We ended up creating a new custom table called 'Self Audit'. An example of the form is below:
We built a business rule that as records are entered into this table (we do them via import but you could also write a scheduled job to inject them into the table on a regular basis) the system generates an approval record against it and sends that approval to the assigned user of the device.
That user then reads the notification and confirms that they have the device (i.e. approves) or says that they do not have the device (i.e. rejects) via email. For rejections the notification email asks that they place comments in the response email so we can write them to the audit table.
We then have a business rule on the approvals table that says when a self-audit is approved/rejected we push those comments and decision back to the self-audit table and mark the audit as "Confirmed" or "Rejected" as needed.
Our asset team then runs a report on the table and follows up with the appropriate business policies / processes.
Hope that helps or maybe gives you some ideas about how this can be accomplished.
For the first part of your question, this can certainly be done. Based on the scenario you describe, you could potentially just look at having a survey sent to the end user to complete upon the assignment of the asset to that user. I have not specifically done that, but I do not think it would be too difficult to set up.
From a regular sort of inventory maintenance, the platform includes Data Certification capabilities that can automate a regular validation of assets such as what you describe, but because it requires a certification role to complete the task, it may have licensing implications.
From the My Assets perspective, we already have a dashboard available under Self-Service that allows a user to see all of his/her assigned assets, when those items are scheduled for retirement, what software they are entitled, and even their outstanding asset requests.
Ben
