How to track serial number changes in assets without using custom tables?

[Kapil Khedkar]

Hi all,

I am facing a challenge where the serial number of assets is getting updated through SCCM integration, which makes it difficult for the ITAM team to track and reconcile assets.

We want to create report to track all assets where the serial number has changed - ideally showing the old and new value along with the timestamp. So, that the ITAM team can monitor what was updated.

Constraint:

1. We not not allowed to use custom tables to store or log changes.

2. We cannot build report directly on the sys_audit table due to performance issue and platform best practices.

3. We want to stick to out-of-the-box functionality only.

Is there any recommend OOTB approach to report on field level changes without hitting sys_audit directly or creating a custom tracking tables?

[GlideFather]

Hi @Kapil Khedkar,

ensure that the field has enabled audit, navigate to sys_audit.list table and check whether you can see there these changes if not, enabling the audit will give you that chance and after that you can build a report with these values.

Let me know if it goes ok for you

[GlideFather]

to enable the Audit:

• navigate to the sys_dictionary table,
  • search for your table and type == collection,
  • if it exists, set the audit to true,
  • if it doesn't exist, create a new record

In my example, after the audit was set to true for sys_user_group, any FUTURE updates to that table will be audited.

To access it, navigate to the sys_audit table:

There you can see that the Group's Description was changed from Old to New value and by kter.

Based on that you build a report to track this in more details.

[Kapil Khedkar]

Hi @GlideFather ,
Thanks for your response. 
But, ServiceNow generally does not recommend creating reports directly on the sys_audit table for regular reporting purposes due to performance concerns. As the sys_audit table can become very large, and querying it for reports can significantly slow down the instance. 

[jonsan09]

If you have Multisource CMDB/CMDB 360, you could try utilizing it to identify CIs with serial number changes and then reporting on the associated asset to that CI. (https://www.servicenow.com/docs/csh?topicname=workspc-mltsrc-query-schedule.html&version=latest)