Guide to Setting Up Asset Management in Jira [Example with Laptop]

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Did you know that up to 43% of businesses track inventory manually or don't track it at all? It’s risky to be among them, and here is why. Without a suitable tracking system, assets can be easily misplaced or lost, which can cause operational disruptions and financial losses. Moreover, it becomes difficult and time-consuming to perform audits and generate reports. Jira users have a great opportunity to manage their inventory and be among 57% of more organized teams. Here, you will find a guide to start managing your assets in Jira.

Short intro to asset management

Asset management is the methodical process of creating, using, preserving, and getting rid of assets in an economical way. It entails keeping track of and overseeing the physical and digital assets of a company, including buildings, machinery, software, cars, and intellectual property, over the duration of their useful lives. The purpose of asset management is to minimize the risks and expenses related to these assets while optimizing their value.

General steps of asset management:

1. Classification

2. Allocation

3. Maintenance

4. Tracking

5. Compliance and reporting

6. Disposal

Now, let’s see how we can set everything up in Jira according to these steps.

How to adjust asset management in Jira

Assets is a built-in tool available in Jira Service Management Premium, Enterprise, and Data Center plans. Before starting work, you need to find out Assets depending on your plan and hosting type. 

1. Classification and starting work

• Find / Set up Assets 

Assets configuration for Cloud users (only available for Premium and Enterprise Cloud plans)

Assets configuration for Data Center users (If you are using Jira Service Management Data Center 4.15 or above, the Assets functionality is already included)

For the next steps, let's go over an example where the asset is a laptop owned by the corporation. We'll explore how the fundamental phases of asset management may be applied and modified in Jira.

💻 Example. A new company laptop is purchased for an employee in the IT department.

• Configure Object schema and Object Types

Set up an Object schema for IT assets. This schema will be the basis for managing all of your IT assets, including laptops. Make object types within this schema that correspond to the various asset categories. In our case, it will be "Laptops."

• Create an Object that defines a particular asset, a laptop ASUS X515 in our case

• Define attributes like department, serial number, owner, location, or other you need. 

2. Allocation

When allocating objects to the appropriate users or departments is time, you can establish a Jira deployment workflow to monitor asset allocation. You can assign resources to particular users or departments using automation based on preset criteria.

Example of automation rule for Jira Assets:

• Trigger: When an object is created

• Condition: If "Object Type" = "Laptops" AND "Department = "Development"

• Action 1: Update "Owner" to "John Smith"

• Action 2: Send a custom email notification to "John Smith" and "IT Team"

You will find Automation under the “Configure” menu for Object Schemas.

3. Maintenance

Let’s say all company laptops must have a maintenance check, which includes software updates, antivirus scans, and hardware inspections, performed every three months. For this, you can establish reminders or recurring tasks for planned maintenance. Use automation to alert the IT staff of upcoming scheduled maintenance and create tasks for maintenance automatically.

4. Tracking

Jira Assets provides a History section showing all updates to a single object, including who made changes (Actor) and when.

To enhance the monitoring and tracking step, where the company tracks all changes over time, you can incorporate the Assets History for Jira app. It provides a customizable report where you can see updates for all objects in one place. With available filters, you can select Object Schemas, Object Types, or even specific attributes and review all changes.

For example, we want to see changes made to Laptop Objects Types within the last 90 days; here is the report:

Also, you can get results for the specific user who made the updates to such an attribute as the Owner:

5. Compliance and reporting

This step is very important to meet regulatory and audit requirements. You need to record all maintenance and software updates in Jira to achieve this and stay transparent. Built-in functionality is pretty limited when it comes to reporting on assets. So, for this step, you might check tools available on the Atlassian Marketplace, depending on your requirements. The one mentioned in the previous section can do the job perfectly. With Assets History for Jira, you will get detailed records of asset changes, which are crucial for compliance audits.

6. Disposal

When assets reach the end of their useful life, you can safely remove outdated or non-functional objects and archive them.  Instead of deleting these assets entirely, which would erase all associated records, archiving allows you to retain valuable information that may be needed for audits, compliance, or future decision-making.

Wrapping up

Jira offers all the tools you need to manage equipment, office supplies, or any other assets. It makes operations more efficient, requires less human labor, and increases visibility throughout the entire company. For growing companies, asset management requirements will become more complex as they expand. Jira will make it easier to grow your asset management approach so you can meet new challenges without compromising accuracy or efficiency.