Parago Reaches London, the Fastest Yet!

Contributors include —

• Little Ilford Secondary School, Newham
• Alderbrook Primary School, Wandsworth
• Furzedown Primary School, Wandsworth

Challenge

Prior to purchasing Parago, both Furzedown Primary School and Little Ilford Secondary School were recording and managing their asset information on a spreadsheet. Alderbrook however was not using any type of recording process, which left the school in a highly vulnerable position. If theft was to occur at the school, there would be no way of tracking the software or general assets the school owned.

The schools were partially confident that their various software applications were being used and licensed correctly, however they could not be 100 per sure.

All three schools assigned the responsibility for their software inventory audit to the administrator or technician. They all agreed that the time consuming, laborious task of auditing took numerous days to complete.

Solution

In January 2006, Newham became Parago Software's first partner Local Authority (LA). Referred by the London Grid for Learning (LGfL), Newham purchased Parago for its schools for two years. Now a working success in its schools, Parago is paid for and looked after by the individual schools.

Wandsworth has been a partner LA of Parago Software for the past year. The LA actively works to encourage its schools to utilise Parago. The LA provides free training to all of its schools so that they use the solution to its full potential.

The schools realised that they needed a software solution to accurately manage their ICT investments, not only to be sure they were compliant with licensing laws but also to save staff time in laborious data entry.

Parago is a powerful computer discovery and software licence management system, specifically designed to meet school budgets. The software asset management system is easy to use and offers each school an aesthetically pleasing visual interface.

None of the schools felt it necessary to consider other systems before purchasing Parago, as the product was designed specifically for the education sector.

Furzedown and Little Ilford both stated that their main reason for purchasing Parago was for general inventory. Alderbrook particularly wanted the software for its Software Asset Management features.

Benefits

When asked if the schools considered Parago as good value for money, 100 per cent of the school responses agreed that it was highly cost effective. They all agreed that the system was easy to use, and for this reason, all three schools would recommend the product to other schools and Local Authorities (LA).

Little Ilford Secondary School testified that Parago provided 'The fastest audit yet. Until now it was a guess-timation at best.'