Assigning Assets to Supplier and Contracts

[LouiseT]

Is there a way to bulk assign assets to a Supplier and Contract?

Currently it seems as though I need to assign each individual asset to the Supplier and then go in to the contract and link them.   There doesn't seem to be any way to see if an asset is already linked from the asset list, either.

Have I missed something?   If not, is there any way this process can be improved - it's not really practical when we get into larger numbers of assets.

[AlexTumber]

@LouiseT thanks for your post.

This is an area we are actively looking to improve. Hopefully some of these improvements will make their way into the Supplier Manager application soon.

 

Alex

[SamS]

Hi @LouiseT,

As it happens there is currently an undocumented (read: unTESTED) feature within the DB Asset Import tool (it's been in there since v1.16.0) which allows one to connect the imported asset to a Supplier and/or a contract. It would be setting field names for "DBSupplierColumn" and "DBContractColumn" (respectively) within the "AssetIdentifier"-section - configured in the same way that "DBColumn" is defined.

In a couple of weeks it will likely be tested (possibly tweaked) and documented and officially "released". Please look out for the next version (i.e. later than v2.0.0).

Although if it works for you in v2.0.0, then please let me know - I can skip a step in testing;-)

[Mhari Lindsay]

Hi there, I was wondering the same to be honest. I am not sure how the above tool works but can pass details over to our operation teams on this.

However, I was wondering if this will ever be an easier process to link assets to a supplier. We want to be able to look at suppliers and see how many cases are sitting when them and for how long, so we can manage timescales etc. Right now we are not able to use this feature due to the complexity of linking the assets to supplier and contract so we can use this is a case.  Although we feel supplier is good, there is just a missing piece in there to allow cases to link to assets and suppliers easily. Is it essential that assets need to link to a supplier and a contract to allow this to be seen within a case?

[Michael Sharp]

This is something that irks us also.  Would be good if you could assign an asset to a contract and if needs be, this is automatically linked to the overarching supplier record (ideally not and is divorced from this requirement)

[Mhari Lindsay]

On 7/28/2021 at 3:40 PM, SamS said:

Hi @LouiseT,

As it happens there is currently an undocumented (read: unTESTED) feature within the DB Asset Import tool (it's been in there since v1.16.0) which allows one to connect the imported asset to a Supplier and/or a contract. It would be setting field names for "DBSupplierColumn" and "DBContractColumn" (respectively) within the "AssetIdentifier"-section - configured in the same way that "DBColumn" is defined.

In a couple of weeks it will likely be tested (possibly tweaked) and documented and officially "released". Please look out for the next version (i.e. later than v2.0.0).

Although if it works for you in v2.0.0, then please let me know - I can skip a step in testing;-)

Do you know if this has happened yet?

[SamS]

@Mhari Lindsay yes it has: https://wiki.hornbill.com/index.php?title=Asset_Data_Import_Tool

 

[Mhari Lindsay]

Is there any step by step instructions on this for multiple suppliers?

[SamS]

@Mhari Lindsay,

Do you mean multiple suppliers for a single Asset? That is not possible.

Sending various assets to their diverse suppliers? then just ensure the data source column (for the individual assets) contains the correct Supplier ID.