- CONFIGURATION
- USAGE
  - Managing catalogs
  - Adding fields
  - Rights
    - ShowAssetsMenu
    - ShowAsset
    - CreateAsset
    - ModifyAsset
    - ShowCatalog
    - AdminCatalog
    - Typical configuration
  - People and Roles
    - Owner
    - Held By
    - Contact
  - Lifecycle statuses
  - Field organization
    - Groupings
    - Ordering
  - Importing existing data

# CONFIGURATION

See RT_Config.pm for documentation on the available configuration parameters.

# USAGE

Assets start as a small set of fundamental record data upon which you build custom fields (CFs) of any type you like to describe the assets you want to track. By themselves, before you setup any CFs, assets are not very useful.

Just like tickets are assigned to queues, assets are assigned to catalogs. The default catalog is named "General assets", but we suggest you rename it and add additional catalogs to better fit your organization.

You may want to use catalogs to separate assets into departments, general type of asset, hardware vs. software, etc. Catalogs, like queues, are generally easiest to work with when there's more than few but less than many dozen. The catalog of an asset should represent some fundamental quality of it (and many other assets!), that could just as easily be expressed as a custom field, but which is more important than other qualities for categorizing, sorting, and searching.

## Managing catalogs

Catalogs are managed by RT administrators, or anyone with the "AdminCatalog" right. You can find the list of catalogs, create new catalogs, and manage existing ones under the Tools → Configuration → Assets → Catalogs menu.

Currently you need to log out and log back in to see changes to catalogs in any of the catalog selection dropdowns. This doesn't affect the catalog name displayed on individual asset pages.

## Adding fields

You can see the current asset CFs by navigating to Admin → Assets → Custom Fields. From there you can use the "Create" link to create a new asset CF. If you know you want to create a new CF right away, you can do so via Admin → Assets → Custom Fields → Create.

When creating a CF, be sure to select "Assets" in the "Applies To" dropdown. You'll also need to grant rights to the groups and/or roles which need to see the fields, otherwise they'll be hidden. See the following section, Rights.

Similar to ticket CFs, asset custom fields are added globally or to specific catalogs. Only assets within those specific catalogs will have the CFs available. After creating a CF, you'll need to visit the "Applies To" page to add it to the catalogs you want or make it global.

## Rights

There are three rights controlling basic access to assets and two for catalogs. Each right is grantable at the global level or individual catalog level, and grantable to system groups, asset roles, user groups, and individual users (just like ticket and queue rights). Visibility of the Assets menu item itself is also controlled with a right.

### ShowAssetsMenu

Control visibility of the Assets menu in RT.

### ShowAsset

Allows viewing an asset record and its core fields (but not CFs). Without it, no assets can be seen. Similar to ShowTicket.

### CreateAsset

Allows creating assets and filling in the core fields (but not CFs). Without it, no assets can be created. Similar to CreateTicket.

### ModifyAsset

Allows modifying existing assets and their core fields (but not CFs). Without it, basic asset data cannot be modified after creation. Similar to ModifyTicket.

Most of your rights configuration will be on the CFs, and will likely need to be done for each CF. This lets you fine tune which fields are visible to individual groups and/or roles of users. Relevant CF rights are SeeCustomField and ModifyCustomField.

Rights related to assets may also come from the "Lifecycle statuses" configuration and restrict status transitions.

### ShowCatalog

Allows seeing a catalog's name and other details when associated with assets. Without it, users will see "[a hidden catalog]" or a blank space where the catalog name would normally be. Similar to SeeQueue.

### AdminCatalog

Allows creating new catalogs and modifying all aspects of existing catalogs, including changing the CFs associated with the catalog, granting/revoking rights, and adding/removing role members. This right should only be granted to administrators of RT. Similar to AdminQueue.

### Typical configuration

A typical configuration grants the system Privileged group the following: ShowAsset, CreateAsset, ModifyAsset, and ShowCatalog globally, and SeeCustomField and ModifyCustomField globally on all asset CFs.

If you want self service users (Unprivileged) to be able to view the assets they hold, grant the Held By role ShowAsset and ShowCatalog globally and SeeCustomField on the necessary asset CFs.

## People and Roles

Just like tickets, assets have various roles which users and groups may be assigned to. The intended usages of these roles are described below, but you're free to use them for whatever you'd like, of course.

The roles provide ways to keep track of who is involved with each asset, as well as providing a place to grant rights that depend on the user's association with each asset.

In addition to adding people to individual asset roles, you can also add role members at an entire catalog level. These catalog-level roles are useful in cases when you might have an entire catalog of assets for which the same people should be the Contacts, or which are Held By the same group. Unlike tickets where the queue watchers are invisible, catalog role members are visible because assets are generally much longer lived than tickets. When a problem with an asset arises, it's easier to see who to create a ticket for. On individual asset pages, catalog role members are shown with the text "(via this asset's catalog)" following each name.

### Owner

The person responsible for the asset, perhaps the purchaser or manager.

Restricted to a single user. Not available at a catalog level.

### Held By

The person or people who physically possess the asset or are actively using the asset (if it isn't physical). This may be the same as the Contacts or may be different. For example, a computer workstation may be "held by" a university professor, but the contact may be the IT staff member responsible for all assets in the professor's department. This role is most similar to Requestor on tickets, although not equivalent.

May be multiple users and/or groups.

### Contact

The person or people who should be contacted with questions, problems, notifications, etc. about the asset. Contacts share some of the same intended usages of both Requestors and Ccs on tickets.

May be multiple users and/or groups.

## Lifecycle statuses

One of the basic asset fields is "Status". Similar to tickets, the valid statuses and their transitions and actions can be customized via RT's standard Lifecycles configuration (see "Lifecycles" in RT_Config.pm). The default lifecycle is named "assets". You're free to modify it as much as you'd like, or add your own lifecycles. Each catalog may have its own lifecycle.

For the default "assets" configuration, see RT_Config.pm.

## Field organization

### Groupings

You can organize your asset CFs into visual and logical "groupings" as you see fit. These groupings appear as separate boxes on the asset display page and become separate pages for editing (showing up in the per-asset menu).

By default your CFs will appear in a Custom Fields box on the asset display page and will be editable from a box of the same name on the Basics editing page.

Using the `%CustomFieldGroupings` option (documented in RT_Config.pm), you can move individual CFs by name into one of the four built-in groupings (Basics, People, Dates, and Links) or create your own just by naming it. An example, assuming a date CF named "Purchased" and two "enter one value" CFs named "Weight" and "Color":

        # In etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm
        Set(%CustomFieldGroupings,
            'RT::Asset' => {
                'Dates'                 => ['Purchased'],
                'Physical Properties'   => ['Weight', 'Color'],
            },
        );

This configuration snippet will move all three CFs out of the generic Custom Fields box and into the Dates box and a new box titled Physical Properties. The "Purchased" CF will be editable from the Dates page and a new page titled "Physical Properties" will appear in the menu to allow editing of the "Weight" and "Color" CFs.

### Ordering

Within a box, CFs come after any built-in asset fields such as Name, Description, Created, Last Updated, etc. The CFs themselves are ordered according to the sorting seen (and adjustable) on the global Asset Custom Fields page (Tools → Configuration → Global → Custom Fields → Assets) and the individual catalog Custom Fields pages (Tools → Configuration → Assets → Catalogs → (Pick one) → Custom Fields).

Global asset CFs may be intermixed with per-catalog CFs with ordering.

## Importing existing data

Another extension, RT::Extension::Assets::Import::CSV provides tools to import new and update existing assets from a CSV dump. Its configuration lets you map the fields in the CSV to the asset fields you've already created in RT. RT::Extension::Assets::AppleGSX also provides tools for looking up data associated with an Apple product.

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