This introduction article will help give an organization a starting point for creating an application inventory within an asset/ci application in TeamDynamix.
Overview
An application Inventory is an inventory system for keeping track of various pieces of software that are being used by an organization. The benefit of keeping track of applications is that you can then track maintenance windows, contracts, view relationships to services within the organization i.e software A runs on server B.
Where to Start
Getting Started with Asset Management
How to Create an Asset/CI Application
Data Points to track for Software Applications
Default attributes that can be used as a starting guide for recording against software applications.
- Application Name: The Name of the Application ex. TeamDynamix
- Manufacturer: The Manufacturer of the application
- Application Acquisition Date: When the application was first acquired by your organization
- Application Description: A breif description of the application and the purpose it serves
- Status: Current Status of the application
- Inventory(Rename to: Offline)
- In Use(Rename to Active or Online)
- Retired
- Owner: Organization's Primary internal contact
- Owning Accpt/Dept: Organization's Primary internal Acct/Dept that manages the application
Custom attributes that can be used as a starting guide for recording against software applications.
- Application Deployment Date: Date Field
- Current Application Version Number: Update-able Text Box Field
- Who the product services?: Radio Button List
- Entire Organization
- Group(s) with-in Organization
- Individual User with-in Organization
- etc.
- Installation Location: Radio Button List
- Cloud Base
- On Premise
- etc.
- Application Help Documentation Link(s): Text Area
- API Documentation Link: Text Box
Importing Assets (This does not apply for using Asset Discovery)
Getting Started:
Before Importing:
- Import Vendors
- Import Contracts
- Define Product Types - Examples of Product Types for software applications include: "Vendor Software" and "Custom Applications".
Tips for Importing:
- Upload Asset Import Sheet to OneDrive:
- On the desktop version of excel, the sheet does not allow for the auto filling of information as you type for attributes with a long list of options such as Location, Requester, Owner, Vendor etc.
- Bring the sheet into Microsoft OneDrive allows for automatic cell searching and cell auto-filling.
- This allows for easier and faster creation of the import sheet.
- Hide Cell Columns that are not needed:
- Hiding the cell columns that will not be used allows for easy data entry with out having to scroll across a large amount of rows
- Working with Large Data Sets:
- During the import you can select a specific sheet from an excel workbook that you want to use for the import.
- When working with large data sets breaking them up into different sheets based on organization attributes such as location, owning acct/dept etc. allows for smaller portions of data entry and allows for easier ways to find mistakes.
Maintenance Windows
Blackout Windows and Maintenance Windows
Utilizing Relationships with your Application Inventory
Asset/CI Relationship Map[Article]
The benefit of utilizing the Asset/CI Relationship map is that you can see how your software applications interact with other assets in your organization. For example if you have an on-premise server that runs Application A and Application A has services tied to it such as an access request, and a change request etc. If an outage or an upgrade of the application occurs, then one can visually see what systems/services are affected by that incident.
Reports/Desktops/Contract Management
Asset Contract Management [Video]