Assets - Centralise / Globalise 'Custom Field' Management

Hey John,

Great timing. We are about to release asset "type management", which is a new settings page to set up asset structures, decoupling the adding in new assets from the creating new types / fields process.

Some users inadvertently delete fields while adding in a new assets, not realising that deleting a field in one asset, deletes that field from all other assets of the same type. It's creating problems for admins who want to give users the permission to add in assets, but don’t want them changing the structure or make new fields. So we are separating those functions and building a new permission around that. We are also working on the ability to edit/rename/delete unwanted types and fields. 

In the type management config page, you will see a list of existing custom fields on the right hand and select the ones you want to apply to the type (on the left side of the page), reducing the chance of you creating “serial number”; “serial #”; “serial no.”

The first step (new settings page) should be released in a week or so, and the second part (renaming/deleting) will follow a week or two later.  Would be keen to get your thoughts once you’ve had a look at it.

Cheers,

Duncan

Hi @John Smale, 

Whoops I hit send too early…

Regards the bulk import, we have had a lot of feedback and are totally redesigning it, simplifying it and building in better error handling with clear instructions on how to resolve any issues. The current import flow suits power-users who have a good mental model of how assets work in the SC app. For those giving it a go for the first time, it’s a bit confusing.

The new flow will direct users to the type management page I spoke about in my last post.

Steps:

• Set up your types with the associated fields
• Download a CSV for that type (don’t add, remove or rename column headers)
• Add asset information to the columns, and upload

No more mapping headers in the CSV to custom fields in the system. This will happen automatically. This way your CSV file matches the custom field/type config in the system and vice versa. If any data doesn’t match, you’ll get an itemised error report so a user can see what failed and why and what to do about it. 

This has already been built and we are testing it this week. It should be available publicly in the next week or so.

FYI, the new type management is the precursor to, in the future, building functionality similar to the way GRS works, but for custom fields. So a person adding in vehicles for example, could get a dropdown of brands, models to select that the admin has pre-configured. 

Cheers,

Duncan

This was on all my Assets desires too.  An Asset type management page with a separate permission for it is exactly what I’ve been looking for. This would allow someone at a higher level to manage the types so we have consistency, but allow site level managers the ability to add their own assets.

I’ll go a bit further with the concept:

• On the Asset “Type Management” setup page, for each Asset type, I would like to be able to build a list of brands and models.  This would avoid further data mismatch where we key in for example “Nissi” versus “Nissei” versus “Nissie” etc.
• Within the settings for an Asset type, I would like to be able to upload documents and images at 3 more levels - not just on a specific asset, but also at the full Asset type level, at the “brand” level, and at the “model” level.  This avoids having to upload the same files to 50 assets that are the same brand and have the same documents, but then maybe 40 of them are even the same model and have additional documents the same for those.  Now we can apply it to all as applicable and manage replacing with new versions of the documents and images in one place.  If there are “one-off” unique documents, they could be uploaded to the specific asset like we currently can.  This could be inspection how-to, manuals, schematics, one-point lesson plans, troubleshooting, etc.
• I would like to be able to add “hyperlinks” to assets as well - same as above - at the Asset type, brand, model, or individual asset level. This could be a link to a SharePoint site of resources or the OEM website.
• Same above - also videos.

It would be great if assets allocated to a site were hidden from users not allocated to the site. 

Hi @jacksod 

Thanks for adding to the conversation.

I’m pleased to let you know that we are working on a solution to give more granular access controls for Assets. 

Cheers,

Duncan

I am curious why this is not considered any longer.  We have to be very careful in how we type values into the fields so they are spelled the same.  Having a dropdown per field / asset type combo would eliminate the problem. Additionally, being able to upload documents and videos at the asset type level would allow us to actually use the feature, as it does not make sense to upload the same things to every similar asset. This could be linked to the new Documents feature so we upload it there and link it to applicable assets. We should also be able to add hyperlinks and videos to assets (and/or to the Documents feature, linked to the Asset).