Physical IT asset Management

Posted by Broad_Number_3521@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 26 comments

Hello guys,

I recently joined a company as an IT Associate with about 60 employees in it. I was given a task to clean up the IT room (which has a lot of old laptops, servers etc. which I am getting rid of) and manage all the Laptops that employees are using. My question is

How do I asset tag all the physical laptops and keep record without using any management tool (because it's just about 60 laptops)
How can I check each laptop to make sure that they are working completly fine.
We replacing with new laptop for each employee in few months. How should I deal with this?
Any tips and tricks.

Thanks

[-]

No-Pineapple-9469@reddit

We used Fiix CMMS at my old job for our Maintenance team and it worked well. It would generate tags with QR codes to go on assets.

You could probably use the same system for IT asset management as well.

[-]

Tr1pline@reddit

What's the point of physically asset tagging? As long as Intune keeps track of the serial number, you're fine.

Look at the trouble tickets and see who has issues. If nobody made a fuss, it's fine.

For easy tracking, re-name each laptop after the user. (If it's up to you)

You recently joined the company, don't make any changes unless you know the system. A new IT associate probably don't have that much admin control as it sounds like they have an msp already.

[-]

Lukage@reddit

Another vote for SnipeIT -- the on-prem no-support version is completely free and took me an hour to deploy and do some basic configurations and notifications. Its worth your time and can take care of your tags, inventory process, records, etc.

For the check on the devices to ensure they're "working fine," that's a pretty broad ask and your management should help define that -- but how much time is worth it if you're replacing all of these anyway?

[-]

chiperino1@reddit

Do you guys use Active Directory or any other central tool? Intune? An RMM?

[-]

Broad_Number_3521@reddit (OP)

We have a team in other country they manage all the licensing and intune stuff. I am the only IT person here and have to figure out who has what laptop, just keep an updated spredsheet. I don't have access to theor tools yet.

[-]

Tr1pline@reddit

Ask for read only access. If they are your map, you should have access to your own environment.

[-]

hkusp45css@reddit

Don't do that. Build something you can use beyond next week. Spin up SnipeIT or Freshdesk and use the internal tools to manage your stuff. You can also use NetBox (we use it to good effect here for things like this).

Just, don't use a spreadsheet for anything you actually feel like is worth doing.

[-]

chiperino1@reddit

Intune would be the best for this. It has performance monitoring stuff, a notes field which is what I would use for putting details about the machines/user. It also has a primary user field that could be updated to match who it is issued to.

Try to get at least a help desk role if not more for Intune

[-]

Nonaveragemonkey@reddit

First, ditch the offshore nonsense, fight to get that solved. Make your life easier if you have any say in it.

Secondly, a very simple database can be made with postgres on a vm.

Make an asset tag format, like lp-0526202601 Laptop - may 26th, 2026, whatever number built/ordered that day, boolean field for in service or in storage. Should allow flexibility for 99 systems a day, and phone, desktop, server and vm tracking later.

Add colums for date, recieved, make, model, the manufacturer serial numbers, notes. Foreign key to user id.

User table with user id, name, foreign key back to asset id.

Print asset tags, with bar codes if you want.

Boom, there, now you can track who has what, allow issuance of multiple devices, and allow for life cycle tracking.

Building a database probably an hour, tracking everyone down and issues tags,making sure everyone has what theyre supposed to? That could be weeks depending how useful people are.

[-]

MediumFIRE@reddit

Lansweeper is free for under 100 assets. Why not use it? https://www.lansweeper.com/pricing/

[-]

PoeTheGhost@reddit

Search this sub for threads about lansweeper.

[-]

MediumFIRE@reddit

Why? Been using it for years

[-]

Elensea@reddit

Private equity ruined them.

[-]

MediumFIRE@reddit

Ok, but at < 100 assets it's still free.

[-]

WheresNorthFromHere7@reddit

We have one that's custom in house. There's many out there that you can buy off the shelf.

One thing that I think made our lives easier was putting a barcode/QR code on everything that you can scan.

[-]

BloomerzUK@reddit

SnipeIT

[-]

Adam_Kearn@reddit

+1 for snipe

I know you said you didn’t want a tool but this is 1000% worth setting up.

Even if you dont have much use for it now it will soon become your primary tool.

I’ve got about 8k devices on it now syncing automatically every few hours

[-]

Otherwise I see people talking up Snipe-IT

[-]