Getting started

What you can expect

Before starting, understand that building a structured asset repository with a comprehensive asset management system is an ambitious project. It will require buy-in from a number of stakeholders in your organization and some significant time and effort to establish a baseline that will support your objectives.

Once it's set up, you'll be able to:

• Import, synchronize, and reconcile asset data between multiple sources.
• Have instant access to the lifecycle history of your hardware and software assets from initial request through disposal.
• Generate dozens of informative reports that give you up-to-date, comprehensive information about your IT assets.
• Take advantage of workflow automation to facilitate efficient processes and enable standardization and continuous improvement.
• Plan and implement automated processes to promote accountability, reporting, and compliance.

We recommend that you start small and build a focused system to manage a few key asset types. Take advantage of the ready-to-use forms, workflows, and other resources in the Asset Content pack. Over time, you can gradually include more asset types, track a broader range of attributes, and add automation and other functionality. As you become more familiar with the product, you will discover new ways you can use it to proactively and effectively manage your assets.

Your plans and strategies are likely to continue to evolve, both during the baseline buildout phase, as well as following initial deployment. LANDesk Asset Lifecycle Manager has been designed with this in mind. In fact, the ability of the system to support a state of evolving processes and continuous improvement is one of its most important benefits—you're never locked in to procedures or data structures that no longer meet your needs; instead you can continue to refine and develop the tools as your priorities change and as new needs emerge.

Decide on a strategy

Before you start to create your asset management system and begin to put the power of LANDesk Asset Lifecycle Manager to work, ask yourself a few questions:

• Where is my asset data currently located and how can I access it?
• What systems or data sources will I need to integrate with—either to extract pertinent data from, or to publish to?
• What are the two or three high priority assets I want to start tracking initially?
• What are the most critical details I need to be able to track for those assets in my reports?
• Who needs to be able to create, modify, or manipulate asset data and what kinds of tasks do these people need to be able to do?  
• Who needs access to reports, and what kind of data should they be able to see—or be restricted from?

Once you have thoughtfully considered these questions and feel you have some direction and a general idea of what you want to focus on as you build your system, you're ready to get started.

A good starting point would be to use the Synchronization tool to import and populate some initial baseline asset data into your asset repository. See Synchronizing asset data.