South Bound Brook School District secures and supports its remote workforce and eliminates the need to license costly imaging software, thanks to Action1.
Company
South Bound Brook School District is a public school district in South Bound Brook, New Jersey, that serves students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.
Headquarters
South Bound Brook, NJ, United States
Website
www.southboundbrookk8.org
The Challenge
South Bound Brook School District has roughly 450 students and 72 educational staff members. Before the pandemic, teachers and other staff members in the district used their devices only in the office. However, when COVID-19 hit and the institution switched to remote learning, they took them home. As a result, the IT department of the school district lost visibility into those endpoints, which dramatically increased security risks.
Lenny Libitz, Chief Technology Officer at the South Bound Brook School District, began looking for an all-in-one solution with remote support, patch management, and software deployment capabilities, and that would give him insight into how each endpoint was performing. The product had to be cloud-based, since Lenny did not want to expose his server to the internet. Last but not least, it had to be affordable, since the small school district has limited resources.
The Action1 Solution
Lenny evaluated several RMM tools, but most of them did not meet his needs. Some products were too expensive, while others required him to install software locally, tying him to a particular machine. Then he tested Action1, and was pleased to find that it not only delivers all the RMM features he was looking for but is a SaaS solution that gives him the flexibility to manage endpoints with any device he chooses that has a web browser. “Plus, it is secure — I like that it has MFA login authentication and is being continuously monitored and managed from Action1’s side for security,” says Lenny.
The Benefits
Strong security. Action1 enables Lenny to schedule updates and automate patch management across all of the district’s remote endpoints, including both corporate machines and employees’ personal devices. He can also easily diagnose and resolve issues that might arise during patching and ensure that all machines are updated successfully. Plus, Action1 also enables Lenny to deploy crucial software like antivirus and manage updates to those tools, all remotely. Moreover, Action1 alerts Lenny about suspicious events that occur on any endpoint, so he can avert security incidents.
“Action1 gave me — the only person in the tech office who has to wear multiple hats — tons of capabilities to manage those endpoints. I feel better now since I know that our machines are much more secure as a result of utilizing this platform.
Lenny Libitz, Chief Technology Officer, South Bound Brook School District
IT support for remote workers. Action1 empowers Lenny to provide remote staff members with office-quality IT support via the integrated remote desktop. In fact, even now that some employees have returned to the office, he has continued to take advantage of this functionality, since many people still want to avoid personal contact due to pandemic precautions, and it saves him time and effort as well.
Full control over software deployment. Action1’s software deployment capabilities save the district both time and money. When the school district purchases a new software solution, Lenny adds the package to Action1’s AppStore and can easily push the tool out to all the appropriate endpoints. Moreover, onboarding new devices now takes just 15 minutes, instead of several hours, since all required software is installed and configured automatically. “Action1 saves me several thousands of dollars every year, since I do not have to purchase costly imaging solutions,” notes Lenny.
Reduced IT workload. Action1 provides Lenny with visibility into how devices are performing, so he can manage them effectively. For example, he can easily see which devices are running out of storage space. Even better, Action1 offers predefined and custom actions that make it easy to address issues quickly, before users experience problems. For instance, Lenny can easily run a PowerShell script to delete old Windows update files that are taking up valuable storage on users’ devices.
