Understanding IT Assets and the Asset Repository

PeopleSoft IT Asset Management (ITAM) compares the expected state of IT assets—the state reflected in the PeopleSoft Asset Management database (asset repository) - to the state reported by a third-party inventory process. PeopleSoft IT Asset Management integrates with a third-party application that performs the inventory, and reports the results to PeopleSoft IT Asset Management. PeopleSoft IT Asset Management posts the data to cache tables within ITAM.

This process provides two images of the IT assets within the enterprise:

• The IT assets that you add to the asset repository using PeopleSoft applications.

  These assets reside in tables in the asset repository.

• The IT assets that are discovered and stored in the cache tables.

PeopleSoft IT Asset Management enables organizations to track their IT assets and reconcile discrepancies between the IT assets maintained in the asset repository and the actual IT assets discovered in the enterprise. Specifically, PeopleSoft IT Asset Management:

• Identifies the IT assets that exist in the enterprise (using a third-party search and inventory application).

• Compares the discovered IT assets to the IT assets stored in the asset repository.

• Provides financial impact analysis and an interface for addressing and reconciling asset discrepancies.

PeopleSoft software tracks IT assets in the same way that it tracks other assets: it stores the attributes of each asset as an entry in the asset repository.

The majority of the transactions between PeopleSoft IT Asset Management and the asset repository occur as the result of scheduled PeopleSoft IT Asset Management processes that you define during setup. IT asset data is stored in the asset repository for both known IT assets and IT assets discovered by your third-party application. PeopleSoft IT Asset Management queries this data to report discrepancies. These discrepancies are then posted to Manage Exceptions, where you can reconcile them as appropriate for your enterprise.

Some of the identified discrepancies may require reconciliation; others may not. It is up to your organization to determine which discrepancies to reconcile and which (if any) to ignore.

The third-party inventory application periodically inventories IT assets (or their absence), and financial action may be necessary in order to reconcile discrepancies. For example, an asset listed in the asset repository may have been taken out of service or transferred from one business unit to another. If, after researching the discrepancy, the PeopleSoft IT Asset Management user determines that a financial attribute for an asset must be updated in the asset repository, they can issue a request for the update. This request becomes a worklist item that is routed to an appropriate PeopleSoft Asset Management user. These indirect changes to the asset repository can include moving an asset to inventory or requesting that an asset be retired. PeopleSoft IT Asset Management also facilitates direct changes to the Asset Repository for some reconciliation actions.

ITAM also provides a way to reconcile nonfinancial assets in the asset repository with those gathered by discovery. By assigning a physical use status for assets, ITAM reconciles the information stored in the asset repository with that gathered by the discovery application based on Serial Id, thus enforcing uniqueness of Serial Id across all hardware assets that are in physical use. Asset transactions such as Additions, Interunit Transfers, Retirements, and Reinstatements affect the asset's physical use status for comparison with discovery and an alert is provided to indicate a that there is a discrepancy.

The asset repository stores data about all known enterprise assets, including IT assets, and represents the most current information that exists about the IT assets present within the enterprise.

In addition to the asset tables, there are cache tables dedicated to IT assets. These tables provide a temporary storage space for IT asset data discovered and transmitted by your third-party inventory application. PeopleSoft IT Asset Management compares the data in these cache tables to the data stored in the asset tables, and identifies discrepancies. You can then use PeopleSoft IT Asset Management to reconcile these discrepancies and update the data stored in the asset tables.

You can compare and reconcile the following attributes:

• Business Unit

• Department

• Custodian

• Location

• Manufacturer

• Model

• Serial Number

• Software

• User-defined fields

See Understanding the Asset Repository.

The purpose of the asset repository is to store records of all enterprise assets. Enterprise assets include not only IT assets, but all items in the possession of the enterprise. These assets can include items as small as chairs and as large as buildings. Each is an asset, but a different kind or type.

The asset repository differentiates among the various types of assets by assigning them unique asset type and asset subtype attributes. PeopleSoft Asset Management includes a predefined set of asset types and each asset recorded in the asset repository has an asset type attribute. To support PeopleSoft IT Asset Management, the asset repository includes two asset types devoted to IT assets, IT Hardware and IT Software. Typically, a PeopleSoft Asset Management user would also create asset subtypes beneath the IT Hardware asset type to distinguish among different kinds of hardware. For example, the IT Hardware asset type might have asset subtypes of DESKTOP, LAPTOP, and SERVER. Asset subtypes provide a means to differentiate in the asset repository between different kinds of assets that fall under the same general asset type.

See Understanding Asset Processing.

IT asset subtypes differ from asset subtypes in where they are defined and how they are used:

• Asset subtypes are created within PeopleSoft Asset Management and describe assets recorded in the asset repository.

• IT asset subtypes are created within PeopleSoft IT Asset Management and are used to compare and reconcile the IT assets reported by the third-party inventory application with the assets stored in the asset repository.

See Adding and Maintaining Asset Information.

See Defining IT Subtypes.