When institutional knowledge lives in people, not systems

Like many midmarket and enterprise IT organizations, Chaffey faced a challenge that couldn’t be solved by simply adding more tools. They needed to reduce operational risk and increase team efficiency without relying on “hero knowledge.”

As CTO Kurt E. Schlatter described it, the district lacked a dependable, shared understanding of what systems were in place, how they were configured or why certain decisions had been made. “To have so much knowledge in somebody’s head and nowhere documented was concerning to me,” Schlatter said.

That challenge was magnified by scale. Chaffey supports a large, multisite environment with thousands of infrastructure components and devices across its schools. In a school district, the stakes are higher than inconvenience. When troubleshooting slows or documentation is missing, IT delays disrupt school operations and learning. At the same time, pressure was building from every direction. Security expectations were rising, audits and cyber insurance questionnaires were getting tougher, and disaster recovery planning was becoming unavoidable.

Chaffey also operates in a public-sector reality that adds complexity to change. Budgeting and purchasing follow strict fiscal and compliance requirements, and even with strong leadership direction, adoption has to be handled carefully. Schlatter noted that the district also navigates union and labor considerations that can slow the rollout of automation and AI-driven systems, even when the technology would improve efficiency.

Creating a single source of truth the entire team can trust

Chaffey didn’t just want a place to store notes. The team needed a platform it could rely on every day. “With a small IT team, we need a single source of truth for procedures, credentials and standard operating procedures,” Schlatter said. IT Glue fit that need by becoming the documentation backbone the district could rely on.

“Deploying IT Glue has allowed us to replace ad hoc notes and personal spreadsheets with a single, structured repository of information.”

— Kurt E. Schlatter, Chief Technology Officer, Chaffey Joint Union High School District

To make that goal achievable, Chaffey’s rollout was intentionally practical. The team focused on a few early wins that would build confidence and drive real adoption.

Password management that removed the “one person” dependency

Chaffey began with a daily pain point: credential access.

Shared service accounts had created bottlenecks, with teams often relying on one person to provide passwords or complete authentication steps. By centralizing credentials in IT Glue and modernizing password practices, the district reduced friction for technicians while strengthening security and eliminating single points of failure.

Network discovery that replaced assumptions with evidence

Next came visibility.

With Network Glue, Chaffey gained a clearer picture of what was actually connected and active in its environment. Discovery outputs surfaced infrastructure details that were not fully documented, helping the team move from assumptions to verified information.

As Schlatter put it, Network Glue “discovered things that our team swore to me we didn’t have.”

The process also revealed network architecture issues that needed attention, giving the team a clearer remediation path and more accurate network mapping over time.

Documentation momentum that supported knowledge transfer

Finally, Chaffey leaned into a priority that resonates with most internal IT departments: making knowledge transferable and repeatable, especially during team changes. As the district formalized standard operating procedures, Schlatter emphasized the importance of capturing steps in a consistent, technician-friendly way, including screenshots and recorded workflows.

That focus became especially urgent when a technician was preparing to leave the district. Chaffey needed a way to preserve critical knowledge quickly. The technician spent weeks documenting what he knew, reinforcing the value of standardized SOP capture moving forward.

From firefighting to repeatable operations

Chaffey was still in the early phases of IT Glue adoption, focused on establishing consistent documentation habits across teams and rolling out the most valuable use cases first. Even at that stage, the district began moving away from reactive firefighting toward a more repeatable operating model.

By centralizing credentials and key system information in IT Glue, the team reduced day-to-day bottlenecks and made it easier to find answers quickly. Network Glue discovery also helped replace assumptions with verified visibility into what was connected and in use.

“Since knowledge is no longer tied to a single person, staff changes or absences don’t compromise operations; the next technician can step in with full context.”

— Kurt E. Schlatter, Chief Technology Officer, Chaffey Joint Union High School District

Early results included:

• Less reliance on “the one person who knows,” thanks to centralized credentials and access details
• Faster knowledge transfer during team changes by capturing procedures in a consistent, repeatable format (including recorded workflows and screenshots)
• Clearer visibility into the environment by surfacing assets and infrastructure details that were incomplete or previously undocumented
• A stronger foundation for security and disaster recovery readiness by using documentation to support audit responses and disaster recovery planning

As cybersecurity expectations rise and insurance-driven audits become more demanding, Chaffey is building on this foundation with disaster recovery workflows, runbooks and standardized SOPs at scale. Disaster recovery is a top goal for the district this year, and IT Glue is positioned to serve as the central home for DR plans and operational runbooks.

Ultimately, Chaffey adopted IT Glue not as another place to store files, but as a daily-use platform to strengthen security, improve visibility and keep processes consistent as the environment grows.

As Schlatter put it: “I’m not trying to replace people. I’m trying to make people more effective.”