Best Practices for Physical Asset Auditing

[Derek Shore]

We store about 100 devices for our various departments when they aren't assigned to a user. Every month we need to audit what's in storage in order to show that what's in our storage matches what our records/inventory says. 

I need an efficient way to grab the serial number or barcode number, update the "last audit date" field and location field. Has anyone found a good way to do this? 

Things I've thought of so far that are not ideal:

1. Build a CLI tool that leverages the Assets API to update the records.
2. Build a full blown app to do the same.
3. Use a scanner to populate an Excel doc, then upload that. (This is my current go-to, but leaves a lot more room for human error)

Any ideas are appreciated!

[Jim Knepley - ReleaseTEAM]

I think using a barcode scanner is the right choice, regardless. I'm sure you've found that USB scanners are cheap and reliable.

My first instinct is to build a simple terminal program to populate a file (.json?) and upload it via API. This way you have a record of your inventory collection and can process it again if necessary.

I've never used anything like it, but there's at least one marketplace app (because, of course there is) that might just do the trick.

[Derek Shore]

Yeah, I looked at ScanStar. It's promising on paper, but you have to configure so much on each phone individually that it would be a pain to use. 

I'm leaning more and more towards writing my own app. Maybe if I do a good enough job I can make some money!