The Challenge
The IT department at Area Agency on Aging of Broward County (AAABC) manages computers and laptops for 60 employees and 20 contractors. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, half of the organization’s workers went remote. To ensure continued user productivity and security, Chris Delez, Information Systems and Building Manager at AAABC, knew he needed a solution to automate patch management and enable high-quality IT support for the entire workforce, including both remote and office-based endpoints. Otherwise, the agency would be at an increased risk of cybersecurity incidents, productivity and operational issues, and extremely high support costs.
“Without adequate patch management in place, I would have to go around to each individual machine to keep them updated,” says Chris. “It would also interrupt users and limit their productivity. Even more importantly, it could leave us open to security vulnerabilities, as a manual approach always leaves a gap for patches to be missed.” At the same time, as a non-profit organization, AAABC also needed the solution to be cost-effective.
The Action1 Solution
Chris chose Action1 because it was an affordable solution that delivers a broad set of flexible patch management and remote access functionality. “Moreover, it was highly recommended by my network consultant,” adds Chris.
The Benefits
Streamlined patch management. Action1 gives Chris detailed information about updates for all critical applications in a single pane of glass. Each week, he reviews the new patches released by Microsoft and other software vendors and schedules the updates he approves to be installed on Friday night; all employees, whether in-office or remote, are instructed to leave their computers on that night.
The ability to schedule updates overnight is particularly useful. First, the bandwidth usage does not cause any problems. Second, even if updates are still running at 8 or 9 a.m., they do not interfere with anybody’s work, since none of our staff work on Saturday morning.
Increased employee productivity and reduced costs. When a remote employee calls Chris to report a problem, he can use Action1’s integrated Remote Desktop to quickly access their machine and resolve the issue. In fact, it takes him just a few minutes to fix problems that would otherwise require hours, ensuring high employee satisfaction and productivity. “It’s hard to quantify the amount of money Action1 saves us, but the time savings are huge. Because I am able to remote into users who are working at home, we save the time that it would take them to drive to the office and back,” Chris says.
