The tool identified an initial opportunity to discontinue 213 computers across seven labs, saving $440,000 in ITS costs for equipment, installation and support. Exploring a reduction of another 500 PCs could deliver $1.1 million in savings.
Sassafras provided reliable usage statistics and a comprehensive ITAM solution, including purchase records, software discovery, and hardware inventory, allowing the university to better understand actual demand
The platform allows for a holistic, future-focused view on campus resources, exploring options like student BYOD spaces, software virtualization, and re-evaluating lab locations, all with student experience as the core focus
Like many higher-ed institutions, The University of Waikato has experienced drastically changing usage patterns in computer labs and classrooms over the past few years. Despite IT’s suspicion that usage was trending down significantly from previous years, they had no simple way to get an accurate view of exactly how hardware and software resources were actually being used. They came to Sassafras with questions, a commitment to answering them, and a mission: to tailor future IT purchases to meet actual needs, and to save money where possible in the process.
The University of Waikato is a medium-sized public university with around 10,000 students spread across two campuses in the Waikato & Bay of Plenty regions in the Central North Island of New Zealand. The University was founded in 1964 and has a motto of “For the People”, which sits at the heart of everything they do. The University has a 5-star QS score, and Waikato is ranked at “250 out of the world’s best 1,500 universities.” According to their website, what sets Waikato apart is its forward-thinking approach to education and research. This proactive, “future-focused” mindset also applies to their business practices as a university. The University of Waikato has a number of notable alumni, including the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, business leaders, including Craig Nevill-Manning, Head of Engineering at Sidewalk Labs, and sporting and cultural icons, such as Olympians, and writers.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Waikato always relied on requests from faculty, staff, and students to determine what IT resources they needed to purchase. This might sound familiar: more computers over here, additional software over there, and always more, more, more. The challenge is that requests were made based on conditions during peak hours when exams were looming, stress was high, and labs were full. Without reliable usage stats that give IT administrations and procurement teams a clear picture of real usage, how could they ascertain whether resources were being allocated efficiently? Furthermore, without real-time availability information and demand forecasting for labs, it wasn’t a surprise that everyone was showing up at the same time, and coming to the conclusion that more resources were needed.
Before Sassafras, the University IT Asset Management posture was limited, with Assets recorded in the University Central Asset database, but there was little way outside of physical audits to know who was using devices. Utilization tracking for hardware and software was not possible with existing systems. Faced with fresh budgetary constraints and the need to regularly refresh an ever-growing fleet of aging equipment, Waikato came to the conclusion that they needed more efficiency in their IT Asset Management workflow. That’s how they found Sassafras.
As part of a bigger project to standardize end-user deployments and Management, an ITAM stream was developed to identify requirements for ITAM at the University and scan the market to find suitable solutions. As the University was both budget-constrained and developing its ITAM skillset & capabilities, tools like Snow were immediately ruled out as being cost-prohibitive, and unlikely to realize the desired outcomes in a timely manner. The University was keen for a product that took account of some of the unique requirements of Academic software and use cases, so a product with good standing in the academic sector was key. The University met with both shortlisted Vendors Certero, and Sassafras, along with reference sites for both, and after a competitive selection process, Sassafras was chosen as the University of Waikato’s toolset for ITAM, as it offered an approachable learning curve, a great feature set, and a good level of return on investment.
More than just usage tracking, Sassafras is a complete, single-pane-of-glass ITAM solution incorporating purchase records, software discovery and normalization, license management, hardware inventory management, login reporting, computer lab availability maps, and remote access. Optimized to consume minimal client, network, and server resources, Sassafras also offers powerful integrations with enterprise management tools like TeamDynamix, ServiceNow, Jira, Jamf, Intune, PaperCut, and Active Directory. Azure, Google, and Okta SSO integrations are also available.
“It’s given us as an institution a chance to put data together to show actual lab usage, and use this to look at the wider picture, becoming not just an ITS exercise, but one that spans multiple divisions and teams across the University…It’s an exciting chance to take a holistic future-focused view, and potentially make a massive computer lab model change, with Student Experience at its heart.”
When Waikato bought Sassafras, they knew what they were looking for, and they’d found the right tool for the job, but there was still a lot of work to do. They met with the technical team at Sassafras many times during the planning and deployment phase of the project, asking questions and receiving personal configuration assistance and training tailored to their needs. After setting up the server and deploying the client — a quick and painless process that requires no third party database applications or anything but a Windows, Mac, or Linux OS — they were ready to go. Login and usage data immediately started flowing into the system, as the Sassafras team worked with Waikato to implement dynamic and automatic AD OU mapping, federated admin authentication, purchase record imports, scheduled usage reports, KPI dashboard customization, and a 12 hour Master Administrator Training course for their primary users.
When sufficient time had passed for a meaningful amount of data collection, they used the built-in tools to “better understand the level of actual demand for undergraduate computer labs, identify potential areas of capital and operational expenditure savings and operational efficiency without impacting on the quality of teaching, providing a better student experience with up to date technology, [and] ensure we are utilizing our PC fleet investment with reduced funding with current capital constraints.”
As of the publication date of this case study, Waikato has only just begun to feel the impact of Sassafras. Quoting directly from their early analysis of hardware usage:
Focusing on the “low-hanging fruit” of hardware usage prior to a major buy, Waikato has already identified an easy opportunity to save a lot of money, and they haven’t even begun to analyze software usage stats!
The cumulative savings Waikato expects to reap from Sassafras are hard to calculate. Buying fewer computers and software products is one thing, but there are also soft cost savings associated with managing a much smaller fleet of computers, including deployment, maintenance, image management, electricity, and other kinds of overhead. When students and end users begin to use Sassafras for computer lab availability maps, for example, Sassafras customers often find that the availability of real-time lab usage data and demand forecasts smooth out peak usage, as users “automatically” avoid peak hours and choose better times to use limited resources.
