Richard Connor is the IT Operations Lead at The Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT), one of the UK’s prominent Multi-Academy Trusts supporting approximately 25,000 students and 3,500 staff across 45 primary and secondary schools. With the scale and complexity of managing IT infrastructure across multiple regions, Richard and his lean and resourceful team operate very much like an internal Managed Services Provider (MSP). Their goals are similar and clear: deliver proactive, centralized, and efficient IT management , ensuring educational environments, their networks and their systems remain uninterrupted and optimized.
The Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT)
www.tkat.org
Industry
Education(Multi-Academy Trust)
Location
United Kingdom
20K+
Devices Managed
45
Schools Monitored
100%
Rollout
When Richard first joined TKAT, the organization lacked a cohesive and centralized IT monitoring solution, resulting in fragmented visibility and unpredictable downtime. Each school within the trust had developed its own ad-hoc approach to managing IT infrastructure: some outsourced, some minimally monitored, and others entirely reactive. The absence of unified tools forced Richard’s team into reactive mode, constantly racing to address disruptions after the event.
“Before Domotz, we had no idea what was plugged into our networks. Each school was different, visibility was extremely limited, and we were always reacting after issues had already disrupted teaching.”
Richard Connor
IT Operations Lead, TKAT
The rapid growth of TKAT from 11 schools in 2021 to 45 today only amplified these problems. Technician workloads became overwhelming, bogged down by redundant tickets and scattered troubleshooting sessions that drained time and resources. Budget limitations added further constraints, requiring any potential solution to be affordable, powerful, and simple enough for a small team managing thousands of endpoints. Connor urgently sought a platform capable of restoring centralized visibility, proactively detecting issues, and streamlining ticket management across the trust's expanding network of schools and their devices.
When Richard first joined TKAT, the organization lacked a cohesive and centralized IT monitoring solution, resulting in fragmented visibility and unpredictable downtime. Each school within the trust had developed its own ad-hoc approach to managing IT infrastructure: some outsourced, some minimally monitored, and others entirely reactive. The absence of unified tools forced Richard’s team into reactive mode, constantly racing to address disruptions after the event:
The rapid growth of TKAT from 11 schools in 2021 to 45 today only amplified these problems. Technician workloads became overwhelming, bogged down by redundant tickets and scattered troubleshooting sessions that drained time and resources.
Budget limitations added further constraints, requiring any potential solution to be affordable, powerful, and simple enough for a small team managing thousands of endpoints. Connor urgently sought a platform capable of restoring centralized visibility, proactively detecting issues, and streamlining ticket management across the trust’s expanding network of schools and their devices.
TKAT chose Domotz for its ability to improve network visibility, its simplicity, affordability, and powerful integration with Freshservice, the trust’s central ticketing platform. Domotz instantly provided a comprehensive, automated discovery of all network devices across every site, illuminating previously unseen endpoints and shadow devices, while enabling Richard’s team to proactively manage the entirety of the trust’s IT infrastructure from a single pane of glass.
Domotz quickly proved its worth through unexpected discoveries of shadow devices. “Domotz helped us identify switches we didn’t even know existed, like old Netgear switches hidden above ceiling tiles. Those would have remained lost and unmanaged without Domotz.”
Equally critical was the seamless integration of Domotz with Freshservice. Instead of receiving dozens of noisy tickets from a single issue, Domotz intelligently opened, updated, and closed tickets automatically, significantly streamlining the helpdesk workflow and saving technicians considerable time:
“With the Freshservice integration, Domotz ensures that device issues become organized, actionable tickets without overwhelming noise or confusion. Our technicians have clear, manageable tasks and it helps us stay ahead of any issues.”
Additionally, Domotz proactively alerted TKAT’s team to impending hardware failures such as deteriorating hard drives or power supplies, giving technicians the insight and time they need to resolve issues well before disruptions could affect the schools' daily operations.
Integrating Domotz into TKAT’s tech stack fundamentally reshaped the trust’s IT operations by elevating technician productivity, facilitating proactive network management, and increasing overall service quality.
Operationally, Domotz closed critical visibility gaps, empowering Richard’s team to proactively discover and monitor more than 20,000 end user and infrastructure devices across 45 schools. Centralized monitoring reduced unnecessary site visits, significantly limited downtime, and optimized IT resources for maximum efficiency.
Functionally, Domotz’s automatic device discovery and Freshservice integration dramatically reduced unnecessary ticket volume. Richard describes the day-to-day improvement: “Domotz has greatly reduced ticket noise. Instead of receiving multiple alerts when one issue occurs, we now receive a single, clear notification. Technicians spend less time managing tickets and more time resolving real issues.”
Most importantly, the shift to proactive network monitoring and management significantly improved internal relationships within TKAT. Teachers and staff no longer experience frequent disruptions to their classes and daily tasks, students remain consistently focused on their learning materials, and confidence in IT support has grown considerably across the trust. Richard specifically highlights Domotz's strategic value for education, emphasizing its direct positive impact on classroom productivity and trust among school communities.
Domotz is a must for the education sector. Budgets in schools are tighter than ever, and Domotz delivers powerful, enterprise-level network monitoring at a fraction of the cost. It’s an essential tool for keeping schools running smoothly and efficiently”.
With Domotz central to their daily operations, TKAT’s IT team confidently manages a rapidly expanding educational network, proactively safeguarding teaching environments, and maximizing the trust’s limited resources.