Maintaining the Asset Category Hierarchy


Overview

Tasks

Included with

Tivoli Asset Management

Overview

Asset categories

The Asset Category hierarchy contains categories for all the types of assets your company maintains. Each asset may be designated as belonging to an asset category. Assets are defined as physical items with unique asset tags.
Asset models and attributes You can configure a list of attributes you want to track for each category. Attributes are the characteristics of the items in the Category Manager and can be associated with assets. For example, if you have a category for laser printers, your attributes might be:
  • The page description languages the printer supports
  • The paper capacity of the printer
  • The number of pages the printer can print per minute
  • The part number of the toner cartridge

You can track the characteristics that relate directly to a category of assets and have significance based on your business needs. Configuring attributes through the user interface instead of having them preset by the database is a benefit of Tivoli Asset Management. It helps you conserve database storage space and also relieves you from:

  • Adding fields to a data table
  • Modifying user interface screens
  • Customizing the code

You can define sets of attributes, called models, with default attribute values. A user can assign a model with default attribute values to a new assets, instead of manually specifying attribute values.

Asset Categories dialog box

Use the Asset Categories dialog box to create and maintain the asset category hierarchy.

To access the Asset Categories window, do one of the following:

  • If you are using the Asset Management Administrator profile or the Tivoli Service Desk Administrator profile, from the Edit menu, choose Asset Categories.
  • From the Help menu, choose Your System Profile and follow the instructions under Work with Asset Categories.

Tasks

Standard maintenance tasks

This help topic covers maintenance tasks specific to the asset category hierarchy. For information on tasks that can be performed in any hierarchy, see Maintaining Hierarchies.

Adding a root-level asset category

The first step in setting up the asset category hierarchy is to establish the root-level categories. The root-level categories should be the broadest level of categories for which you want to make inquiries, determine valuations, or conduct audits.

Tip: To avoid adding duplicate asset categories, use the Find command to verify that an asset category is not already in the hierarchy or in the database. See Finding and viewing an item in a hierarchy.

To add a root-level asset category:

  1. In the Asset Categories dialog box, choose Add Root.
    Result: The name of the section on the right side of the Asset Categories window changes to Add Root Category.
  2. From the Category tab, in the Name box, type a name.
  3. Specify any detail information about the asset category.
  4. Choose Paste to Root.

Adding a child-level asset category

You can divide each root asset category into smaller, more specific categories. The more specific categories are called children of the root category; however, each child category can also be a parent of other child categories.

For example, if Printers is one of your root categories, its child categories be different types of printers, such as impact, laser, thermal, etc. The child categories, in turn, could be the parent categories for even more specific categories such as a printer series.

Build the hierarchy until you reach the most specific category for which your company might ever want to perform an inquiry, conduct an audit, or determine the value of assets.

To add a child-level category:

  1. In the Asset Categories dialog box, select the parent category for the category you want to add.
    Note: The new category is added as a child of the category you select.
  2. Choose Add.
    Result: The name of the section on the right side of the Category dialog box changes to Add Category.
  3. In the Name box, type the category name.
  4. Click here for instructions about how to add detail information about the category.
  5. Choose Paste.
    Result: The new category appears in the Category Hierarchy as a child of the selected category.

Editing an asset category

To edit a category:
  1. In the Asset Categories dialog box, select the category you want to edit.
  2. Choose Edit.
    Result: The name of the section on the right side of the Asset Categories window changes to Edit Category. The details of the selected category appear in the boxes in the Edit Category section.
  3. Make any necessary changes to the category information.
    • Click here for instructions about how to change the placement of the category in the hierarchy.
    • Click here for instructions about how to edit detail for the category.
  4. Under Edit category, choose Save.