Assisting a Windows 10 Rollout for a hospital during a critical pandemic, and a limited window of opportunity for change-over

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The Challenge: Windows 10 migration and application packaging approach

Rush Copley Medical Group is a multi-specialty medical group offering primary and specialty health services. Doctors and clinics are located throughout the Metro Chicago area.

The Hospital needed to update all of their devices in Critical Locations of Hospitals to Windows 10 while having a 10-week window to complete the project. This included: compatibility testing 175 applications, creating three separate Windows 10 images, and installing application stacks to devices throughout the hospital and clinics. The end-users being doctors, administrators, remote workers, nurses’ stations, kiosks, and even mobile devices. The total number of devices numbered 1,000+.

The IT department was already under strain locally due to the surge in numbers of infected people from the COVID virus. Staffing challenges hampered their ability to update machines in the departments with necessary updates and additional application installations. This included 44 manual Install applications that had never been automated because of a lack of packaging solutions available to the IT staff but were critical to the hospital staff’s everyday needs.

The Goal: application packaging solution in the cloud

In assessing what was needed to complete such a project, Huddle UP LLC discovered there was an urgent need for the following:

  • Windows 10 compatibility testing
  • Software packaging tool that could capture loose files and create an MSI and MST.
  • Provide a packaging solution for applications that required multiple installs and the raw media not be changed in any way while making changes to the system.
  • Resources that could be added to meet the SLA requirements of 44 applications within the week project timeframe and being automated to deploy via SCCM.

The Solution: application packaging services in the cloud

Apptimized, a cloud-based application service company, provided Huddle Up’s IT Rodeo Service Team with an application packaging tool and services that met their needs efficiently.

Utilizing Apptimized Workspace, the self-service application packaging solution, IT Rodeo tested application compatibility with the created Windows 10 images. Apptimized placed these on cloud-based Windows 10 virtual machines enabling testing and packaging in the cloud. Rush Copley’s source folders were downloaded directly for user testing and eventually placing them in Configuration Manager for deployment.

The Apptimized Powershell wrapping solution provided a solution for IT Rodeo to automate installing applications that had previously to be installed using several steps. This includes requiring a technician to physically be in front of the device and manually step through all of the installation’s configuration requirements.

The Apptimized Application Packaging Factory allowed Huddle Up’s IT Rodeo Service to deliver three to four applications each week using the Factory option. IT Rodeo was given the option to have a standard delivery of 8 days or provide a rush option, which in our case was 4 days. All of our packages were professionally done, using best practices, and delivered on-time. This allowed IT Rodeo to keep their SLA with their end client.

Summary from Huddle Up, LLC:

We are confident in our relationship with Apptimized as a cloud-based application service provider. Their ability to integrate their resources with the end client’s environment and the breadth of resources to meet the needs of a variety of service needs align with the future technology needs of our clients.
Bobby Banks
President, Huddle Up, LLC

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