing how to get it.”

Of course, Corrigan has numerous other favorites, including the availability of data to make informed purchasing decisions.

He states, “When we’re doing the yearly budget, I can use Asset Navigator‘ to find out about past purchases.”

He adds, “I can determine the equipment we need when new projects are pending. I can answer people’s questions instantly from my laptop when I’m in meetings, or on-the-fly whenever someone needs proof about something we purchased.”

And when the time comes for the annual financial audit, Asset Navigator makes it easy for Corrigan to prove to the auditors that he’s purchased something. Corrigan declares, “This used to be a nightmare! I had to send out warning emails two weeks before the audit. Now I just import the audit data and it’s all there. It’s a breeze nowadays.”

And as much of the work at Blitz Games is project-based, Asset Navigator lets Corrigan quickly provide other departments with valuable data so they can perform accurate project cost analyses.

The Blitz Games environment presents its share of other unique challenges. As a company of artists, designers, and programmers, Blitz Games has more than a handful of software power users. “Everyone is always asking for better software,” states Corrigan. “This goes against standardizing across the company. ”

The Asset Navigator system will grow with the company. We only have to add audit and user licenses. It’s future-proved. It can do everything we need it to do.

James Corrigan
IT Manager
Blitz Games

Corrigan uses a paper-based software allocation sheet that he constantly checks against Asset Navigator’s Software Installations list. He says, “If people are downloading software from the Internet, the IT technicians will remove it, unless it’s really needed, in which case we’ll buy a license.”

Corrigan also sends out monthly software audit reports to managers so they can decide whether to keep a software product, remove it, or just keep it until a certain date. When a project changes, they may not need the product anymore and can allocate it to someone else. Corrigan performs this same task for the hardware assets.

Growing into the Future

When discussing the growth of the company, Corrigan indicates that they’re expanding, and he states, “The Asset Navigator system will grow with the company. We’d only have to add audit and user licenses. It’s future-proved,” as he puts it. “It can do everything we need it to do.”

And he’s quick to add, “The support has been brilliant. It’s second-to-none every time that we’ve needed it.”

For more information about Blitz Games, go to www.blitzgames.com.

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.