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Hi all. Currently, we have a very basic inventory system (and by basic, I mean pretty much nothing. I’m newer here and it’s on the list of things to get done) and we’re looking to dig into this deeper later this summer. Currently, we’re in-between IT Directors and am looking for ideas. For example, what do you all put into your inventory? Does it have to be over a certain value to even be considered? Do you barcode all of them? If so, does it automatically update when something is taken and give notifications when you’re below a certain amount? What software do you recommend? Thanks everyone in advance for their input!

7 Spice ups
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Depends on how much work you want to take upon yourself.

I don’t mean by the creation of the initial inventory, that’s obvious. I’m talking about the long-term maintenance of said database – having to track and update each object. Workstations are an obvious inclusion, but can you imagine the headache in keeping track of individual keyboards and mice, especially after users decide they like their coworker’s better. (Someone took off with my office chair once! My chair, that I paid for.)

Spiceworks has a great inventory asset tracker built in. It allows adding non-connected inventory as well.

Good luck!

1 Spice up
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We usually only inventory items that are within their service coverage and warranty. Depreciated assets are removed from Inventory. Keeping it simple. Inventory tends to be one way meaning, items are never removed once scanned into inventory by Spiceworks. Depreciated items need to be manually removed, however we have so many assets that I will from time to time just delete all the items and allow the scan to re-populate the inventory instead of tediously removing each item.

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Do you have a “Last Observed” field? I found that helpful.

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are you talking about your IT equipment inventory or the companies inventory for what ever product they sell \ manufacture

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Xit: My thoughts exactly. We could care less about wired keyboards considering we have probably 200 brand new ones just laying around. One person in the office said if it’s under $100 it doesn’t need to be inventoried. My question was, what about hard drives, wireless mice, docking stations? I understand where he was coming from but there’s a fine line and need to figure out where we want to cross that line. And my lead has touched very little with the inventory asset tracker and likes it. However, the administrator for the entire organization wanted us to get more ideas and then have a meeting to talk about what would work best for us. And no, no last observed field but I can see how that would be helpful

OneCogMind:That make sense. Thanks!

Molan: About our current IT equipment inventory. I guess the biggest issue we’re all having here is deciding what exactly to keep track of. I could care less about wired mice but wireless mice, in my opinion, should be put in inventory.

Thanks for the input guys!

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You reminded me of what I used to do: along with Spiceworks I had a simple db to keep track of my “storehouse” (really just a closet) of those types of items. A HD is part of a computer, but sitting on a shelf it’s an asset waiting to be used. And one valuable enough to walk off if not locked down. Start with a spreadsheet to record SN as a UID and where it’s at or what you did with it, and if you need to track it’s lifespan create a db in Access to record events. I can elaborate more on request.

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we record as much as possible regarding warranty , dates and id etc along with model number and location. It is not perfect but at least it tells us which store it was meant to be at and we then assign it to their budget so if it goes missing they pay from their store budget for another one, along with requiring an explanation.

Mainly we know we are not going to catch everything but we do want to catch as much as we can once out of warranty it moves to sheet 2 and when needing repair we decide if its worth it and if it then gets scrapped it goes to the third tab disposals so that we know we scrapped it and it did not go missing. The truth is as much as anything it is to deter the light fingered and make them think we have more control than we maybe do.

Like yourself we have set this up from scratch and are playing catch with stuff going back overs several years from before we joined the business

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Spreadsheets are 2 dimensional: Item & facts about each item. Db adds additional dimensions, like Time (events): “On this date, Item status was changed to Disposed”.

You have a good idea of your 2D data already. Add a table to record events based on UID for each item, with a relationship between the two tables (UID). And maybe a table of each of your locations:

Table 1, Items:
ItemUID, SN, Description, Status, Location, blah, blah, blah…

Table 2, Locations:
LocationUID, Description, AnythingElseAboutTheLocationYouWantToRecord

Table 3, Events:
EventUID, ItemUID, LocationUID, DescriptonOfEvent, TypeOfEvent, Errata

So after populating the first two tables, table 3 will start to look like this:

00001, 1463, 04, asset missing, Loss, John reports missing HD from storage.
00002, 6245, 02, malfunction, mechanical failure, Sarah's mouse broken (again).
00003, 2831, 01, transfer, movement, HD moved from store 1 to store 3.

Columns like Status could be a limited set of options (Loss, Mechanical, Movement, etc.)

Is this the direction you were thinking? You might be able to google asset database for a pre-made one, or additional hints.