Tracking Assets with Inventory

Inventory tracks the equipment your company owns — where each item is, who has it, and what has happened to it. You can work from your desk or scan the QR label on the item itself. This article covers finding items, moving them through their statuses, and using labels in the field.

Before you begin

An administrator first has to enable Inventory from the App Store and grant your group access, and then you may need to sign out and back in for it to take effect. Individual inventory lists can also be restricted, so you may see some and not others. See Getting Access to Apps and Extensions.

Finding Your Way Around

Open Inventory from the app launcher. Two pages are yours:

• Dashboard — the state of everything you can see
• Inventory — the searchable list of items

Administrators also see Admin, covered in Administering Inventory.

The Dashboard

Inventory Dashboard opens on six counts — Total Active, Available, Checked Out, In Transit, At Calibration and Under Repair — followed by three things that need attention:

• Overdue Checkouts — items out longer than expected
• Delayed Shipments — items in transit too long
• Upcoming Expirations — dates coming up, such as calibration or registration

Below those, By Inventory List Type and By Office break the totals down, and Recently Updated lists the latest changes. Narrow the whole page with the list-type filter, or select View All Inventory to jump to the list.

Finding an Item

Inventory lists everything you can see, with Asset #, Name, Type, Status, Office, Assigned To and a QR column.

Filter by Type, Office or Status — those apply as soon as you choose them. The Search box, which matches on “Name, asset #, serial…”, does not: press Enter or select Search to apply it. With nothing matching, the list reads “No items found”.

Adding an Item

1. Select New Item.
2. Choose the Inventory List Type — this decides which fields the item has.
3. Enter the Item Name and choose an Office.
4. Optional: set Assigned To, fill in the type’s own fields, and add Notes.
5. Select Create Item.

The asset number is generated for you from the list’s prefix — a list with the prefix VAN produces VAN-000001. That number is what the QR label encodes.

No New Item button?

It appears only if you can manage at least one list. If you have view access but not manage access, you can browse and open items but not create or change them.

Item Details

Select a row to open the item. Details shows Asset Information — the asset number, name, type, status, office, who it is assigned to, its location and notes — plus whatever fields its list type defines. A checked-out item also shows who has it and when it is due back; an item in transit shows where it is going, the carrier and the tracking number.

QR opens the item’s label, and Edit changes its details.

Moving an Item Through Its Statuses

Actions offers only what makes sense for the item’s current status. These are the actions available out of the box:

Action	Available when the item is	What it does
Check Out	Available	Assigns it to someone and sets an expected return date.
Check In	Checked Out, Lost	Clears the assignment and returns it to Available.
Ship to Office	Available, Checked Out	Needs a destination office, carrier and tracking number.
Receive at This Office	In Transit	Ends the shipment and re-homes the item.
Send to Calibration	Available	Optionally records when calibration is next due.
Return from Calibration	At Calibration	Returns it to Available.
Mark Under Repair	Available	Takes it out of service.
Return from Repair	Under Repair	Returns it to Available.
Retire Item	Under Repair	Removes it from active inventory.

Every action asks for confirmation and takes optional notes. Statuses are Available, Checked Out, In Transit, At Calibration, Under Repair, Retired and Lost.

Retire Item is permanent, and it is deliberately hard to reach

The confirmation says “This will permanently retire the item and remove it from active inventory.” Out of the box it appears only on an item that is Under Repair — so retiring something in service means marking it under repair first. That is intentional, not a fault.

Maintenance and Mileage

Lists set up for it — vehicles, typically — gain a Maintenance tab showing Current Mileage, Last Service and Next Service Due.

• Log Mileage records an odometer reading.
• Log Service records work done — the service type, the vendor, the cost, and when the next one falls due.

Everything logged appears under Service & Mileage History. If a vehicle has no Maintenance tab, its list type does not have maintenance tracking switched on; an administrator can enable it.

History

History is the item’s full timeline — created, updated, checked out, checked in, shipped, received, sent for calibration or repair and returned, retired — each with who did it and when. Nothing is removed from it.

Scanning a QR Label in the Field

This is the fastest way to work with an item you are standing next to.

Printing the label

1. Open the item and select QR.
2. Select Print Label.
3. Attach it to the item.

The panel says it plainly: “Print this label and attach it to the item — scanning it opens the check-in / check-out actions.”

What you can do from a scan

Scan the label with a phone camera. The page shows the item — its office, who has it, where it is, and any shipment — then asks “What are you doing with this item?” with a button for each action valid right now.

1. Tap the action you want.
2. Confirm, or fill in what it asks for.
3. The page reports “Done!” and offers Scan Another.

Viewing an item this way does not require signing in; performing an action does. An unrecognised label shows Not Found.

Shipping and receiving from a phone ask you to type the office name

Unlike the desktop form, which offers a list, the scan page takes free text and does not check it against your offices. A typo will not match, so type the office name exactly as it appears in Inventory.

Troubleshooting

I can’t see a list my colleague can

Solutions:

• Lists can be restricted to particular groups. An unrestricted list is visible to everyone; once any group is assigned, only its members and administrators see it.
• Ask an administrator to add you to the group for that list.

The action I want isn’t there

Solutions: there are three separate reasons, so check in order.

1. The action does not apply to the item’s current status — Check Out only appears on an available item, and Retire Item only on one under repair.
2. You have view access to that list but not manage access, so no actions appear at all.
3. An administrator has not enabled that action for the list type. Actions are switched on per list.

There are no actions on any item

Solutions:

• On a newly set-up Inventory, the scan actions have not been loaded yet. An administrator needs to do that once — see Administering Inventory.

A scan says Not Found

Solutions:

• The label is for an item that no longer exists, or the code did not read cleanly. Try again in better light.
• Search the asset number in Inventory to confirm the item is still there.

Check Out says the item must be available

Solutions:

• Someone else already has it. Check the Assigned To column, or the item’s History to see who took it and when.
• Check it in first if it has been returned in reality but not in Inventory.

The page says a newer version is available

Solutions:

• Select Refresh. Phones hold on to an old copy of the page, and the scan page sometimes reloads itself once to clear it.

A vehicle has no Maintenance tab

Solutions:

• Maintenance tracking is switched on per list type, not per item. Ask an administrator to enable it for that list.

Related Articles

• Administering Inventory — Setting up lists, scan actions, statuses, offices and reminders
• Getting Access to Apps and Extensions — Start here if Inventory is missing or a list is not visible