Brothers of Charity: “Instant IT decisions require rich, real-time insights”.
The Belgian chapter of the Brothers of Charity nonprofit manages over 24,000 assets, spread over 12 psychiatric hospitals and 15 pedagogical centers from their headquarters in Ghent. The chapter’s 14,000 employees are responsible for providing care, education, and support to approximately 40,000 people of all ages. In the digital age, technology is an important enabler of these responsibilities – making IT Asset Management crucial to the team’s – and the whole charity’s – ability to offer high-quality services.
The Burden -and Risks- of Manually Managing IT Assets
The Belgian chapter of the Brothers of Charity nonprofit manages 12 psychiatric hospitals and 15 pedagogical centers. The chapter’s 14,000 employees are responsible for providing care, education, and support to approximately 40,000 people of all ages. In the digital age, technology is an important enabler of these responsibilities – making IT asset management crucial to the team’s – and the whole charity’s – ability to offer high-quality services.
“I definitely remember the pre-Lansweeper period,” Frank De Bree, Central Head of IT, Brothers of Charity, begins. “Using our custom program meant performing almost every IT asset and risk management task manually – from inputting serial numbers, MAC addresses, device locations and more. We either went on-site to problem solve or remotely took over users’ screens.”
In fact, Frank estimates that IT personnel were spending an average of half a workday manually entering asset information into the program. “Even if asset data existed, if it wasn’t visible, it was overlooked,” continues Frank. “We didn’t have a system in place capable of performing an IT asset inventory, so the team did it all by hand. Doing so took up a huge chunk of our time.”
“We were audited by Microsoft and were able to complete it in less than 2 days due to the Lansweeper database already having all the data they needed.”
Shining A Powerful Light on the Charity’s IT Network
A couple of years ago, the question of Software Asset Management came up within the context of Microsoft license audits. “The previous department head discovered the existence of Lansweeper, and we were immediately impressed – and we needed it to report on Microsoft license counts,” Frank goes on to say. “It seemed like a good system, so we went ahead and implemented it.
Frank and his team decided to run a comparison of their old IT asset management program vs. Lansweeper. They quickly realized that Lansweeper offered significant time savings and bore more fruit than the charity’s old solution in the form of detailed IT asset insights.
“All network events, changes, and additions are scanned by the system and become visible within 24 hours,” Frank explains. “It’s helpful to find every different element organized and easily viewable in one location, and switch between device, server, and firewall with a few mouse clicks. The power of Lansweeper is that it allows us to access rich information about any aspect of our entire network quickly and effortlessly.“
“The power of Lansweeper is that it allows us to access rich information about any aspect of our entire network quickly and effortlessly.”
Centralized Problem-Solving for Quick Wins
In addition to lifting the IT team’s manual labor burden and eliminating the risks associated with unlicensed software, unidentified devices and lack of transparent oversight, Lansweeper has also empowered the team’s approach to IT problem-solving.
“The moment we get a call concerning a malfunctioning device, the first thing we do is comb the Lansweeper event logs to look for a possible cause,” asserts Massimo Heynderick, network administrator at Brothers of Charity. “Via the Lansweeper platform, we can see exactly how long a user’s system has been up and running. If it’s been up for a month, the solution could be as simple as a reboot. These insights change our problem-solving strategies and bring us quick wins.”
“The moment we get a call concerning a malfunctioning device, the first thing we do is comb the Lansweeper event logs to look for a possible cause.”
In addition to Lansweeper’s helpdesk feature, system administrator Jeroen Anseeuw prioritizes the Incident Management module. Jeroen: “Our team provides weekly incident reports to the management team, and outstanding tickets are automatically sent to the department head.”
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Intuitive, Adaptable Features That Deliver Real-Time Insights
Frank especially appreciates the power and flexibility of Lansweeper’s reporting templates. “Each organization may need different metrics,” he explains. “The built-in reports are useful in themselves and easy to adapt to different needs.”
Massimo: “I return to the ‘uptime check’ feature and the event logs on a regular basis for instant information about what’s going on with a specific device. The deployment feature is also a critical time-saver when we need to introduce patches and make general changes throughout the entire network.”
Overall, it’s Lansweeper’s ease of use that has won over the Brothers of Charity IT personnel. Frank: “We recently hired new staff, but we didn’t have to train them on how to use Lansweeper – it’s completely intuitive.”
