I'm dealing with a situation at my company where we have around 30 locations, each with 15-30 laptops in use. Often, when a new laptop arrives at a remote site, they hold onto the old one as a backup, since the process to get new laptops can take a while. This is creating chaos with our PC inventory!
I understand the need to retrieve the old laptops or enforce a better policy, but I'm looking for immediate ways to manage the current situation. One idea I had was to lock down these old laptops to their respective locations' networks and flag them to indicate they won't be supported anymore. However, disabling these laptops in our Active Directory seems to just lead to support tickets, so that's off the table. Any suggestions on effectively handling these used laptops?
5 Answers
If you’re using a management tool like Intune, utilize its capabilities! You could delete non-essential programs and set them for updates. This helps maintain their usability without cluttering your inventory. Plus, how about assigning a specific backup laptop per site instead?
You mentioned disabling old laptops leads to support tickets, but maybe that's exactly what you should do! Lock them down in whatever management tool you’re using. Treat it as a management issue that needs addressing—sometimes technology can’t solve everything. Good luck!
My team holds onto old laptops for roughly 14 months until we refresh our inventory. We wipe them clean or keep them ready for use and sometimes power them on just to update software. This way, they stay relevant and not a security risk!
We have a system in place to track where all devices are, ensuring IT knows exactly who has what and can expedite processes as needed, which might help in your situation!
Establish a grace period for using those old laptops—perhaps 7 days. Beyond that, ticket them for return, and if they don’t comply, escalate the issue to management. Set deadlines and automate reminders to manage this without needing much manual oversight. This way, you’d maintain accountability.
A potential approach could be to set a policy where support for laptops that are designated to be replaced is limited to basic assistance for a short period, like 15 minutes, only at the main office Help Desk. This discourages holding onto old laptops since they’d receive very limited help after a new one arrives!
Yeah, maybe they could just have a policy that specifies when and how support is available for those old machines.
Exactly! It's crucial to address that management side of things more effectively.