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Spector 360 Helps Dannible & McKee Hold Employees Accountable

The Setting

Dannible & McKee, LLP provides auditing, tax, accounting, and financial management services to clients nationwide from its Syracuse, New York headquarters. Founded in 1978, the company has approximately 70 employees, and promotes a "National Reach, Personal Touch" philosophy.

System Administrator Steve Salisbury is responsible for a Novell and Windows network of about 80 workstations.

The Challenge

Despite having an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) in the firm's personnel manual and using a well-known Internet filtering program, Salisbury said there was no way to keep track of Internet and PC activity when employees were working both onsite and offsite with company-issued laptops.

"Everyone in the office has a laptop PC," said Salisbury. "When employees left the office with their laptop, we had no control over what Internet sites they went to, and the Partners didn't feel comfortable with the potential of company property being used inappropriately."

In addition, the Management team wanted to know if there was a way to identify if employees were potentially wasting company time at the PC and on the Internet when in the office.

"Wasting time definitely was a concern, especially in an accounting firm, where there's a focus on billable hours," said Salisbury. "Use of chat and IM also was an issue … we wanted to make sure those programs were not being abused."

Search for a Solution

There was no monitoring software in place when Salisbury joined Dannible & McKee in late 2006. When the problem arose, however, he turned to his network of IT professionals.

"One of my contacts at Syracuse University sent me a list of monitoring software companies and products he had researched and compiled," said Salisbury. "SpectorSoft was on the list."

Salisbury said key attributes of his ideal monitoring solution included ease of monitoring, ease of deployment, as well as minimal upkeep and maintenance.

"We could not tolerate hours of maintenance," said Salisbury. "Also, it had to be something users could not find or alter. In addition, there could be no conflict with existing computer applications. We use approximately 50 other software programs here, so performance was No.1."

Salisbury said his experience with SpectorSoft began on a positive note. SpectorSoft's live, in-house Sales department provided Salisbury with a fully functional, downloadable evaluation copy of Spector 360, SpectorSoft's flagship product for company-wide PC and Internet activity monitoring.

"Because I wanted to see how easy it was to work with, I gave it to my Help Desk person and within an hour he had it up and running," said Salisbury. "I was pleased with the ease of that process … so we picked some random machines to install it on for testing. We sat back and collected information, and there were no technical conflicts."

Discoveries

Most of Salisbury's in-depth work with Spector 360 has involved Internet use and abuse.

"Starting with a top-level look using Spector 360's Quick View reports, I was able to note some activities that concerned me, so I went to User Explorer, and searched there," said Salisbury. "I followed that by working with the real in-depth information provided by Data Explorer. This revealed a couple of incidents of inappropriate use, and using Spector 360 documentation, I brought it to the attention of those responsible. It was a brief encounter … I printed and showed them the Spector 360 screen snapshots … end of discussion.

"When bringing up an employee's inappropriate activity, it's important to have your documented support. Spector 360 keeps us prepared and ready for anything."

• Using the company's legacy filtering program, Salisbury said he blocked in-house access to MySpace, the popular yet potentially dangerous web site that had made its way into Dannible & McKee's office network.
  
  "Before Spector 360, almost every time we serviced laptops, we found MySpace chat on them," said Salisbury. "MySpace chat draws banners, popups … and potentially malware. Now, with Spector 360's Web Filtering feature, we just block it."
• Salisbury said Spector 360's Search function makes it easy to determine if employees are spending too much time on a specific non-work topic. In addition, if inappropriate activity is noted using that feature, Salisbury has found Spector 360's ‘Block' capability to be perfect for remedying the situation.
  
  "Search shows me if employees are surfing sports web sites, for example, and if they are, I use Spector 360 to lock them out of those sites immediately," said Salisbury.
  
  The Firm does designate specific hours when access to non-work websites is permitted.
  
  "At lunchtime and after normal work hours, we open it up … appropriate personal use is OK during these times," said Salisbury. "And at home, personal use is permitted as long as it's nothing inappropriate."
• "Staff straightened out as soon as the memo announcing monitoring went out," said Salisbury. "Employees are absolutely more conscious of what they are doing. Spector 360 works very well as a deterrent to inappropriate Internet and computer use."

Working With Employees

After Salisbury and his IT team completed the Spector 360 evaluation, a positive assessment was presented to company management.

"I showed them what Spector 360 would do," said Salisbury. "Very soon thereafter, management sent out a memo, reiterating the Company Acceptable Use Policy, and informing everyone we were monitoring everything on our computers."

Spector 360: The Software of Choice

Salisbury said he was immediately impressed with the Spector 360 Dashboard.

"The Spector 360 Dashboard is easy to navigate, and it also has a good look … down to the color scheme," said Salisbury. "It's very current … some software today still has that archaic look, like it's a holdover from the days of DOS. Spector 360 has a newer feel … a very positive visual."

Management also found Spector 360's charts and graphs compelling.

"When I first showed Management a few Spector 360 reports, they were really impressed," said Salisbury. "The initial reaction was ‘Wow, did you create these? They look great!'"

• Salisbury said he appreciates the range of data provided by Spector 360.
  
  "At the top level you have great Quick View reports," said Salisbury. "Then there's the granularity you get by drilling down using Data Explorer and User Explorer. On a weekly basis, if I see something odd or a spike in activity using Quick View, I drill down to see if the activity is valid."
• Salisbury said the ease of reporting with Spector 360 was a key point in its favor.
  
  "Management asked me how much time Spector 360 would take to use on a regular basis," said Salisbury. "They asked me if it was going to require hours and hours … lots of time poring over log files. Having thoroughly investigated the program during the evaluation, I responded with a simple NO!
  
  "I showed them how easy it is to use Spector 360, and how easy it is to get a view of what is happening. They really liked that."
  
  Part of Salisbury's impression regarding ease of reporting stems from Spector 360's more than 50 ‘built-in' reports. Salisbury has found those reports ideally suited to his monitoring needs.
  
• "Ease of install? Very pleased," said Salisbury. "Deployment? Very pleased. Stealth? There's no CPU cycling to note, and no memory consumed. Ease of use? Very impressed, no training required. Upkeep? It's basically keeping an eye on storage."
  
• "With Spector 360, everything's there … it's all logged," said Salisbury. "All in all, we're very pleased. In fact, our Partners speak to clients about Spector 360. They have been so happy with Spector 360, they reference people to me and I direct them to SpectorSoft."
  

"Clients tell us they have all these computers and they don't know what their people are doing on them. Our response is ‘all our people are working on client matters on our company computers. We know all.'"

 

For more information about Dannible & McKee LLP, please visit http://www.dmcpas.com.

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.