Changing Asset Classes

[David Sloan]

We are importing thousands of assets from our old asset management system into ServiceNow. In the old system, we had six classes: Computer, Computer Accessory, Electronics, Equipment, Furniture, Vehicle. Each of these classes had anywhere from four to fifteen categories under it. How should we organize these assets in ServiceNow? OOB ServiceNow uses a Hardware class that includes Computer, Monitor, Printer, etc. In our old system, Computer would have gone in the Computer class, but Monitor and Printer would have gone in the Computer Accessory class. Should we create new asset classes in ServiceNow and get rid of the "Hardware" asset class, so ServiceNow matches what we are used to? If we do this, will it create problems if we ever decide to use the CMDB, or no because we can just map the Computer CI to the Computer asset, which is now in the Computer asset class? OR should we keep everything as ServiceNow has it OOB and just add new categories under the Hardware class (but is "car" hardware?)? OR should we do something in between, perhaps making Vehicle and Furniture new asset classes but placing Computer, Computer Accessory, Electronics, and Equipment all under the Hardware class? If we are placing these under the Hardware class, how do we create subcategories to distinguish what kind of Computer Accessory (monitor, printer, etc.) we are talking about? I hope to find that balance between making the classes and categories make sense for us and not customizing ServiceNow beyond what is necessary.

[akash_mehta]

David:  Yes you should stay with the OOB conventions in regards to how Assets tie to CIs.  You should use a model category to identify what CI class a category ties to and what Asset class the category ties to.

I would not extend the Asset Class to much further and just looking at your items identified I tried to do a little mapping:

1) Computer - Model Category Computer - CI Class:  Computer  Asset Class:  Hardware Asset

2) Computer Accessory - This would probably map to Computer Peripheral  - CI Class:  Computer Peripheral . Asset Class:  Hardware Asset

3) Furniture - I would use the alm_facility asset class and if you need a CI...there is a Facility CI table that you can extend from if you need very specific facility ci classes.  

4) Electronics - this is too generic...probably need to look at the different records and see where they may fit - also consider using the Consumables asset class for things you don't want to track as specific individual records

5) Car - I would create this as a Facility asset class, and then create a specific CI class to track specific information related to the Car category...again, if you need it for Task based processing

Hope this helps.

-Akash