Consumables - best practices

[Dinah Young]

We are just now deploying Service Now.  The consumables are forcing us to reevaluate how we have handled these in the past (in particular monitors and docks). Previously, we asset tagged these and assigned them to individuals.  Then we attempted to track them until time for disposal.

When we tried to load into Service Now the business rule grouped our consumables by model. It seems to not want us to track by person.  My question has been why?  There is obviously a business decision for Service Now to be set up to do this by default.

I am trying to figure out what the best practices are for managing consumables. All I keep finding is the how, not the why.

I work for a local government and we are under strict rules for how we need to account for all electronics and dispose properly when the time comes.  If an asset or consumable disappears, we need to complete a police report.

[Aanshul Maru1]

Hello,

As per your query, I can understand that you need to manage the electronic devices and the account related to it so in serviceNow we need to work on the Parent Child relationship concept. Secondly, for the dispose of the electronics can be managed with the Activation and Deactivation date for the electronics gadgets.

I have tried to understand your question and try to provide you with help.

Please mark it helpful if it works for you.

Warm Regards,

Aanshul Maru

[Dinah Young]

We thought about the Parent Child relationship, but that would add a level of complexity that we are not willing to go to.  If we assign a computer, monitor, dock to "Joe", then "Joe" leaves.  The computer may be assigned to "Jane", but she does not want the monitor, so "Bob" takes that.  Then we need to break that parent child relationship and reestablish it.

Our monitors and docks do tend to move around a lot within an agency.  It was a losing battle with our previous home built inventory system.

This is why I am trying to find the business reason behind the way consumables work in Service Now.  We may use that to change our process.

[OlaN]

Hi,

When we implemented ServiceNow we decided to count monitors as assets, and had them populate the alm_hardware table. All our monitors are also marked with asset tags and managed/assigned until disposed.

So the thing I'm wondering, why have you decided to import/create these devices as consumables?
As far as I know, consumables are gadgets that are not tracked individually, only as a quantity/in-stock-value.

[Dinah Young]

The decision to treat them as consumables was made by or contractor based on their knowledge of Service Now.  We were told assets are items that we can track through our CMDB.  Monitors and dock are not trackable electronically.

Monitors and docks seem to grow legs for us and they do not always stay with the person that was originally assigned them.  Because of that, does making them consumables make more sense?  That is why I am looking for the business decisions related to consumables.