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Ask Slashdot: What Asset Tracking Software Do You Recommend?
grahamsaa writes: I work for an organization that has a number of physical assets, as well as presence in multiple data centers. On the DC side, there are a number of specific things we need to track (one thing we want to be able to account for is how much power do we need for each rack). On the office side, our needs are more basic. We need to be able to tag and track laptops, workstations, monitors, etc. I would like to use a single system for all of this, but have yet to find something that will work well on the office side and the data center side. Free/open source solutions are preferred, but we're prepared to spend money on a commercial solution if it meets our needs. What would you recommend?
Honestly, I've seen some of the most successful implementations of asset tracking implemented in trivial homegrown spreadsheets and databases. I'll also seen complete disaster and disarray in multi-million dollar commercial applications.
The difference: the people and process. When it comes to asset tracking in a dynamic, uncontrolled environment (e.g., not an Amazon warehouse), no tool is going to replace good process and procedure since there will be error-prone and lazy humans in the process. You need to get religious about these sorts of things if you want them to work. No nifty tool will substitute.
My two cents.
nLyte is what we use. it sounds like it would fit your needs.
You are either a small company, in which case Excel suffices, or you are a large company, in which case there is no single product that fits all your requirements which makes Excel the best compromise.
I was going to say spend a million or two on a "enterprise solution tailored to fit your needs" that never actually works like you wanted, but middle management loves because the salesman took them out for drinks, then spend another half-million on training so that everybody gets up to speed. Then after wasting time for 6 months, use some wacky combination of access and excel that lives on some shared drive *somewhere*, Finally give up and scrap the whole idea when a new operations director comes in and has a NEW enterprise solution lined up from his good buddy at yet another company.
Speaking as an accountant, get/use something compatible with your accounting system. Find out what your accounting needs are ahead of time. Your accountants will need to have a fixed asset list for tax and reporting purposes. This is THE most important function of an asset tracking system. Whatever you do make damn sure it is easily compatible with the needs of the accounting department. Otherwise you are costing the company money and making life needlessly difficult. It may be that your accountants have modest needs like in my company - we do ours directly in our accounting software and that's fine for us. But if you are considering specialty software to keep track then chances are that you should be including your finance and accounting people in this conversation before you install anything.
Pen and notebook until all that is ready.
I was going to say spend a million or two on a "enterprise solution tailored to fit your needs" that never actually works like you wanted, but middle management loves because the salesman took them out for drinks, then spend another half-million on training so that everybody gets up to speed. Then after wasting time for 6 months, use some wacky combination of access and excel that lives on some shared drive *somewhere*, Finally give up and scrap the whole idea when a new operations director comes in and has a NEW enterprise solution lined up from his good buddy at yet another company.
You forgot about the part where you pull in HR and make them advertise for an unrealistic amount of experience in this overpriced "solution", mixed, of course with a long and unlikely laundry list of "must-have" skills. To which a number of offshore outfits will immediately respond claiming that they have all this and certs to boot all for an Everyday Low Price, followed by hiring of a bunch of clueless entry-level people who can barely speak English.