Executive branch employees use tens of thousands of devices every day. From laptops to smartphones, eventually they all need to be maintained, repaired or replaced. Keeping track of those devices, estimating long-term needs and planning for replacement cost is a monumental task that mostly involves manual data entry in spreadsheets or one-off systems. It’s time consuming, there’s risk of losing track of assets and there’s no single comprehensive view of state IT hardware assets.
With those challenges in mind, OIT worked with our agency partners to develop an IT asset management (ITAM) program where OIT and agencies will be able to to track the hardware using our state network through a single application. We’re proud to announce that the new application is already being used to track almost 60,000 hardware assets!
“I think any agency struggling to manage hardware assets or create a strategy to ensure those assets remain current would benefit from the disciplined use of asset management,” says Natasha Myers, the Strategic IT Initiatives Lead at the Department of Health Care Policy & Financing. She adds, “The new IT asset management system enables us to comprehensively assign and track all current laptops at the Department, as well as indicate when an asset is in storage, in maintenance or retired, giving us immediate query access and insight into where our purchased equipment is located and its current usage status.”
The ITAM functionality within the new ServiceHub application is gradually being adopted by agencies in partnership with their IT Directors. Once initial data is entered, agency asset managers can track these critical data points about their hardware:
- What do we have?
- Where is it located?
- Who is using it?
- How much is it costing?
- How well is it supporting the organization?
Warranty expiration dates also can be tracked, providing lifecycle details that can help an agency budget for upcoming purchase needs several years out.
“The state spends money for a device and they should be able to easily track it for the entire lifecycle and plan for replacement,” says Matt Langley, OIT’s Asset Manager. “Just like salary and benefits are part of the total cost for each employee, now technology assets like providing a computer or phone can be budgeted for as well.”
The implementation of an ITAM solution is part of the state’s IT Transformation Program. Governor Polis directed OIT to lead the program in collaboration with our agency partners to build increased agency IT accountability and ownership, collaborative IT governance and oversight, and a more nimble and process-oriented IT organization.
Have a question about ITAM? Reach out to IT Asset Manager Matthew Langley at matthew.langley@state.co.us.
By Anita Dill, Agency Communications Supervisor