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Happy Tracking,

Tom

Regardless of what type of asset tracking system you use, from time to time you should audit your database to ensure its accuracy.  It doesn’t matter how easy or effective your tracking processes are to follow: some assets will always fall through the cracks.  Technicians will grab assets off the dock and install them to close tickets.  Assets will simply be misplaced and never scanned.  Assets will be moved without anyone updating the database.

Unrecorded changes to your asset database will happen and should be expected.  You should therefore establish an audit process to check accuracy and true-up your database on a regular basis so that every location in your environment is visited on a schedule.

Audit Scope and Schedule

I recommend a rolling audit process, where a portion of your asset database is audited on a regular cycle. The cycle and scope of your audits will be based on the size of your organization and staff levels. However, a good starting place is to perform a monthly audit of 1/12th of your asset environment. In other words, slice your environment into twelve pieces, and audit one piece every month and don’t repeat a piece until all pieces are done. This ensures your entire asset environment is audited each year.

I’m over-simplifying here.  You will have to look at the physical layout of your environment and determine an audit schedule that fits you, but you get the idea.

Audit Process

Follow this process to audit each slice of your environment.

Collecting Audit Data

The process of collecting asset information during an audit must be fast and accurate.  Your personnel must be able to enter a room, scan in location information as quickly capture the asset tags or serial numbers of the assets at that location.  You need to be able to do this in a minute or less to minimize interruption to your and users and speed the audit process.  AMI recommends the use of mobile devices with barcode and/or RFID scanners which make it easy to collect asset information used by the audit.

1. Deploy one or more users with mobile devices to the audit location.

2. Enter the first room or cube and scan or enter the location data into the mobile device.

3. If available, enter the user information that is responsible for the assets in that room or cube.  Ideally this can be done by scanning a badge number.

4. Next, scan each of the asset tag of each asset at that location. Your mobile computer should be smart enough to detect when an unknown asset is scanned and audibly prompt the user to capture model and serial number to ensure “rogue” assets are added to the repository correctly.

5. Save each “audit batch” to the mobile device database.

6. Move to the next room or cube and repeat steps 2-4.

Comparing Audit Data

Once the audit data is collected, it must be compared to the repository for accuracy. Your exact reporting tools will depend on what software you have available, but you could simply use Excel or Access to build comparison reports.

The audit report should indicate:

• Location accuracy percentage
• User accuracy percentage
• Cost center accuracy percentage
• Detailed list of assets with non-matching data

Applying Audit Data

Once the audit reports have been generated and saved, you should apply the collected data to your database to “true-up” the data. Your asset tracking system should provide the means to apply collected audit data after audit reports have been generated.  Save off your reports to maintain a history of your asset tracking system accuracy, and rest confidently that your database will be maintained with a high degree of accuracy by knowing that all of your locations are visited on a regular shce

If you are a large IT customer that orders a high volume of hardware and software, receiving assets can be difficult and time consuming.  With hundreds or even thousands of hardware assets arriving at your receiving docks every month, how much time and energy does it take to properly tag and enroll each asset into your asset repository?  Quite a bit, potentially.

One way to reduce this time and increase the accuracy of your asset database is to get your vendors to send electronic Advanced Shipping Notices (ASN) ahead of shipments.  ASN files are generally CSV or XML files that are delivered electronically to you ahead of shipments that contain one record for each asset in the shipment.  These files are formatted in a way that can be imported into your repository using an automated process.

Each asset record in the ASN file should have, at very least, the following information:

• Serial number
• Model name and/or number
• PO number

Additional information like cost, tracking number, warranty or lease end date can also be included in ASN files.

Getting it Working

To get an ASN system up and running, you have to do the following:

1. Contact your vendor and determine their ability to generate and deliver ASN files
2. Determine the format of vendor ASN files
3. Provide delivery information to your vendor (FTP site, Email inbox, etc.)
4. Set up a process to import ASN files into your repository automatically
5. Load ASN information into receiving mobile devices ahead of receiving

Most commercially available asset repositories have some way to import data and numerous third-party products are available to help you automate ASN imports.  Developing your own ASN import process is a relatively easy task for internal development teams.

Benefits of Using ASN Files

Saving Time Receiving

If you create asset records in your repository by importing ASN files, then at the receiving dock all you have to do is scan the serial number barcode to update the status of each asset record to “Received.”  You don’t have to capture the model or PO information since that information was sent to you by the ASN.  This reduces the time to receive assets and also the number of errors from selecting the wrong model from the product catalog or scanning the wrong PO number.

Preventing Over-Ordering

If you create asset records as soon as items are shipped by your vendors, you can generate reports showing you assets that are inbound.  This can help prevent over-ordering, since you can see that you have assets already on order that could be used to fulfill your requests.

Measuring Vendor and Employee Performance

By using ASNs, you can also measure the performance of your vendors, shipping companies and receiving personnel.  You can do this by measuring the time it takes for assets to be received after the asset records are imported by ASN files.  If the time delta is significant, you can determine whether the shipping company or the receiving process is slow.  This can help you improve your service levels to your customers by identifying bottlenecks in the procurement process.

One issue that comes up again and again from my customers is how to properly identify and tag assets.  Most people have worked at companies that use asset tags, but I’m seeing more and more companies try to use Dell service tags or serial numbers instead of a new asset tagging scheme.

I thought I should take a moment and explain the pros and cons of asset tagging, and some of the tidbits we’ve learned to ensure you identify and tag assets properly.

Asset Identification

Asset Tags vs. Service Tags/Serial Numbers

As I mentioned above, some companies that have IT hardware from a single vendor like Dell have chosen to use the manufacturer’s service tag or serial number as the asset identifier.  Makes sense because why apply a new tag when the vendor has done that for you already?

I always recommend using asset tags.  Here’s why:

• Manufacturer tags are only guaranteed to be unique for assets from that one vendor.  As soon as you try to enroll assets from other manufacturers into your asset repository, you have the potential for a tag conflict.  Unlikely, but possible.
• Tag placement is extremely important.  Have you ever tried to scan a Dell service tag on a laptop that is in a docking station?  You can’t.  You have to undock the laptop which disturbs your end user and makes collecting tags during an inventory or audit very time consuming.  With asset tags, you can ensure tags are accessible on all installed or stored devices.

Asset Identification Recommendations

Use MOD137-Compliant Tag Values

By using your own tags, you can implement MOD137 numbering schemes, which we whole-heartedly recommend.  By using MOD137-compliant tags, your scanners and forms can automatically detect errors in data entry, such as when keying in an asset tag with a keyboard, or when reading an asset tag over the phone to your IT desk.  This also enables your barcode scanners to automatically know that you scanned the correct barcode for an asset, vs. accidentally scanning the product code or serial number.

Use Pre-Printed High-Quality, Durable Tags

Use a polyester or vinyl tag material with aggressive adhesive to ensure the longest life of the tag and to prevent users from removing them.  Have the tags printed by a printing company vs. using your own barcode printer.  The amount of money you spend on the service will pay for itself by ensuring tag quality and uniqueness vs. messing around with your own label printer and software.

Use Meaningless Unique Values for Asset Tags

Make sure you do not put any meaningful information within a tag value.  For example, I’ve seen customers use asset tag value that include the building ID where the asset is installed.  I’ve seen others where they concatenated the user id and the location id of the asset.  That’s great and all, but what happens when the asset moves?  You have to reapply the tag which blows away your asset history and is a tremendous pain to your techs.

So, don’t put meaningful information in tag values . . . ever.

Asset Tag Placement

When affixing tags to hardware assets, place them in accessible locations so that techs can scan the barcodes when the equipment is installed or stored.  For all asset types, consider the installed position of the asset and ensure that the tag is easily accessible by the handheld barcode scanner when the equipment is in use. For example, ensure tags on laptops can be scanned when the laptop is connected to a docking station underneath a monitor. Your particular tag placements will vary based on your asset types and installed configurations.

For Desktops and Laptops, I recommend placing the tags at the top front of the chassis and laptop lid respectively per the illustrations below:

Desktops	Laptops