About the Asset Management Module

Asset Management is a convenient way to store and manage asset items. With minimal setup and configuration, this valuable tool gives you the power to track and maintain asset items quickly and easily. Asset Management may be used to store information about many types of asset items. The ability to report and search for items in order to uncover trends, as well as the ability to track expenses, are at your fingertips. Asset items may be linked to specific issues, facilitating identification of equipment that may be generating unusually high or low numbers of issues. Asset Management also offers you the flexibility to use automated auditing, manual inventory maintenance, or the choice to use a combination of both methods.

Asset Management was created as a straightforward way to record and maintain asset information for your company. This module allows a wide variety of information to be stored about each item. Items may be cloned to speed data entry. Asset items may be linked to a user or associated with non-users. Extensive search capability is provided to easily locate items and detect trends. Reports are built-in for immediate feedback and include drill-down functionality allowing you to move from summary information to detailed information with a simple click of your mouse. You can find further detail in our Asset Reporting article.

TrakPC and TrakAsset typically run via a network login script and return the configuration and software information for each PC. You may also optionally choose to run ScanPC locally on each machine. If no asset item record exists, a new record will automatically be created. If a matching asset item record already exists, the existing item will be updated with the information discovered by the current audit. There is also the option to review audit information prior to applying it or have it update automatically. Further details can be found in our Asset Audits article.


 

Activating Asset Management

This section will guide you through the basic setup required to begin using Asset Management.

Steps:

  1. Sign into Issuetrak as a Sys Admin.
  2. Click the gear icon in the upper right > Click any of the options under Asset Management.
  3. Check the box next to Activate Asset Management.
  4. Click Update.

The Asset Management options will now be available within the Settings Lightbox. If you also wish to utilize ScanPC functionality, place a check in the Use ScanPC – On Demand Audits checkbox.


 

Managing Asset Types

Asset Types are used to determine an item classification. Issuetrak allows you to determine what asset type is applied by default under various auditing conditions:

  • PC
  • Mac
  • Cell Phone
  • ChromeOS
  • Mobile

These defaults can be changed by clicking the gear icon in the upper right > then clicking on Settings beneath Asset Management.

You can manage the available asset types by clicking the gear icon in the upper right > then clicking on Asset Tables beneath Asset Management > then clicking on List on the Right Context Menu. For each type, you may specify whether you want it to include additional fields by clicking on the Device Attributes checkbox. These additional fields are normally associated with a computing device (such as a computer, mobile phone, or tablet).

Optional User Defined Fields can be used if there is additional data you would like to retain for a certain Asset Type that is not already provided in the item record. You can create any number of user-defined text fields and/or list fields to further define each Asset Type by editing the Asset Type after it has been created.


 

Asset Management Settings

The Asset Management Settings page can be found by clicking the gear icon in the upper right > then clicking on Settings beneath Asset Management.

This page allows you to set the behavior for matching audits to assets, as well as establish the default values to be used under certain circumstances within the Asset Management module. When audit records come in, they reside in a separate audit table. There is a procedure to apply the audit records to the asset item records. If an asset item record does not exist, one will be created. If an asset item record does exist, then it will be updated with the audit information.

Issuetrak uses a combination of 6 fields to ensure the best match from audit to asset. Fields used with their weights are listed below:

Asset Identifier Weight
Serial Number 6
Motherboard Serial Number 5
MAC Address 4
Device Name 3
BIOS Version 2
Service Tag 1
 

In order for an audit to be a valid match to an asset, 4 of the 6 criteria must match. If more than one audit matches an asset, the audit with the highest accumulated weight will be applied. If an audit is completely missing at least 3 of the 6 fields used to do the matching, then the secondary matching process will be performed.

 
Asset Setting Description
Assign Asset if matching user found If selected, the system will automatically associate an asset to a particular user if the Issuetrak User ID is the same as the ‘Login Name” returned in an audit.
Update Asset Name with Device Name as returned by audit Asset will be updated with Device Name returned by audit.
Reactivate assets if matching audits are received If an asset is inactivated, and an audit matching the asset is applied, then the asset will be reactivated.
Include Bios Version in audit matching If checked, the Bios version will be used as one of the criteria used when mathching an audited asset to an existing asset.
Default Asset Types You can specify the Default Asset Type for assets when they are added via each method:
  • Assets added manually
  • Assets imported via TrakPC / TrakAsset
  • Assets imported via TrakMac
  • Chrome assets imports via Google
  • Mobile assets imported via Google
Secondary Match on Designates whether an asset will be matched to an existing asset by Device Name or MAC address if an audit is missing at least 3 of the fields used for matching.

 

Access to Asset Management Information

Consider who will have access to Asset Management information. There are three user attributes related to Asset Management. These attributes control whether users can view asset item records or whether users can manage and maintain asset item information. You will assign these permissions either to groups that the users are a member of (preferred) or directly to the individual users.

  • Can view and select from Assets when submitting and maintaining issues — Allows users to view or select assets from the Issue screens. This permission does not grant the user access to the Asset Management section of the Settings Lightbox.
  • Can access and maintain Asset Management Module functions — Allows users to administrate asset item information. These users will have permission to view, create, maintain, and delete Asset Management information. This permission does grant the user access to the Asset Management section of the Settings Lightbox.
  • Allowed Read Only access to Asset Management information - Allows users read-only access to all asset item information. This permission does grant the user access to the Asset Management section of the Settings Lightbox.

 

Deactivating Asset Management

Steps:

  1. Sign into Issuetrak as a Sys Admin.
  2. Click the gear icon in the upper right.
  3. Click Features underneath System.
  4. Clear the checkbox next to Activate Asset Management.
  5. Click Update.

A confirmation message will appear when this process is complete.