Stellar is a market-leading Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) firm that offers engineering services across various major industries, including food and beverage, logistics, and the federal government. Stellar’s integrated approach to design-build and commitment to excellence enables it to execute major construction projects in record time while upholding high design and construction standards. Due to the rapidly growing number of IT assets and scaling operations across multiple locations, Stellar’s IT team relies on AssetSonar for effective IT asset management. 

Replacing Excel spreadsheets with AssetSonar

Before AssetSonar came into the picture, Stellar’s IT team tracked their IT assets manually through Excel spreadsheets. Although they routinely updated these spreadsheets, maintaining a real-time IT asset database became a major challenge. Tricia Williams, Information Systems Support Technician at Stellar, saw that the organization needed modern IT asset management software that allowed them to track assets accurately across their IT landscape.

We spoke with Tricia Williams (Information Systems Support Technician), who walked us through the challenges Stellar faced before implementing AssetSonar. She explained that the increasingly high volume of IT assets made it difficult for the IT teams to keep track of asset activities. They found it challenging to manage asset depreciation, asset check-in and checkout, and asset procurement. She explained that despite the IT team’s best efforts, asset data wasn’t always updated, and some things were missed out, resulting in inaccurate asset information and outdated Excel repositories. 

Tricia evaluated the market for IT asset management platforms and chose AssetSonar from the three shortlisted solutions. She explained that other solutions didn’t meet the software asset management criteria and didn’t offer integrations that were crucial for Stellar’s IT operations. 

‘One of the things we love about AssetSonar is its integration with Zendesk. It helps us a lot with our service management processes and the best part is that we are able to take actions on assets right from the Zendesk application.’ says Tricia. 

Addressing asset tracking challenges with AssetSonar

Stellar’s IT team can now easily check-in and check-out devices, run reports for crucial key performance indicators (KPIs) and accurately track the location and custody details of an asset. Tricia remarked, 

‘Now we have a much better system to track items than managing them through Excel spreadsheets’. 

Using AssetSonar has made hardware asset management more streamlined for Stellar’s team. They can add new devices to the system and track their trail across various locations. Monitoring assets across different locations is crucial for Stellar’s scaling operations. 

With AssetSonar in place, Stellar’s two groups are now tracking their entire IT estates through the platform. Previously, both groups were using their own siloed systems for IT asset management. Still, since the implementation of AssetSonar, they have consolidated their data on AssetSonar and are using it as a single source of information for their entire IT infrastructure.

‘With our two teams combined, our processes are more functional, and we can view the IT operations from a whole organization’s perspective,’ remarked Tricia. 

A measurable improvement in inventory management 

Since Stellar now has all asset and inventory information in one place, it has eliminated multiple spreadsheets for different locations. Having such a granular level of visibility also enables them to accurately maintain their inventory stock levels in one consolidated database. 

‘We keep our inventory up-to-date and monitor the items being checked in and out. We are also able to accurately track our inventory procurements.’ remarked Tricia. 

Implementing AssetSonar has already translated to automated inventory tracking, freeing resources from manual tasks and allowing the IT team to dedicate more time to strategic tasks. 

While discussing the impact of these changes, Tricia explained that previously, these processes were time-consuming and prone to manual errors. She had to manually compile and verify inventory reports by checking the items in the storage closet, counting devices, and checking them off the spreadsheet. Now she can run an automated inventory report to get details on the users having multiple items and take actions to retrieve those items. She explained that the process that used to take a day and a half is now reduced to hardly twenty minutes. 

Faster service delivery and quicker ticket resolution

Due to AssetSonar’s integration with leading IT service management software Zendesk, Stellar’s IT team can streamline service delivery processes. Since they manage recovery tickets, onboarding and offboarding tickets, and asset repair tickets, they use AssetSonar’s widget on the Zendesk application for updated information on the assets. 

‘AssetSonar’s integration with Zendesk saves us a lot of time because now we have all asset information in one place.’ says Tricia. 

Tricia explained to us that previously if an agent was working on a recovery ticket, it used to take them approximately three days to reach out to the user and let them know that their device had to be retrieved. It was strenuous to get the device back and update its information on the Excel spreadsheet. Since implementing AssetSonar, this painstakingly long process has been reduced to a day. Tricia remarked that now it is quite easy to find the right device, take action for its recovery, and update the information in the system. Stellar’s IT team also leverages this integration to enhance their asset repair and maintenance processes. The process that required the agents to search through five Excel lists is now redundant due to AssetSonar’s real-time asset tracking and item trails. 

Enhanced employee experience with onboarding/offboarding workflows

AssetSonar’s onboarding workflows and out-of-the-box provisioning capabilities allow Stellar’s team to offer an exceptional onboarding experience to their new hires. Before AssetSonar, the organization’s IT team didn’t follow a defined onboarding process. They checked out assets for the new employees and updated the Excel sheets as accurately as possible. Now, due to the provisioning capabilities, they don’t have to manually assign devices; instead, they are checked out automatically to the relevant folks. They have further streamlined the process by taking advantage of the scanning feature for quicker check-in and checkout. 

Similarly, Stellar leverages AssetSonar and Zendesk integration for employee offboarding processes. Tricia explained how the retrieval process for exiting employees has become more streamlined since implementing AssetSonar. They can now easily keep track of all software and hardware assets to be retrieved from the employees, and the status can be updated in the software within no time. Tricia mentioned that she also likes how she can view the entire trial history of any asset and view its previous custodians. 

‘I like how every ticket is documented through AssetSonar so I can easily go back and trace to see what has been happening with the device.’ remarked Tricia. 

Blending in an integrated ecosystem 

AssetSonar’s integration with third-party applications was one of the major wins for Stellar’s IT team. They leveraged our integration with Microsoft Intune to import all device data to AssetSonar.

‘It is very important for us to have AssetSonar integrated with Intune. It helped us import our iPhones and iPads to AssetSonar.’ explained Tricia. 

In addition to using our integration with Zendesk and Intune, Stellar has also integrated the software with Okta and Azure. 

A major highlight of Stellar’s path to streamlined IT asset management is productivity increase across its IT department. Tricia explained that the team’s productivity levels have improved to 100% from the previous 25%. She added that AssetSonar’s integrations have helped the team find their lost and misplaced assets. There have been instances where employees were accidentally assigned multiple devices, and the team was able to retrieve those devices by tracking them through AssetSonar. 

Intuitive, customizable reports and dashboards

Tricia’s aim to stay on top of ITAM success metrics led her to customize her main AssetSonar dashboard with crucial information. She has integrated important widgets into the default dashboard so the IT team can have real-time data on overdue items, retired hardware assets, new device discoveries, and more. Tricia has also added some software asset management KPIs to the dashboard to ensure that they adopt a proactive approach when it comes to license expiries and renewals. 

Tricia emphasized how valuable AssetSonar’s custom reports are for Stellar’s IT team. These reports allow them to look at key figures, isolate areas of improvement, and take action accordingly. Some of the major reports they run are on retired assets, multiple asset count reports, and technology spend reports. These custom reports give in-depth asset visibility to the IT teams and enable them to successfully create cost optimization frameworks. They stay on top of information regarding assets being procured, retired, or depreciated. 

According to Tricia, ‘We are now able to accurately figure out the cost of all our assets. We can now determine how much each employee’s technology is costing us and eventually, we’ll be able to calculate the technology costs for every department.’

Streamlining software asset management for compliance

The transition from Excel spreadsheets to AssetSonar also empowered Stellar to improve its software asset management posture. Tricia shared that the company uses a wide range of cloud-based and on-premise software solutions so they have to keep track of a lot of license renewals. With AssetSonar, they get notifications at least 30 days in advance so Tricia’s team is able to create renewal tickets and update them in the system. This also helps them ensure that the organization is always compliant with vendor agreements and is not at risk of hefty legal penalties.

Future commitment to AssetSonar  

Utilizing AssetSonar capabilities has led to streamlined IT asset management for Stellar. Their team is greatly impressed by AssetSonar, and they look forward to exploring more ITAM capabilities with our customer success team.