EOL Asset DB – Workstations

The IT Assets Database was replaced by the IT Admins CMDB and is EOL / End of Life, no further development will be done on this project.

Workstations depend on asset tags – independent from their host name. Best practice is to put at least a little label on the workstation or better a proper asset tag. Any asset tag should only be used once – an up counting number – to make sure you are able to identify each asset by an individual number respective identifier.

For the same reason, if you add a new workstation the system will actually check if this tag is already in use and deny it if it is. You can not change the asset tag via the application, if you really need to change it, you will need to go directly in to the table and adjust it there.

Workstations have various pre-configured fields, worth mentioning is that you can assign up to two monitors to a workstation.

As for the monitor lists, you only can assign monitors that have not been assigned to another workstation. If you want to move a monitor from one workstation to another, you will have to remove it first from the original workstation and then assign it the target system, just like you would do it in real live.

Special is the “Loaner / lent out” tag as well – you can set it and put in an “Expected back” date. This allows you to filter what was lent out for temporary use and when it should have been back.

MAC Addresses can be tracked, if it is worth doing so in your environment. And if you actually assign a fixed IP to a workstation, you can see this here as well – the data comes from the IPAM.

Additionally you are able to assign software to a workstation. This can be helpful for certain license tracking purposes.

Incidents that have been assigned to a workstation are as well visible on one of the tabs. In order to change them you will need go to the incidents module directly.

Further can you add notes and relate TAGs to workstations as well as the ability to see who it was assigned previously. You can even add a finance reference information as workstations are often fixed assets as from the point of view of the finance department and therefor possibly subject to finance audits. This allows you or the finance department to quickly identify where the workstation is or what happened to it. This goes as far as you giving someone in finance directly access to the database – if you want to.

Another feature is the relation between the department that is assigned to the employee and to the workstation. The database automatically compares the two values – while showing the department number next to the employee as a locked field. Underneath, respective right to the department drop down field, a little either GREEN or RED indicator shows that the two settings are aligned or not. It helps to make sure the workstation and the user configuration are aligned.

You can even use the PRINT ASSET LABEL button to quickly print information for the asset and attach the print-out to e.g. an workstation that is sitting on a shelf while it is available. This label will hold the most important information like the Asset Tag, Deployment Status, basic hardware information and serial number. This helps a lot to identify systems on the shelf while seeing the most important information right away.

In order to standardize workstation imaging processes, deployment and retiring workstations you can engage checklists as well.

Data field and reference overview

  • AssetTag
  • Type – laptop / desktop / tablet
  • Hostname
  • Monitor assignment one and two
  • assigned Employee
  • Department
  • physical location
  • Support / Owner / Software and Status notes fields – additional tags and long text notes
  • Deployment status / date / ticket reference
  • Loaner – when loaned out temporarily and expected back on a certain date
  • Purchase number, date, ticket
  • Retired date and reference
  • Replace on – if you want to set a date when the system should be replaced in order to plan ahead
  • Finance Reference – this might come from your finance department and might be their independent asset reference
  • Make / Model / ServiceTag respective Serial Number / CPU / RAM/ HDD size
  • Domain / OS / AntiVirus / IP Addresses / MAC Addresses (LAN/WiFi)
  • Confirm it exists – an ongoing inventory function
  • installed Software
  • Incidents related to this hardware
  • Checklists for various purposes that you define
  • validated – a field useful for regulated environments that indicates if this system has any validation needs