by: VMware Information Systems Senior Engineer Russell Ahmed
Workspace ONE Intelligence brings real-time data insights and analytics to companies seeking extended visibility into the digital workspace environment.
VMware IT probed Workspace ONE Intelligence for insights into a variety of IT issues and used those findings to take actions that would result in smoother and more efficient operations, and savings of time and money. In some cases, IT used the product to make business decisions that would yield specific benefits.
Intelligence puts its finger on the problem
Workspace ONE Intelligence increased efficiency in numerous ways. Previously, IT had lacked a single source of patch and update management across diverse platforms. The Workspace ONE Intelligence dashboard, however, served the team well by providing a single pane to monitor and manage patches for Windows, OS X, and mobile. IT was able to view the percentage of security compliance across the company and quickly identify which systems were not compliant.
Workspace ONE Intelligence also eased application deployment—in one case, as part of a migration from one collaborative software program to another. The team was able to get information about specific devices that were causing problems and to reach out to those colleagues who were affected. In addition, the automation capability within Workspace ONE Intelligence could be used to provide colleagues with alerts and notifications, and to inform them of suspicious activities seen on their web applications.
During VMware IT’s migration of Windows tenants from on-premises software to cloud-based enrollment and Windows 10, a tedious manual process of tagging each migrating device was required so that the device would receive the desired settings. Workspace ONE Intelligence automation, however, allowed the tagging to happen automatically, vastly improving the out-of-the-box experience.
In another initiative aimed at greater efficiency, VMware IT used Workspace ONE Intelligence to discover end-of-life (EOL) devices throughout the company rather than waiting for colleague laptops to start breaking down and require frequent attention. Proactive communication with colleagues and managers about replacement eligibility was automatically initiated with enough time for managers to budget and for the new machines to be received. The results were less wait time for colleagues and less drain on help desk resources.
Decision-making power in the data
While Workspace ONE Intelligence has offered VMware IT numerous insights to increase productivity, the product has also opened the door to deeper levels of interacting with Workspace ONE data. Beyond looking at the hard data and saying “let’s fix it,” Workspace ONE Intelligence has enabled IT to ask questions of the data that can drive business decisions and effect process change.
As a case in point, Workspace ONE Intelligence has brought new thought process to bear upon the subject of the battery health of PCs used by VMware colleagues. Traditionally, the IT help desk has not argued strongly for battery warranties on these PCs based on the relatively small number of PCs coming to them completely dead and in need of a new battery.
However, using Workspace ONE Intelligence, IT was able to discern that a sizable number of the PCs were suffering from less than 20 percent battery health. Because colleague experience, and productivity, are negatively impacted by laptops operating on the verge of battery death, providing proactive colleague support in terms of a battery warranty became a more compelling idea.
This idea gained further strength as IT investigated the cost aspect and determined that a battery warranty approach could be cheaper in the long run than paying for out-of-warranty replacement batteries. Here was a potential win-win situation: improved colleague experience and cost-effectiveness.
By applying Workspace ONE Intelligence to the issue, IT gained the insight to think differently about the tradeoffs and make a meaningful change.
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