IT Automation Success Story: Saving $7,000 Monthly Through Streamlined Reporting

At Float Infinity, we recently completed a transformative automation project for an IT company that demonstrates the significant impact our solutions can deliver. This case study highlights how our automated reporting system eliminated manual data collection processes, saving 40 hours monthly at $180 per hour—translating to over $7,000 in monthly cost savings.

The Challenge

Our client, a managed IT service provider, faced a common but costly challenge: their monthly reporting process required extensive manual data collection from multiple platforms. Their team spent approximately 40 hours each month gathering and consolidating information from Azure, monitoring tools, ticketing systems, and backup services. This not only consumed valuable technician time but also introduced delays and potential inaccuracies in their reporting.

Our Solution

We developed a comprehensive automated reporting solution that:

1. Seamlessly connects to multiple data sources including Azure, monitoring services, ticketing systems, and backup platforms

2. Automatically collects, processes, and standardizes data from these disparate systems

3. Consolidates information into a centralized storage location

4. Integrates with Power BI for intuitive visualization and analysis

The system follows a consistent workflow: retrieving the latest data from each API, processing it into standardized formats, merging with historical records, and storing everything in Azure Blob Storage for Power BI to access. This automation runs on schedule without requiring any manual intervention.

Key Components

Our solution integrates several critical reporting modules:

Disaster Recovery Reporting collects comprehensive information about backup vaults, replication jobs, and protected items across all Azure subscriptions. It calculates success metrics and generates summary statistics that provide immediate visibility into recovery readiness.

Server Performance Monitoring tracks CPU utilization metrics across all monitored servers, maintaining historical records that reveal patterns and potential issues before they impact operations.

Service Desk Analytics interfaces with the ticketing system to track volume, response times, and resolution metrics, helping identify service improvement opportunities through robust trend analysis.

Backup Status Reporting gathers comprehensive backup performance data, processing success/failure metrics and extracting failure reasons to ensure data protection compliance.

Implementation Approach

The implementation leverages Azure Functions for scheduled execution, with each module following standardized patterns for historical data management, flexible execution modes, comprehensive error handling, and consistent storage interfaces. This modular design allows for easy maintenance and extension to additional data sources as needed.

Business Impact

The results speak for themselves:

• Eliminated 40 hours of manual work monthly at $180/hour, saving over $7,000 per month

• Improved data accuracy by removing manual collection errors

• Enabled real-time access to critical metrics in a consolidated dashboard

• Freed technical staff to focus on high-value activities rather than routine data collection

• Enhanced decision-making through consistent historical data tracking and trend analysis

The Bigger Picture

This project exemplifies how targeted automation can deliver substantial ROI for IT operations. By identifying routine, time-consuming processes and applying modern cloud-based automation tools, we transformed what was once a dreaded monthly task into a streamlined, reliable system.

The automation follows our proven approach: identify high-value targets for automation, build scalable and maintainable solutions, and measure concrete business outcomes. The result is not just time and cost savings, but also improved operational visibility and decision-making capabilities.

If your organization is spending valuable technical hours on routine reporting and data collection, our team at Float Infinity can help you identify and implement automation solutions that deliver measurable returns on investment.