SAManage IT Management Blog

At SAManage, our online IT management solutions have a proven track record of success. Each and every day, companies across all industries rely on our tools to dramatically improve the way they track and maintain their technology systems.

What can our IT management software do for you?

Greater IT Inventory Visibility

Do you know what assets you have? Where they are? Who’s using them? How they are configured? Chances are, the answer is no. With SAManage, IT audits are faster and easier than ever before. So, you’ll know exactly what PCs, servers, printers, software packages, and other components exist across your entire business – as well as all their characteristics and properties.

Enhanced Change Management

Today’s business environments are very dynamic, and technology infrastructures must be constantly modified and expanded in order to keep pace. But, tracking those changes can be a harrowing task, particularly if inventory is logged and managed manually. SAManage automatically captures changes to assets in your environment. With our IT management tools, your IT team will be automatically notified when new software is installed, when upgrades or patches are applied, when an asset changes hands, etc.

Improved Software License Management

Unfortunately, most organizations today use Excel spreadsheets to manage how purchased software licenses are allocated. But, this approach leaves much room for error. For example, as new licenses are bought – from countless different vendors – mistakes and discrepancies are bound to find their way into those spreadsheets, putting companies at risk of fines and penalties for non-compliance. Our software license management functionality provides end-to-end monitoring of all related activities. Purchased contracts and associated documentation can be captured and stored, allocated licenses can be tracked, and changes to how those licenses are distributed and used can be monitored in real-time. So, you’ll always be in compliance with the terms of your vendor contracts.

Faster Problem Identification and Resolution

Many common issues in your technology environment can drain the productivity of both your IT staff, and your end users. But, without the right solutions in place, these problems can be hard to detect – until it is too late! Is someone using unlicensed software? Has an end user downloaded a game or file-sharing program that introduces new threats to your infrastructure? Comprehensive risk detection capabilities are available within the SAManage system. You’ll know what problems require your immediate attention, so they can be corrected as promptly as possible.

Better Service Delivery

Once you’ve gained greater control over the assets in your network, you can focus on providing improved service to those who use them. Our powerful help desk system offers cradle-to-grave tracking of all tickets, automating critical processes such as routing, collaboration, and communication. So, all problems are handled in the most efficient manner. And, because these features are fully integrated with our IT asset management solution, repairs and other important information are dynamically incorporated into each asset’s history.

SaaS = lower Costs

SAManage solutions are delivered via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.  Which means, no hardware and software components are required at your side, and you no longer have to upgrade, maintain or patch yet another IT system – we take care of all that for you. Simply sign up for our service, and get started immediately – without the need for a long, complex, and costly implementation.  In addition to accelerating deployment and shortening the time-to-value, our SaaS approach brings ongoing product enhancements and new features, and you can benefit from them immediately.

Visit our Web site to learn more about the many benefits of our SaaS IT management solution, and how it can help you optimize the value of your IT assets, and improve the productivity of related IT operations.

SaaS-based IT Management Software

Discover how SaaS IT Management software can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and know exactly what you have.
Sign up for a free trial of SAManage IT Management service.

This week’s enhancement lets you add RSS widgets to your SAManage IT management dashboard, and makes it easier to stay on top of your IT news (or any other RSS feed you subscribe to).

To get started, click on the Personalize icon on your dashboard and select the Other tab:

To get you started, we included a few of our favorite IT news feeds (yes, this blog included!), and you can add your own custom feeds. Selecting an existing news feed adds the RSS widget to your dashboard.

Clicking on any of the links in the RSS widget opens a new window with the article’s information. Staying on top of your IT news has never been easier!

Add your customized feed

To add your own RSS feed to the dashboard, select the Custom RSS Feed widget, than click on the edit widget, enter your feed’s URL, and click apply.

Your custom feed will show up on your dashboard!

Comments? suggestions? let us know what you think!

Our commitment to helping our customers succeed is what sets SAManage apart from other software vendors. We pride ourselves on our ability to offer powerful, feature-rich IT management tools that deliver significant, tangible benefits and helps our customers better manage and control their IT.

Each and every day, companies just like yours are realizing tremendous advantages in the way they audit, track, and manage their critical technology systems. For example:

Lane Construction

This leader in transportation-related construction projects was unable to effectively manage its numerous software applications with its existing IT asset management tool. By replacing it with SAManage, the company dramatically increased productivity through improved centralization and coordination of software license management efforts.

“SAManage gives us everything we need to manage our software applications from end-to-end,” said Brian P. Morgan, Lane’s Software Asset Management Coordinator. “We have full visibility into what we have, where it is, and who is using it. All the capabilities we need to effectively control and track our software inventory are right at our fingertips.”

Drexel University Online

This renowned educational institution offers a variety of accredited online degree programs. When the company was experiencing difficulty in managing its complex IT infrastructure, it turned to SAManage. The SAManage system now supports critical IT activities such as inventory, keeping end-user PCs and Macs up-to-date, and managing software license compliance.

Carl Lahetta, Sr. Manager of Technology says, “SAManage automatically gathers inventory information for us. This really makes our team more efficient and enables us to focus on the bigger picture. We can now spend our time assessing what’s going on across the environment, instead of collecting data one asset at a time.”

Clakamas River Water

For this Oregon-based domestic water supply district, real-time tracking of hardware and software assets was of the utmost importance. But, using Excel spreadsheets and customer Microsoft Access applications to manage PCs, laptops, and servers distributed across two sites proved to be too rudimentary and time-consuming. Improved asset correlation and enhance risk detection are just two of the many benefits the company has achieved since signing up for the SAManage service.

“SAManage helps us solidify assets tracking so we can start showing the correlation between the assets we are using and what’s in our accounting records,” says Quincy Whitfield, Information Technology and Security Manager. He adds that, “SAManage gives us the visibility to see if any computers are running applications they are not supposed to, so we can work with the users to remove these risks.”

The Mosaic Company

The Mosaic Company, a provider of specialized training and consulting services, was challenged by limited visibility into remote assets, making inventory management a labor-intensive task, and hindering the planning of important projects, such as upgrading to a new version of Microsoft Office. SAManage was employed to help improve key inventory management processes, helping the firm to eliminate manual activities and keep more detailed and accurate asset records.

“What really intrigued me about SAManage was its ability to compensate for my lack of asset visibility,” stated Rob Price, Mosaic’s Director of IT. “It used to take three or four days to collect the information for software inventories. Now I have all the information I need at my fingertips. That’s a huge time saver.”

Danfoss Turbocor

This manufacturer of industrial-grade air conditioning compressors was plagued by IT efficiency problems, as company expansion led to new users being added in various locations around the world. When manual Excel spreadsheets proved to be too time-consuming, and Dell eSmart offered less-than-adequate support, the company signed up for SAManage. Expanded risk management and help desk capabilities, as well as the ability to grant access to multiple users, made SAManage the ideal IT management solution for Danfoss Turbocor.

“SAManage offers me all the functionality I had with eSmart as well as additional capabilities such as risk management and an integrated helpdesk,” claims Clayton Tew, IT Manager.

EF&I

EF&I Service Corporation is a premier provider of services to the telecommunication industry. With IT assets spread across multiple locations throughout the country, ensuring the ongoing accessibility and performance of all systems was a nearly impossible feat. Additionally, its existing IT asset management tool prevented the IT team from entering data directly into the system, and required them to wait 24 hours for critical reports. EFI&I decided to replace their vendor with SAManage, which offered greater flexibility and more functionality.

“SAManage makes my job much easier,” notes George Abell, the company’s IT Manager. “I expect it will be saving me as much as two days a week. {And} with better control over our software licenses, we can move licenses that are not in use to other locations where they can be utilized instead of buying new ones.”

What can a robust and innovative SaaS IT management system do for YOUR business? Visit our Web site to learn more.

SaaS-based IT Management Software

Discover how SaaS IT Management software can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and know exactly what you have.
Sign up for a free trial of SAManage IT Management service.

Today we are excited to launch the new dashboard, with ability to personalize and add / remove widgets showing more information about your IT assets, contracts and help desk tickets. The dashboard provides a real-time snapshot of your assets and key indicators for your account:

Personalize your dashboard by clicking the Personalize icon to select the widget you wish to add:

You can drag and drop widgets to organize your dashboard, or remove widgets from your dashboard. Some of the widgets can be edited to further personalize the information displayed:

The new dashboard provides an easier way to organize and manage your IT information. As always, let us know what you think!

SAManage had an outage early this morning starting at 1:00 AM PST. While many of our users in the US were asleep, many people in other regions could not access their SAManage accounts and we’re really sorry for that.

The issue was due to an update with our hosting provider storage shelf and operating systems.

You can follow the service status page at http://www.samanage.com/status to learn more about service availability and up-time information.

Thanks for bearing with us. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Update: 4:20AM PST – service is up

This week’s addition is the ability to make mass changes on assets, tickets, and contract properties. With the new feature you can select a group of computers and assign them to a site, attach to a computer lease contract or a service/repair agreement, or select a group of tickets and assign them to a new ticket owner.

Using the Mass Update

Click on the Mass Update icon on the upper right corner of each module. You will see the Mass Update frame poping up:

Select the items you wish to update using the checkbox on the left side of each item. The Mass Update status bar would indicate how many items are currently selected and will be affected by this mass update action.

Next, select the property you wish to modify, such as category, department or site, and choose the new value for that property. When you are done with your selection, click the Update Selected icon on the lower right corner.

The system would update the properties for the selected items with the new values you chose, and indicate how many items where actually changed by this action.

Where can you use it?

The new Mass Update feature is available with Computers, Software, Other Asset, Contracts, and Tickets. Each module has different properties you can update based on the context, and you can view all the available properties in the Mass Update frame for each of the modules.

Enabling Efficient, Effective Software License Management at Lane Construction

Lane Construction specializes in transportation projects, providing expert construction of highways and bridges, locks and dams, mass transit systems, airport runways, aprons, and taxiways.

Unhappy with the support they were receiving for their existing IT asset management solution – Dell eSmart – as well as its limited end user functionality, Lane Construction began investigating other alternatives.

“SAManage gives us everything we need to manage our software applications from end-to-end.  We have full visibility into what we have, where it is, and who is using it.  All the capabilities we need to effectively control and track our software inventory are right at our fingertips. “

Within just a few short weeks of using SAManage, the advantages became obvious.  Benefits achieved so far include enhanced productivity and improved management of software assets through better coordination and centralization.

“The solution is so simple to use,” added Morgan.  “In just 15 minutes, I was able to learn how to enter and track our software inventory.”

“The integrated Help Desk, which we will begin using soon, is a significant added bonus,” Morgan concludes.  “Until now, we had no centralized system for supporting our end users, it was all done via email and phone calls.  The SAManage Help Desk will allow us to provide better service, while increasing the productivity of our support staff.”

Read the complete report: Enabling Efficient, Effective Software License Management at Lane Construction

Online IT Management and Help Desk Software

Discover how on-demand IT Asset Management and Help Desk software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels.
Sign up for a free trial of SAManage.

Editor Note: This article was written by a guest author, Ilan Justh, a renowned IT Asset Manager and Software Licensing expert.  Mr. Justh works with companies of all types and sizes, providing them with the advice and guidance they need to reduce risk, cut IT costs, boost productivity, and optimize the value of their technology systems.

What do you do when you have been tasked with finding all the needles in a BIG corporate haystack?  You grab a strong magnet and get to work.

In 2004, I was hired as the first asset manager at a major art institute. My first task was to create a master CMDB of every technical asset owned.  First, I had to determine what needed to be tracked.  I met with the network team, a telecom representative, and my direct manager.  We decided that peripheral devices like mice and microphones, as well as monitors, would not be included, since they were less expensive to replace than to repair if they broke down.  That left only CPUs, printers, and select externals like scanners to inventory.  While the telecom group opted out, the network team wanted us to log their servers, routers, switches, hubs, etc.

Some data did exist, but it was incomplete and inaccurate.  However, it gave us an idea of how many computers we should expect to find, and how many desktop techs would be available to help.  Luckily, our vendor contract included a clause that allowed us to run an annual inventory (I highly recommend this for anyone with a master contract, as long as the fees are not exorbitant).

Next, we needed to define what data should be collected as assets were found.  Those working PCs that were connected to the network were already reporting their internal information (memory size and type, disk information, software applications and patching levels) via a software agent.  This presented a HUGE time savings for us, since data would only need to be gathered from the few lab or non-networked units.  We planned to accomplish this by creating survey floppies and memory sticks.

Presuming the data collected was accurate, we produced a CPU master list that included only Windows-based units. DOS, MAC, and UNIX machines would be manually added, due to limitations in our software inventory package.  As stated earlier, assigned techs would boot up all stand-alone systems, and manually gather information using floppies and memory sticks.  To avoid affecting end users, work was done over weekends with a four-person staff.  We estimated it would take five minutes per machine (although many units would probably be completed faster), and hoped to avoid access issues by asking each affected area to clear away any toys, plants, and papers.

Since we already had an approximate count, I was able to create area sub-totals for the four survey sites.  I was also able to create a master schedule/calendar, by determining how much work could be done (150 to 200 computers per day, 300 to 400 per weekend), and how to split that work up logically, to prevent traveling between buildings, or to and from sites outside home campus.

As the search began, each team leader received a master list that indicated what they would need to find in their region, in the allotted time.  We also provided extra asset labels, in case they found items without tags, or tagged assets that weren’t in inventory.  Of course, both were found (in this scenario, I recommend investigating further to determine if the items were purchased without following protocol, so similar situations can be prevented in the future).  For the sake of speed and accessibility, bar codes were printed on each label, and teams were given handheld scanners. We even got a few mirrors with extension wands, to see behind devices that were difficult to move.

Senior management had already signed off on this project. But now, information had to pass down to departmental managers, who – since we would be visiting every machine they oversaw – needed to know dates, effort, intent, risk and fall back, as well as who they should contact with questions.

We also got approval for our notification message, which instructed each user to turn their machine off, and provide their BIOS logins, network IDs, and other passwords (in case we had to turn the unit on).  Systems for which we were not able to gather passwords would be accessed as needed via system administration tools.

Because we would be “touching” every single machine, we considered embarking on other activities (such as security assessments of lab machines that house highly sensitive data), but determined that the scope was too great and the risk too high. We simply noted those machines for management, with the offer to help with risk and security in the future.

Equipment was scanned, or manually read when necessary.  Items without tags got new barcode labels, and were logged on blank asset report sheets.  If they were already on the master list, they were checked off.  Secondary devices were noted as child assets to parent computers.  Printers had their physical locations shown and their queue names noted (when network-connected).   We also kept blueprint maps, which came in handy during a follow-up printer-related project.

Data was then logged into our CMDB, to keep it as up-to-date as possible.  We concentrated on correcting discrepancies, and establishing the associations between child and parent devices.

Months later, the process was complete.  We discovered over 6,100 units, with 80 devices still not found.  Our next task was to locate them.  We wondered if they had been disposed of.  After reviewing reports from our data disposal firm, many missing items had, in fact, been removed – bringing the number of lost devices to 40 or 50.  Next, we looked at information we already had about those units, such as ownership or location.  Users were contacted, and luckily, many knew what happened.  In most cases, the users disposed of them on their own, or stored them as emergency backups. Since stored PCs would still be considered “deployed”, and would count under our vendor contract, we informed the users that spares were already available for them.  We then took the units back, and rendered them obsolete.

Now, we had just about a dozen missing units.  We visited technician work areas, and discovered old machines stashed away.  We marked these units as “stored”, rather then “deployed”.

My last attempt to find these missing items raised a few eyebrows!  I performed a Google desktop search, looking through email archives and network storage.  Be careful if you attempt this, there are privacy and security issues involved, and it can create a lot of network traffic.  Sure enough, I learned that a few units had been taken by former employees, and one printer had been borrowed by a publicist in New York.

Ultimately, we were left with just seven lost devices.  Fortunately, none of these were considered valuable – one was an ancient printer, and the rest were 15-inch monitors.

In the end, we created a solid baseline, ensuring that future inventory changes would be compared against an accurate database.  We learned how many computers existed, and reduced our support contract.  We identified all printers, so we could make smarter deployment decisions.  And, we counted all notebooks and desktops, which improved our ability to track implementation and assess risk.

The data center team was amazed by the help it provided.  Since they knew nothing about their servers (location, software, etc.), the advantages of our work were hard to quantify.  We knew it would benefit backups, risk assessment, load balancing, contracts, and usage, but the dollar value of the knowledge obtained was something they had to see for themselves.  Although it was scary that they didn’t already have much of the information we delivered, the manager was extremely thankful.  And me?  I won an award for the successful completion of this project!

Online IT Management and Help Desk Software

Discover how on-demand IT Asset Management and Help Desk software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels.
Sign up for a free trial of SAManage.

We are off to a great start in 2010, and we’re very excited about what we have planned for the year ahead. We wanted to share some of the things we’ve been working on recently.  We’re really looking forward to launching these updates, and we hope you will be too:

IT Asset Management

• Software Metering. Many users have asked us to add this capability.  We’re planning on releasing an updated agent with software metering capabilities shortly. You’ll be able to see which software is actually being used and how often.
• Agent Auto-Update. The new software metering agent will support remote auto-update, and provide an easier way to update your SAManage agent in the future.

IT Service Management

• ITIL-Based Service Desk. We are busy upgrading the help desk component to a more comprehensive IT service desk based on ITIL. This is going to be a great addition to our service, as it will allow users to implement the ITIL framework in a way that is tightly integrated with our IT Asset Management capabilities.
• Service Catalogs. Allow IT organizations to manage and publish a service catalog defining all services available by the organization. Based on the ITIL framework, service catalogs allow organizations to further streamline their service and support processes.

Platform

• Dashboard. We are getting ready to release a new version of the dashboard.  This new edition will offer more extensive customization, a wider variety of widgets, and enable you to add as many widgets as you’d like from all areas of the service.
• Customize Views. Select the columns in each view, and re-order them based on your unique preferences or needs.
• Mass Update. This feature provides an easier way to make bulk changes in each area of the service.  For example, you can close multiple tickets, reassign a group of computers to a site, change the status of multiple assets, and much more.

We’ll keep you posted as each of these new features becomes available.  And, of course, we continue to welcome ideas and suggestions from you.  Your feedback and input helps us determine what new capabilities and enhancements should be added in the future.

Online IT Management Software

Discover how on-demand IT Management software from SAManage can help you gain instant visibility into your assets and improve your service levels. Sign up for a free trial today.

Companies who use manual processes to manage their IT assets are often plagued by numerous errors and mistakes in their inventory.  And one of the problems that occurs most frequently is duplicate computers – those PCs, servers, and other systems that are accounted for more than once.

How do duplicate computers get created in your inventory?  And, how should you deal with duplicate assets?

1. Changes to a business. Expansion and downsizing, as well as adjustments to HR hierarchies like promotions, transfers,or reorganizations, often require assets to be moved, re-assigned, re-installed or taken out of service.  All this activity, when handled manually, leaves much room for error.
2. Re-installing computers. Many times during typical course of business computers would get re-installed or re-provisioned from a standard image. This is done to correct a software problem, to wipe a machine clean before reassigning it, or simply to restore to a standard baseline. When computers get re-installed, they could appear as duplicates in the inventory.
3. Technology innovation. Combined with dynamic market conditions, prompt companies to continuously replace old, outdated assets with newer, better ones to keep up with new employee needs and customer demands.  Once again, logging all these changes by hand can result in human mistakes, creating serious inconsistencies and replications in inventory.

The creation of duplicate computers can cause numerous issues.  For example, it can hinder the effectiveness of IT asset management efforts.  It can make it difficult to accurately account for all the company’s assets, or it can make it difficult to properly track software installation and usage, putting a company’s license compliance standing at risk.

SAManage: The Fastest, Easiest Way to Handle Duplicate Computers

IT asset management solutions from SAManage are designed to help ensure the precision and accuracy of your computer inventory.  End to end automation of all related activities – from scanning for duplicate computers and allowing the administrator to easily mark a computer as duplicate and remove it from the system inventory as needed – makes it quick and simple to detect and correct the problem of duplicate computers.

And now, a new enhancement to the SAManage user interface – a “Find Duplicates” icon conveniently located at the top right corner of the Inventory > Computer Module screen – empowers users to initiate the process of locating and rectifying duplicate computers in just a single click!

Visit our Web site to learn more about our SaaS IT management solutions, and how they can help you more efficiently and effectively avoid duplicate computers in your inventory.

Ready for next generation IT Management?

Discover how you can gain instant visibility into your assets, know exactly what you have and what risks exists in your network.

Get started today: Sign up for a free 30-day trial of SAManage IT Management service.