Case study
Ewing Outdoor Supply
US based retail distributor for landscaping products & materials
- IT operations group supporting over 1,500 users in multiple office locations across the US.
- Transitioned to Microsoft 365 in 2019.
- Using Microsoft 365 and Azure AD as their main communications and collaboration platform.
Challenges
- Paying for Microsoft 365 licenses that are attached to inactive or disabled accounts
- Continually switching between different native Admin Center portals to perform tasks
- Lengthy manual processes to onboard and offboard user accounts
- Need to write complex PowerShell scripts to perform bulk updates
Results from using sapio365
- Recovered 90 licenses (approx. $12,000 in savings) by using built-in reporting views
- Using a single tool for ALL admin tasks with a global view of data and account permissions
- Built-in automation jobs perform user onboarding and offboarding tasks in minutes, not hours
- Processing bulk updates now with a single click, no PowerShell scripts needed!
“Using sapio365 we were able to quickly spotlight inactive and disabled accounts that still had licenses assigned.
This enabled us to recover those licenses and save approximately $12,000 a year. We are now doing a much better job of maintaining an accurate license inventory with regular audits using the built-in reports from sapio365.”
Mark Gesick, IT Director for Collaboration Services and Cybersecurity
Corporate IT Services
IT admin requirements
After using the multiple Admin Center portals provided by Microsoft, the Ewing IT operations group quickly realized that the reporting and administration features offered by the native tools were lacking the capabilities they needed to manage their distributed business units. With a dedicated corporate IT group supporting both Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, the Ewing IT operations team understood the value of investing in a single, full-featured management solution.
Their business requirements included the following:
- Simple admin interface with customizable data views
- Access to ALL relevant information on user accounts, usage activity, and permissions settings
- Automated jobs to perform complex admin tasks
- Bulk updates possible for selected user accounts
- Powerful reporting features for data categorization
“sapio365 provides us with full visibility of our tenant and user account settings to quickly identify issues and make necessary fixes. Plus, we can make bulk updates to accounts without writing any PowerShell scripts.”
Cherill Wilson, IT Administrator for M365
Corporate IT Services
A comprehensive solution
As a previous Ytria customer, Ewing had been using their Lotus/Domino administration tools for years. After moving to Microsoft 365, they decided to investigate the Ytria admin tool called sapio365. They identified it as the most all- inclusive management and reporting solution to help them optimize their administration of Microsoft 365. Mark Gesick, IT Director of Collaboration Services and Cybersecurity, cites sapio365 as being the best full-featured admin tool for all of Ewing’s management and reporting needs with Microsoft 365.
In 2020, Ewing moved forward with the deployment of sapio365. The solution has been instrumental in the company’s ability to easily manage employee onboarding and offboarding tasks while helping maintain an accurate inventory of Microsoft 365 licenses.
sapio365’s customizable reports have been extremely valuable to Ewing. The corporate IT group is now able to view merged datasets from different areas to get the complete picture of user activity, account status, and permission settings for their tenant. They can also perform bulk updates to user accounts without writing complex PowerShell scripts and without the risk of unexpected errors.
The overall capabilities of the sapio365 admin solution can be summarized in three main principles:
- Full Visibility
- Fast Research and Resolution for Issues
- Easy Bulk Updates, without needing PowerShell scripts
Business value benefits
The sapio365 admin tool has provided Ewing with an extensive view of their Microsoft 365 data, all in one place. This has helped their IT operations group simplify administration and identify any security or compliance issues to be fixed quickly. In addition, the customizable automation jobs have allowed them to streamline complex admin tasks such as user onboarding and offboarding.
Specific improvements to the management of Microsoft 365 include the following:
License management cost savings
sapio365 gives Ewing an easy way to manage their license allocations and maintain an accurate inventory. The view for license assignments is mapped against detailed usage metrics to determine if accounts are inactive, or under-utilized, and can be updated accordingly.
Reduced IT administration time
The IT operations groups tasked with investigating and troubleshooting known issues, or making necessary bulk updates, can perform their tasks with a single interface without writing any PowerShell scripts. All activities performed by administrators are logged within sapio365 for any future auditing purposes or linked to the helpdesk ticketing system.
User onboarding in minutes, not hours
The lead IT administrator of Microsoft 365 reported that new user onboarding involves many manual tasks, taking over an hour to configure the employees and enter them within the appropriate groups, Teams sites, and distribution lists. Using sapio365, it only takes them a few minutes by linking the different tasks together in a single processing job that can be run against selected user accounts.
Future plans
Ewing is focused on increased monitoring of security and standards compliance within Microsoft 365. In the next release of sapio365, additional Microsoft 365 usage information will be available.
In addition, there will be specific dashboards and reports configurable within sapio365 to notify administrators when security and compliance issues are identified, such as weak MFA settings or email auto-forwards going outside the organization. Using these new, data-driven insights, the Ewing IT operations group will be able to quickly identify and troubleshoot those security and compliance issues to maintain documented standards.
Ewing Outdoor Supply is the largest family-owned wholesale distributor of landscape products and materials in the U.S. They have been serving the green industry since 1922 and carry more than 100,000 products in the following categories — turf products, hardscapes, irrigation, outdoor living, landscape supplies, and golf.
| Customer: | Ewing Outdoor Supply |
| Country: | USA |
| # of Employees: | 1,500 employees with multiple locations across 31 states |
| Case Study Topic: | Improved Administration and License Management |