For over 27 years the nonprofit organization, Teach For America, has positively impacted millions of students in low-income neighborhoods by infusing fresh leadership and innovative educational opportunities for families enrolled in the nation’s public school system.
Teach For America is…
one of the largest providers of teacher in low-income communities.
a leading source of STEM teachers.
among the country’s largest provider of African American and Latino teachers.
an extraordinary team of educators, entrepreneurs, policymakers, innovators, and community members.
The Challenge
Operating in 53 regions across the United States, the Information Technology team at TFA is responsible for a diverse catalog of assets distributed across the nation. Over the years, as the organization’s impact expanded and footprint grew, asset inventory proved challenging and time-consuming.
At one point it was estimated over 300 high value hardware assets were listed at the wrong location or assigned to the wrong user. While some of this was due to procedures not being followed properly by staff, TFA had not developed a formal way to easily verify asset stock.
Something needed to be done.
The Solution
Already using ServiceNow as their primary IT Service Management platform, TFA began using AssetTrack for ServiceNow, an app available inside the ServiceNow Store.
AssetTrack for ServiceNow is the only native ServiceNow certified platform application for barcode & RFID asset tracking. AssetTrack is 100% developed in the platform. No external servers, platforms, or services are required.
Using both solutions proved to be the winning combination needed to make the necessary changes to their hardware IT Asset Management processes, which the team tackled during a planned Windows Migration project.
The Project
AssetTrack was implemented around the same time staff laptops were upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. As part of the project, over 1,800 old and out-of-warranty assets were collected and sold, approximately 700 assets that were still in warranty were collected, tagged, upgraded, and reissued. In addition, 2,000 new assets were received, tagged and deployed.
Using AssetTrack, the team at TFA quickly implemented procedural and policy changes to their IT Asset Management program including:
- Custom electronic reporting processes that seamlessly track asset returns
- Automatic reminders, triggered at certain time frames, that alert asset owners (and then their manager) regarding the need to return items. Ultimately, if the asset is not returned in a timely manner, a notification goes all the way up to the department VP.
- Business rules automatically update asset records to a returned state when the associated asset is checked back into stock
The Results
Now that AssetTrack is fully operational, audits occur monthly and only take a few hours to complete. This allows TFA to immediately address any assets that come up missing.
Teach For America confidently and consistently reports 99% audit accuracy of its assets.
The audit record speaks for itself:
- In January of 2018 only 1 asset was not found during internal audit
- In February of 2018 only 3 assets were not found during internal audit
In both cases the missing assets were located by the end of the day. The regularly scheduled internal audits allow TFA to stay on top of any data discrepancy and make adjustments immediately – before they have a chance to snowball into a larger problem.
The audits have also helped reveal undocumented hardware assets, which allows Teach For America to quickly address procedural issues with staff and confirm they are following the proper steps and checking in assets promptly when received.
Using AssetTrack and ServiceNow, Teach for America can stay focused on their mission: To fuel enduring change in low-income communities by expanding education and leadership opportunity for students across the nation, ending education inequity once and for all.
About Teach for America
Teach For America works in partnership with urban and rural communities in more than 50 regions across the country to expand educational opportunity for children. Founded in 1990, Teach For America recruits and develops a diverse corps of outstanding leaders to make an initial two-year commitment to teach in high-need schools and become lifelong leaders in the effort to end educational inequity. Today Teach For America is a force of 56,000 alumni and corps members committed to profound systemic change. From classrooms to districts to state houses across America, they’re reimagining education to realize the day when every child has an equal opportunity to learn, to grow, to influence and to lead. Teach For America is a proud member of the AmeriCorps national service network. For more information, visit teachforamerica.org.
About Asset Management International
Established in 2003, Asset Management International (AMI) provides barcode and RFID asset tracking solutions that help companies receive, track, audit, and report on assets to make informed decisions with confidence. AMI’s flagship product, AssetTrack, uses cutting-edge data capture and reconciliation technology to maintain accurate asset data organization wide. AssetTrack is used as a stand-alone comprehensive IT asset management solution as well as alongside industry leading vendors including ServiceNow, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Computer Associates. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, AMI serves enterprise clients throughout the world including United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. Visit www.www.amitracks.com for more information.
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