Longcroft School
With License Dashboard, the leading software license management tool, educational institutions of all sizes can take control of their software assets. Here's a look at the benefits reaped by Longcroft School
Longcroft School first welcomed young people in September 1949. In the intervening years the school has gone from strength-to-strength, including the achievement of performing arts specialist college status in 2001. While this is a great bonus of opportunity and character to the school, it is not allowed to detract from other curriculum areas which have their own challenges and excitement. Longcroft aims to develop excellence in all, always looking ahead, working in partnership with families and investing in the future. It was this desire to invest in the future which led Longcroft School to take a look at its software estate and its license management systems.
The Challenge
In all aspects of ICT, Longcroft School strives to adopt recommended best practices, ensuring that suggested processes and procedures are implemented and adhered to when appropriate. Thus, with software taking up an ever-increasing share of the school's ICT budget, it had become even more important to manage, control and protect software assets.
In addition to the budgetary challenges, there was also the pressure from software vendors to remain compliant with the terms of their software license agreements. It was clear to Longcroft School, therefore, that what they needed was to have a greater understanding of their software license position and to be able to track exactly what software they had deployed. Not only would this enable them to avoid unnecessary expenditure, it would also mean that they could safely say they were compliant!
The Solution
Having reviewed a number of different products and solutions, Longcroft School decided to utilize License Dashboard™ Schools Edition.
Until now, License Dashboard has been out of the reach of most schools due to its corporate price tag. Following increased demand and continued requests from education institutions, however, License Dashboard Ltd has now published a special edition allowing schools to acquire Europe's leading license management tool at a more affordable price.
Not only that, License Dashboard Schools Edition also provides a trustworthy and reliable software license support service that responds to the school's growing needs. Longcroft School felt this edition and the product's functionality would deliver a cost effective solution, which would fully align with the school's ICT objectives and financial commitments.
As experienced by most schools, managing software licenses can be an extremely daunting task - one which schools are not particularly prepared for or trained to administer.
Longcroft School fully understands the importance of licensing - however they did not always have all the relevant information available prior to making a purchasing decision. This meant that the school could be subjected to the following risks:
- Purchasing incorrect licenses
- Not purchasing enough licenses
- Purchasing too many licenses
With this in mind, therefore, the school wanted to ensure that all past purchases were added to a comprehensive license inventory, thereby establishing a true and fair representation of the school's license position.
To do this, the school employed the services of Software Asset Management specialists, Phoenix Software, to record and file all software license evidence. Thereafter, Phoenix Software also verified the organization's compliance position by implementing License Dashboard and Dashboard Discovery.
Dashboard Discovery is designed to find hardware and installed software deployed across the network and is primarily used during the verification and compliance stages of a Software Asset Management (SAM) program. This application connects seamlessly with License Dashboard and together, from a single interface, provides Longcroft School with complete visibility of its compliance status.
Without this comprehensive license management tool, the function of managing Longcroft School's licenses would have essentially become a manual process, one which would be prone to error, complacency and eventually lead to regression. Like Longcroft School, most schools end up using a number of spreadsheets to manage and track their entitlement. These documents become difficult to summarize, however, and make it almost impossible for Head Teachers and other staff to make informed decisions. Using License Dashboard removes this complexity and makes it simple for staff to manage, control and protect one of the school's most expensive ICT resources - software!
The Benefits
Following the implementation of License Dashboard, Longcroft School can now effectively and automatically control the entire lifecycle of its software assets from purchase, to upgrade and beyond.
The school can now easily report on the following:
- What software it is allowed to install
- Determine how many licenses have been allocated
- Verify how many licenses are still available
- Be alerted to any maintenance renewals which are due
This unique product, and the support service offered by Phoenix Software, enables the school to manage the day-to-day licensing chores without having to employ the services of a software licensing expert. It also provides greater clarity, which puts the school in a much better negotiating position and promotes more informed purchasing decisions.
With its easy to-use interface, users such as Network Managers, Business Administrators, Head Teachers and all other authorized members of staff can gain access to software inventory, license inventory and purchasing information at any time.
Using this information can ensure that all purchases of software are correctly specified and procured using the most cost effective agreements, while ensuring that all license evidence is correctly recorded and loss of entitlement is significantly reduced. By continuing to aggregate the school's installation rights, more informed purchasing decisions can be made - thus reducing the risk of overspend. Gartner informs us that organizations which do not utilize this information during the purchasing stage overbuy software licenses for 60% of their portfolio.
"After attending the East Riding Network Managers' meeting, I was introduced to Phoenix Software and they proposed the use of License Dashboard to manage the full lifecycle of our software and licenses. After completing the implementation of License Dashboard and Dashboard Discovery, we are now in full control of one of our most expensive of IT resources - our software!"
Anne Day, IT Manager, Longcroft School