How Rippling runs IT: Replacing employee devices

Whether an employee spills water on their laptop, their screen gets cracked beyond repair, or their device is simply getting old, requests for replacement devices are a common source of urgent employee support tickets.

However, it can be difficult to handle these cases quickly, given all the logistics involved. Often, IT has to run to Best Buy at the last minute or maintain inventory in a messy IT closet at their office or home. Plus, you have to deal with the challenge of successfully retrieving the old device from the employee. 

At Rippling, we developed our Inventory Management solution to painlessly manage hardware logistics, from ordering new devices to storing inventory in secure warehouses around the world. In this post, we’ll walk through how Rippling uses our IT product to easily replace employee devices. 

What to do when you need to replace a device

Let’s imagine one of our Software Engineers, Carmelita, gets a little too excited working on the latest Rippling launch and spills coffee all over her laptop. 

First, IT would need to collect basic information on Carmelita and her current assigned device. Normally, you’d have to manually piece that information together by emailing HR and hunting through disconnected HR and IT platforms.  
With Rippling, you just go to the “People” view within the Devices app. From there, the platform automatically pulls in all relevant IT and HR data like title, current assigned device(s), work location, department, and manager.

All of this info is easily accessible from one dashboard because Rippling’s native-built IT and HR products are powered by the same underlying workforce directory. 

From here, Rippling has two easy options for replacing Carmelita’s device. 

Option 1: Reassign existing inventory

The first option is to reassign a device from existing inventory. Given our distributed workforce and many offices, we didn’t want to deal with messy IT closets. Instead, the Rippling IT team chose to store inventory across our Rippling secure warehouses in the US, Canada, and the UK (and soon in the EU) using our Inventory Management solution.

Since Carmelita is located in Chicago, we’ll pick a device from our US warehouse. Then, we can choose to ship it to a Rippling office or directly to Carmelita’s home address. 

Let’s say we choose to ship it to Carmelita’s house. Because Rippling is the source of truth for both HR and IT data, the system automatically pulls in her home address for you—so you don’t have to worry about tracking it down with HR. 

Now, we can look at shipping speed and compare costs. Since this is pulling from existing inventory, we even have the option to ship it overnight if Carmelita needs her device as soon as possible. Given how easy it is to reassign an existing device, that means Carmelita could have a new device in her hands as soon as 24 hours after submitting her IT request—even if she lives thousands of miles away. 

Plus, the device will arrive already configured based on the correct security policies enforced for her role as an Engineer. 

Option 2: Order a new device

The second option is to order a completely new device through the Rippling device store. Our device store has thousands of options across different brands and price ranges (including accessories like keyboards, mice, and monitors). 

You can pick directly from the store or choose from a saved device configuration. At Rippling, we’ve created a configuration for common device requests by role—and these are customizable for each organization’s unique setup. For Carmelita, we’ll order the “Engineering Managers” device configuration.

Once you select that device, you can ship to either an office location or Carmelita’s home address.

Whether you order a new device or reassign an existing one, you can track the order status within the Devices app. Rippling will display the Order ID, the person who requested the order, the employee it's for, and more—all from one centralized dashboard. 

Both Carmelita and her manager will be able to see the device’s order status from their Rippling profile, and Carmelita will also receive email updates. That way, everyone automatically has visibility into the device order. 

Retrieving old devices

Rippling also makes it easy to retrieve the old device from the employee. From the same Devices dashboard, you can unassign the device from the current employee and decommission it. Rippling will prepare and ship the return packaging directly to the employee. 

Just like with new devices, you’ll be able to track the shipment's progress from the Orders dashboard. Once the device arrives at the warehouse, they’ll inspect it to assess its condition. If they find that the damage isn’t actually permanent, you can reassign the device to another employee down the line. 

With one easy home base to find employee info, you can order new devices, store and reassign existing ones, and retrieve old ones—and you can do it all in just one minute, anywhere in the world! 

Looking to proactively identify common device performance issues? Check out this blog post.