Question for those that work in IT

[Mark]

Our system for keeping track of equipment throughout the company is really terrible and is in great need of improvement. Currently, we use an asset management module thats built into our helpdesk system(Track-IT!) which isn't very good, and irratating to use since the GUI is terrible. What we generally do when we send out a computer, printer, etc... to another remote office is fill out a transfer sheet, have our VP sign it, asset tag the item with a sticker, package it up then send it off. We then give the transfer sheet the the accounting department so they can properly bill the appropriate office. Problem is after the hardware gets to the office, we have no control of it afterwards and it ends up floating around from office to office. Im just trying to gather ideas on how your departments work in this area. We were looking at some kind of bar coding system where equipment gets scanned at each office(we have 16 of them) so we know where this stuff is going, but were trying to figure out if there is some kind of system like this dedicated to IT related equipment for ease of use.


Thx

 

[Stan]

You have hardware inventories!

You do realize your lightyears ahead of most companies right?

 

[Jojo7]

Mark, I work at a school district and we use Track-It also. I'm in charge of our computers and inventory (along with hardware technician responsibilities). We have around 1300 machines. Track-it works pretty well when you don't plan on moving the computers. We typically assign a computer to the room and that computer stays in that room. The problem is when you start having teachers that move classrooms and they want to take "their" computer with them. Most of the time, we simply do not allow that.
My suggestion would be that when you get a computer, assign it to a room (or user) and make sure they know not to move it.
Also, I should mention that all our computers are asset tagged with a barcode and a number (ex: 4283). The computer name reflects the campus, room number, and asset tag# separated by dashes. This works pretty well. You can look at a computer name and know exactly what campus and room that computer is in. Again, once users start wanting to move computers, you have to change the computer name also.
Once a year, someone from our dept will go around and with a palm pilot, scan the barcode on the door and then go into the room and scan the asset tag on the computer. Then we compare that with our records and we send the scans over to the business dept where she compares the computers with locations also.
I really don't like the inventory aspect of my job but track-it is correct about 95% of the time.