CentraStage Merton Case Study
MERTON DRIVES EFFICIENT WORK PRACTICES WITH CENTRASTAGE INTRODUCTION Merton is a small borough in the South West of London comprising of Wimbledon, Morden and Mitcham. MIS (Management Information Systems), MLE (Managed Learning Environment) and centralised backup services are provided by the borough to over 50 schools.
CHALLENGES The Schools ICT Support Team relied on site visits to support over 50 schools before the introduction of CentraStage. This involved lengthy processes and prioritisation and visiting the schools was proving costly in terms of time and money, creating large demands on a small team. The time required for prioritising cases plus the additional travel time would often mean unnecessary down time for the schools – one of the key drivers behind the Schools ICT Support Team wanting to revolutionise its practices and minimise inconvenience for its schools. The team researched technology solutions that could automate many of the routine, repetitive manual IT support tasks – the aim was to increase efficiency, automate routine processes, reduce ICT downtime in schools and eliminate unnecessary travel.
SOLUTION Merton Schools ICT Support Team trialled CentraStage thanks to its relationship with the London Grid for Learning, and decided that it would be able to help in a number of ways. Crucially, following a BECTA recommendation in 2009 that remote access to schools MIS be secured by second factor authentication, CentraStage had worked closely with the LGfL (London Grid for Learning) and their partners to deliver a solution. The team now use their LA USO (unified sign on) credentials and OTP to securely log on using two factor authentication. Since introducing CentraStage last summer, the teams working practices have changed beyond recognition. Lengthy processes involving visits and prioritisation have been replaced by rapid case turnaround and much less time on the road. Mobile phone bills have decreased and the team can spend more time on planning and proactive system management. The teams time to fix has reduced by an average of 40% and car mileage claims are down by 30%. Another challenge faced by the team was supporting an application that securely transfers data from each school to central systems. Before CentraStage, the team would often have to wait days for an email regarding the status of the transfer. This was inefficient and meant there was often a delay in receiving data as the email was sent manually when an operator didn’t receive the file. Using CentraStage the team is notified automatically when a failure is written into the event log regarding failure of the transfer at any school. This captures the error as it happens and hugely improves our efficiency with problems identified and dealt with immediately. Merton Case Study | July 2010
For more information on CentraStage please email [email protected]
MERTON DRIVES EFFICIENT WORK PRACTICES WITH CENTRASTAGE Merton has also been using CentraStage to help schools improve in terms of standards and quality. Working closely with colleagues in the Schools Standards and Quality section the team has been able to use the remote access facilities to develop and roll out better pupil tracking and reporting in SIMS.net. A project is almost completed to standardise the way in which schools use Assessment Manager to collect and view pupil data. The time and efficiency savings for the team due to CentraStage are significant and the benefits to the schools are equally as apparent with less disruption, less downtime and less risk, allowing staff to focus on teaching.
ONGOING SUPPORT Derek Crabtree, Schools ICT Support Manager for the London Borough of Merton, explains: “Using CentraStage has enabled me to make major improvements to our working practices and being able to demonstrate them to colleagues has meant that the message has spread. Other departments within Merton LA and other SLA (Service Level Agreement) providers within the council are now using CentraStage themselves to achieve better services and reduce costs.” “A good example is our Finance section. They approached us because they had seen remote access in action and thought it would help them to support users who were having problems. We were aware of the sensitivity of schools financial data and that schools would want restricted access so we drew up a framework agreement between the Finance section and each of the schools who bought into their SLA. We created a Finance profile and placed all School Finance Officer’s machines in it. We ensured privacy was switched on and then trained the finance section to use CentraStage remote access. This means our Finance Section can only get to finance machines in the schools they support and that the finance officer sitting at the target machine in the school is able to accept or decline remote support.” “It’s fantastic, you can show people exactly what to do instead of having to explain complicated procedures over the phone” Finance User. “CentraStage is the best thing since sliced bread! It’s so much easier “seeing” the issues raised and being able to resolve them in real time without actually having to make a site visit. It’s greener, leaner and enables us to be super-efficient!” Sims Support Officer. Derek continues “As well as building on our current use of CentraStage, we are planning to use its advanced functionality to monitor disk and processor usage as well as server services on administration servers so that problems can be identified and outages avoided. From next year this service will be written into the Merton Schools ICT Support SLA.”
ABOUT CENTRASTAGE CentraStage is an Information Technology (IT) support platform with a difference – affordable, advanced remote computer management. A web-based device management platform designed to improve the management of servers, PCs and laptops, CentraStage can save IT support organisations both time and money. From individual users to sophisticated IT managed service providers, CentraStage is designed to run on any device, computer, server and laptop. Functionality includes audit, monitoring, remote support, deployment and reporting. For further information, please contact www.centrastage.com or [email protected]
Merton Case Study | July 2010
For more information on CentraStage please email [email protected]
CHALLENGES The Schools ICT Support Team relied on site visits to support over 50 schools before the introduction of CentraStage. This involved lengthy processes and prioritisation and visiting the schools was proving costly in terms of time and money, creating large demands on a small team. The time required for prioritising cases plus the additional travel time would often mean unnecessary down time for the schools – one of the key drivers behind the Schools ICT Support Team wanting to revolutionise its practices and minimise inconvenience for its schools. The team researched technology solutions that could automate many of the routine, repetitive manual IT support tasks – the aim was to increase efficiency, automate routine processes, reduce ICT downtime in schools and eliminate unnecessary travel.
SOLUTION Merton Schools ICT Support Team trialled CentraStage thanks to its relationship with the London Grid for Learning, and decided that it would be able to help in a number of ways. Crucially, following a BECTA recommendation in 2009 that remote access to schools MIS be secured by second factor authentication, CentraStage had worked closely with the LGfL (London Grid for Learning) and their partners to deliver a solution. The team now use their LA USO (unified sign on) credentials and OTP to securely log on using two factor authentication. Since introducing CentraStage last summer, the teams working practices have changed beyond recognition. Lengthy processes involving visits and prioritisation have been replaced by rapid case turnaround and much less time on the road. Mobile phone bills have decreased and the team can spend more time on planning and proactive system management. The teams time to fix has reduced by an average of 40% and car mileage claims are down by 30%. Another challenge faced by the team was supporting an application that securely transfers data from each school to central systems. Before CentraStage, the team would often have to wait days for an email regarding the status of the transfer. This was inefficient and meant there was often a delay in receiving data as the email was sent manually when an operator didn’t receive the file. Using CentraStage the team is notified automatically when a failure is written into the event log regarding failure of the transfer at any school. This captures the error as it happens and hugely improves our efficiency with problems identified and dealt with immediately. Merton Case Study | July 2010
For more information on CentraStage please email [email protected]
MERTON DRIVES EFFICIENT WORK PRACTICES WITH CENTRASTAGE Merton has also been using CentraStage to help schools improve in terms of standards and quality. Working closely with colleagues in the Schools Standards and Quality section the team has been able to use the remote access facilities to develop and roll out better pupil tracking and reporting in SIMS.net. A project is almost completed to standardise the way in which schools use Assessment Manager to collect and view pupil data. The time and efficiency savings for the team due to CentraStage are significant and the benefits to the schools are equally as apparent with less disruption, less downtime and less risk, allowing staff to focus on teaching.
ONGOING SUPPORT Derek Crabtree, Schools ICT Support Manager for the London Borough of Merton, explains: “Using CentraStage has enabled me to make major improvements to our working practices and being able to demonstrate them to colleagues has meant that the message has spread. Other departments within Merton LA and other SLA (Service Level Agreement) providers within the council are now using CentraStage themselves to achieve better services and reduce costs.” “A good example is our Finance section. They approached us because they had seen remote access in action and thought it would help them to support users who were having problems. We were aware of the sensitivity of schools financial data and that schools would want restricted access so we drew up a framework agreement between the Finance section and each of the schools who bought into their SLA. We created a Finance profile and placed all School Finance Officer’s machines in it. We ensured privacy was switched on and then trained the finance section to use CentraStage remote access. This means our Finance Section can only get to finance machines in the schools they support and that the finance officer sitting at the target machine in the school is able to accept or decline remote support.” “It’s fantastic, you can show people exactly what to do instead of having to explain complicated procedures over the phone” Finance User. “CentraStage is the best thing since sliced bread! It’s so much easier “seeing” the issues raised and being able to resolve them in real time without actually having to make a site visit. It’s greener, leaner and enables us to be super-efficient!” Sims Support Officer. Derek continues “As well as building on our current use of CentraStage, we are planning to use its advanced functionality to monitor disk and processor usage as well as server services on administration servers so that problems can be identified and outages avoided. From next year this service will be written into the Merton Schools ICT Support SLA.”
ABOUT CENTRASTAGE CentraStage is an Information Technology (IT) support platform with a difference – affordable, advanced remote computer management. A web-based device management platform designed to improve the management of servers, PCs and laptops, CentraStage can save IT support organisations both time and money. From individual users to sophisticated IT managed service providers, CentraStage is designed to run on any device, computer, server and laptop. Functionality includes audit, monitoring, remote support, deployment and reporting. For further information, please contact www.centrastage.com or [email protected]
Merton Case Study | July 2010
For more information on CentraStage please email [email protected]
