As a company with over 600 employees distributed throughout 10 countries and 17 states, Sandbox VR faced numerous IT challenges like enforcing security policies and onboarding employees globally. Keen on scaling while keeping administrative headcount lean, the next-gen entertainment company entrusted two people to manage IT in the absence of a dedicated IT team: Vice President of People Adam Hilliard and Manager of People Ops Shannon Saunders.

The small team got bogged down by time-sucking manual work on top of their regular workload. They knew they’d need a solution soon or need to hire support immediately. “We used to have to maintain lists of who needed what apps and access based on department,” Shannon said. “Then, every time we hired a new employee, we’d have to go to each individual app, purchase a license, and create an account manually.”

Since this app provisioning process was siloed from the rest of onboarding, Shannon said it could drag on for hours. Shannon and Adam also worried about security vulnerabilities. They wanted more visibility into their device fleet and peace of mind knowing devices had the latest antivirus software installed.

They also needed the ability to remotely lock devices that were lost, stolen, or in the hands of an offboarded employee. “As a gaming company and a product company, we have a lot of highly sensitive intellectual property,” Adam said. “It’s important we don’t have anyone accessing it inappropriately.”

Sandbox VR wanted to revamp its IT processes to bolster security, save time on administrative work, and ensure employees across the globe had the right tools for the job.

Sandbox VR first explored using a traditional IT provider like Active Directory, but that would have required additional IT headcount to manage.

Rippling offers one platform for IT and HR, where the team can easily manage everything in one place. This made it possible for their lean team to fully automate manual tasks and strengthen security.

“Having IT software that is natively integrated with our HRIS gave us a huge advantage. Rippling checked all of our boxes,” Adam said.

Shannon used Rippling to turn app provisioning from a tedious slog into a fully automated process she only has to touch once. With a new hire’s IT setup synced with onboarding workflows, she can set app access rules based on department and role that Rippling automatically applies to all new hires.

“New hires get provisioned the right apps without me having to click anything because it’s already set for us,” she said.

With Rippling, Shannon and Adam can set app permissions to fit different employees’ job demands that automatically kick in during onboarding. For instance, with their communication tools, they can tee up separate access tiers for corporate versus retail team members, or get even more granular with Rippling Supergroups, which ensure software installs and Zoom licenses are uniquely tailored to individual employee needs.

According to Shannon, automations save time for employees across Sandbox VR departments.

We’re always trying to move quickly, and time is money. Without Rippling centralizing IT and HR, I’d be spending up to a full extra day on new hires, just on provisioning app access alone.

Shannon Saunders

MANAGER OF PEOPLE OPS

Rippling also gave Sandbox VR robust security guardrails to mitigate the threat of a data breach or potential attack. With Rippling Device Management, the company can automatically install antivirus software like SentinelOne and enforce updates, giving Adam assurance that he knows where devices are located and how they’re secured.

“The increase in cybersecurity threats used to keep me up at night as a global company with employees in 10 different countries. With Rippling, security policies are enforced automatically in the background, so I get peace of mind without it being cumbersome for employees,” Adam said.

He can act quickly if a device is compromised. If a passerby swipes a laptop in a store, Adam can wipe or lock the device with one click. And Shannon can use the offboarding workflow to automatically lock the devices of terminated employees, ensuring they don’t retain access to internal apps after their last day.

“We used to be so concerned about terminated employees being able to retain access to devices. Now, it’s no problem because I can use Rippling to instantly lock the device,” Shannon explained.

What’s more, Rippling helps ensure Sandbox VR employees set compliant, secure passwords on day one. The company uses SSO and SCIM provisioning to bolster security and give employees an easier time accessing apps with one click.

Sandbox VR bought employee devices through a third-party warehousing vendor, which caused a host of problems. The team lacked visibility into the existing inventory, which slowed down the onboarding process. They also found the customer service unreliable.

“Sometimes, it would take several days just for the procurement team to check existing inventory, only for them to come back and tell us nothing was available,” Shannon said.

Instead of the painful back-and-forth and unknowns, Sandbox VR now uses Rippling Inventory Management to automatically order, ship, and retrieve devices for employees. Shannon set up a pre-defined template to determine which devices to assign to specific roles. Then she set up a workflow to notify new hires (and their managers) via email after they sign their offer letter to let them know a device has been assigned and shipped. Now, everyone is in the loop and employees have peace of mind knowing their IT needs are met on day one.

Shannon leverages Rippling to create custom reports for the finance team that list current device inventory, who each device is assigned to, the cost, and when it was purchased. Going directly through Rippling instead of through a vendor also simplifies the invoice process for Sandbox VR’s billing team.

“Being able to see what devices we have in inventory at any given time has been amazing for streamlining onboarding and reporting to finance,” she said.

Gone are the days when Adam manually updated Google Workspace distribution lists for employees across dozens of retail stores. With Rippling, he uses Supergroups to set membership rules based on attributes like work location and role, and the platform automatically adds and removes users accordingly.

“I can’t even put into words how many hours I used to spend in Google Workspace. Without Rippling, I’d need a dedicated IT administrator just to keep it up to date,” Adam said. “Now, it’s not only much simpler, it’s also much less of a time drain.”

And Shannon used Rippling to set up other helpful workflow automations, including:

• Notifications for when a device’s battery drains and needs to be replaced
• Reminders for offboarding employees to return devices
• Emails to newly hired employees notifying them of their new device assignment and shipping details

“With Workflows, I’m able to proactively address common IT problems like a battery failing without having to constantly monitor the status of devices and device orders,” Shannon said.

Adam and Shannon may not have formal IT backgrounds, but Rippling empowers them to manage IT for 600+ employees.

Rippling turned our team into the IT wizards the rest of the company had always hoped for.

Adam Hilliard

Vice president of People

Adam also appreciates Rippling’s intuitive design. “Rippling is very UX forward, which is better than a lot of other platforms we’ve used,” he said. “I can get farther with less knowledge because the UI is easier to interpret. ” Adam uses the preview function to test whether he’s setting workflows correctly which helps him troubleshoot.

And Shannon appreciates the platform’s support infrastructure. She can easily access resources walking her through any IT questions she has. She also thinks that, by consolidating employee data, Rippling has simplified processes for all Sandbox VR employees.

“They just go straight to Rippling as their single source of truth,” Shannon said. They get access to all their apps and it’s all automated so they already know what to expect before they even start, which takes a lot of work off our team.”

• Time saved: Rippling saved Sandbox VR up to a full day of work per new hire provisioning apps. Adam and Shannon can now onboard in 100 fewer clicks than before.
• Headcount spared: Rippling automations saved Adam from hiring a full-time IT administrator just to handle Google Workspace distribution.
• Tighter security: Rippling’s MDM and SentinelOne integration protected against data breaches and allowed them to monitor devices across the globe.