What is Asset Management?
Asset management software for IT help desk is used to track and manage an organization's hardware and software assets. This includes identifying the location of assets, the software and hardware installed on them, and other key information such as warranties and maintenance schedules.
An IT Technician must keep tabs on the number of laptops distributed across a team, each laptop’s serial number, the history of updates and downloads, and a record of each maintenance call for that laptop asset. This helps the technician troubleshoot problems more quickly, and determines when it’s time to upgrade a piece of equipment. Over time, this body of data helps the organization make decisions about how often equipment should be replaced, and what vendors to avoid.
This is just one of many examples of how to manage a certain type of asset. In reality, asset management involves all types of tools and occurs in departments across numerous industries.
Examples of Assets
Assets come in various forms. Examples of assets include:
- Laptops
- Desktop computers
- Monitors
- TV’s
- UPS surge protectors
- Headsets
- SSL certificates
Software boosts help desk health and gives time back to your day. Discover how.
Software in Action: How 3 Organizations Track IT Assets with Issuetrak
Asset Management in a dispersed work force of transport consultants
SeaTec’s Senior IT Technician is an avid help desk software user who keeps track of his colleagues’ help ticket requests and assets. Asset management helps him do more with less.
READ AND WATCH: Highlights and interview.
Managing IT Assets for Distribution
Every piece of equipment that belongs to Neptune Equipment—laptops, printers, firewalls, and customer products—is tracked closely in Issuetrak. Employees and customers can log into a portal to see the status of their requests, as well as assets that are assigned to them, eliminating any confusion and reducing phone calls for sales reps and the IT team. Neptune also ties assets to tickets and can see recurring problems that may indicate it’s time for an upgrade.
SEE: Neptune Equipment Keeps Tabs on Hundreds of Assets
School District Tracks 20K Laptop Assets at its IT Help Desk
School IT technicians track laptop devices, student security and access (or blocks) on those devices, Firewalls, software updates, break-fix issues, and more.
Newport News Public Schools owns upward of 20,000 laptops. Using an Asset Management module at their IT help desk aids this district in keeping track of each one. They are able to save valuable financial and team resources with the easy location and auditing tools Asset Management has to offer.
From keeping track of hardware and software inventory to efficiently allocating resources, asset management helps ensure their schools’ IT help desks are always prepared for any arising issue.
Effective asset management enables Newport News schools to save money and time by preventing the need for hardware replacements or repairs, or any unnecessary spending of precious extra resources on new technology.
By tracking and managing the hardware and software used in their schools, asset management helps ensure that they have the resources available for their staff to provide quick, effective support. From knowing which new hardware needs to be purchased to being able to remotely troubleshoot a user's device, asset management makes running a smooth and successful IT help desk much easier.
READ more customer stories like this.
Why Asset Management Matters to Your Help Desk
Benefits Of Getting The Asset Management Module
- You can use Asset Management to organize your IT help desk and efficiently clear help desk tickets. Here are some of the many benefits:
- Keeping track of loaners (e.g. laptops, other equipment checked out by employees and returned later
- Reporting on Software Subscriptions to help manage the expense (what expires, what renews)
- Storing a recovery key for encrypted devices, matched to the asset. (e.g. the Bit Locker key to recover data from a hard drive)
- Keeping track of the history of an asset and when it is assigned to whom
- Keeping track of things that change over time for an IT asset so it is always up to date
- Computer memory
- Hard drive capacity
- Programs
- Services
- Startup apps
- Reporting on the status of patch management run by a tool such as NiNite
- You can apply Asset Management to your help desk operations, no matter what hardware you’re using. Issuetrak’s Asset Management module offers special data-gathering capabilities for a variety of hardware types.
- You can create more detailed help desk tickets to solve employee and customer problems faster. Asset Management at your help desk offers other useful capabilities to make resolving help desk tickets easier.
- With Issuetrak you can provide attachments to an asset record such as the actual SSL certificate
- You can link assets such as a monitor to a PC
- Assets can be assigned to users
- Assets can be assigned to locations
- You can add an asset to a ticket
- You can merge duplicate assets
Signs You Need Software’s Help To Manage IT Assets
1. It’s a nightmare to look up an asset for basic troubleshooting.
In the words of our SeaTec customer, his company previously had no tracking record for their thousands of Apple computers. Now he’s delighted to be able to attach any asset directly to a help ticket for easy tracking.
2. You’re unable to get through the mountain of sticky-note requests covering your desk.
This scenario is an all too common problem that IT technicians face. You can avoid the spreadsheet fiasco and streamline your asset records seamlessly.
3. Your boss thinks IT isn’t worth investing in.
Your superior couldn’t be further from the truth if they believe the IT department is staying afloat without software. Many IT technicians beg us to convince their managers that IT help desk software will actually boost revenue because properly managed assets enable workers to do their jobs better.
4. You can’t identify which assets are giving you the most problems.
You know that half of your PC's are problem children—but you don't know which half! This is where tying assets to issues (attaching them directly to a ticket) and robust reporting comes to the rescue.
Topics from this blog: Asset Management
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