Spector360.com >>> Case Studies >>> Cibola County

Spector 360 Helps Keep Cibola County Well-Seated

The Setting

Industry: Government
Location: Grants, New Mexico
Founded: 1981
Employees: ≈ 100

Cibola County's seat is in Grants. The government offices consist of three facilities: the County Administration building, the Sheriff's Department and County Detention Center, and the Road Department.

The county network includes nine Windows 2000 and 2003 Servers and approximately 75 workstations running XP Pro.

The Challenge

"We had a pretty big deal at the County Detention Center," said Information Systems Director Norman Ratliff. "The state police and the FBI had to get involved. There are differing opinions on what happened exactly, but the bottom line is that there was an allegation of inmate abuse.

"Administration claims a document related to that inmate had been altered, and looking at the tape backup, there was sufficient cause — a time lag – to warrant the concern. The FBI immediately asked us if we had keystroke logging or monitoring of any sort. After that meeting with the FBI, the County Administrator said we better look into monitoring."

Search for a Solution

Prior to the Detention Center incident, Ratliff said he and Allen often talked about implementing monitoring software, but the topic never progressed past the discussion stage.

"When the inmate abuse event hit, it opened the door," said Ratliff. "We loosened the purse strings."

Ratliff said he had no experience with monitoring software prior to working with SpectorSoft, and Allen reported working with an appliance in a previous job but "the equipment never functioned right."

"Because of our situation, I was in a bit of a hurry to get something going," said Ratliff. "I recall PC Magazine had a good review of the SpectorSoft product, and the SpectorSoft website showed the product's features very well ... keystrokes logging, applications launched, the ability to save profiles for each person monitored ... these were important to me. I was more features-driven, but in addition, the pricing was good and it was an all-in-one product. SpectorSoft seemed to have it all ... straightforward and easy ... I recommended it and I was approved to purchase it."

Discoveries

"Not only has Spector 360 acted as a great deterrent, but it has helped us discover other activities that really should not be going on," said Ratliff. Once again at the County Detention Center, Spector 360's screen snapshots feature provided key documentation needed to terminate an employee. "This person was deleting icons off the desktop screen of a particular workstation, apparently trying to make it hard for a coworker on the next shift to do their job. It was not the only reason for dismissal, but it was part of the process ... it was the straw that broke the camel's back.," said Ratiff.

• Spector 360 has revealed workplace concerns such as streaming music and the downloading of video clips like those found on the YouTube website.
  
  "We don't have malicious hackers," said Ratliff. "The bulk of what we find with Spector 360 is related to Internet radio and bandwidth. Since implementing monitoring, there's not nearly as much bandwidth abuse now, but we have to keep after them about that. Once we speak to them about it, some back off the activity, but pretty soon they're streaming again. In fact, we recently drafted a memo addressing streaming music, YouTube, and gaming.
  
  "We don't want to completely lock it down, but with Spector 360 we can monitor and document it, and make sure work is being done."
• Using Spector 360, Ratliff and Allen were able to determine an assistant manager had inadvertently gone to a mapped drive, and modified and deleted files.
  
  "The first thing we did was check Spector 360," said Ratliff. "It was not a malicious act, but it brought down the whole Accounting department. With the information we had from Spector 360, we were easily able to get up and running again. We knew exactly what files had been modified and deleted, and exactly who did what."
• Spector 360 has proved to be a valuable IT tool when it comes to PC maintenance.
  
  "If a PC user encounters a problem, Spector 360 helps us troubleshoot because we can trace everything the user did leading up to an error or a crash," said Ratliff.

Working With Employees

Ratliff said administration sent out a memo to all County employees, alerting them to the use of monitoring software. Following that memo, Ratliff and Allen went to each department office and conducted a question and answer session.

"We told employees that monitoring is not in place to punish but because of the suit potential as evident in the jail scenario, that it is a tool to protect the County, and County employees," said Ratliff. "Really, if people are doing their work, they have nothing to worry about. It's those who are doing what they shouldn't be doing that have something to worry about."

Spector 360: The Software of Choice

"With just the two of us, we can't spend too much time on any one thing and with Spector 360, we don't need to," said Allen. "With Quick View charts and graphs, it's easy to check and see if anything stands out. If anyone or any particular machine seems to be an issue, we drill down to the details.

"At a previous job, I was trying to juggle software, a hardware box, and filtering. Spector 360 does it all in one screen!"

• Ratliff said Spector 360 is valuable in determining which employees need to have high speed Internet connections, and which do not, saving the County money with its ISP and minimizing bandwidth use.
  
  "Most of the time when we have new hires, we're told their job requires Internet access," said Ratliff. "We give it to them and let them try it for a month, but using Spector 360 we monitor if the need is real. When we see hours spent on games, makeup sites, and astrology, we can say ‘not necessary' ... and we have the documentation to back up our decision. In doing so, not only do we realize cost savings on Internet access, but also on email accounts. In turn, this frees up bandwidth and permits applications to run faster and easier."
  
• "The SpectorSoft sales experience was seamless and helpful, very important because I was in a hurry and stressed out," said Ratliff. "And when I have had occasion to contact Tech Support, I've had a good experience with them."
• "The Spector 360 install was easy, I had it all working in one day," said Allen. "Spector 360 works well all the time."
• "The Spector 360 Dashboard is easy to navigate, visually it's laid out very nicely," said Allen. "Finding users, computers, making comparisons ... it's all right there on Quick View ... very intuitive. There's lots of information on the front page ... very well thought out."
• "Has Spector 360 restored order? At the jail facility it definitely did," said Ratliff. "All you have to do is show employees the reports — evidence of what Spector 360 detects and the extent of it — and work habits change for the better."
• "Has Spector 360 helped us meet challenges and objectives? The answer is yes," said Ratliff. "Especially with new hires, it helps us closely watch the details of work habits, and gives us insight into the mistakes they make in their daily work. Using Spector 360, we can keep them from going where they shouldn't, and help them refine their work processes."
• "Is Spector 360 worth it? Definitely!" said Ratliff. "I like it. It's easy to use and set up. I like the reports and all the information it provides, and it's an all-in-one package. It does a lot of things and does them well."

"Monitoring is pretty much standard business practice now," said Ratliff. "Spector 360 is great for recognizing and isolating user activity, and being able to inform managers how much work is being done and how much play.

"As long as I'm in this position, we'll retain our association with SpectorSoft and Spector 360."

 

For more information about Cibola County, New Mexico, please visit: www.co.cibola.nm.us.

For more information about Spector 360, please visit www.spector360.com ... or for more information about SpectorSoft and its other dependable, full-featured PC and Internet Activity Monitoring Software products, please visit www.spectorsoft.com.