Get Asset Information

[CraigP]

I was quite excited to finally see a Get Asset Information node for the BPM, so thank you for adding it. However I see it only searches by Asset ID so I'm curious what the intent is for how to best use it? Seems unlikely that one would know the asset ID without searching for the asset by it's name/tag in the first place. Using it to retrieve linked asset information seems difficult unless you can guarantee the Get Linked Assets is only returning one asset ID.

My main use case for this was to check that the Asset Name/Tag provided by our analysts when issuing a device was correct before automating assignment etc, but they will only know the asset name/tag, they wouldn't know what ID the asset was assigned in Hornbill.

The above would however be more elegantly solved by having a "Hornbill Asset Picker" option in task Capture Fields (like the existing group and user pickers), is this something we can expect down the road please?

One assumes the reason for not being able to search on Name/Tag for Get Asset Information is because the node won't know what to do if multiple objects are returned, and thus it is not likely this will be an option?

[Jim]

I've not played with this yet but the same as you was excited to read about it, if it is only working on Asset ID then I agree this is a shame considering the 'Get linked Assets' does not return the ID for us to use in our processes, I feel it may be useful in auto tasks definitely but a massive oversight, we need something that either helps us to get the ID first or a different way of searching assets

[Steve Giller]

2 minutes ago, Jim said:

the 'Get linked Assets' does not return the ID for us to use in our processes

That would be impossible, as you can have any number of assets linked to a Request so you cannot return "an ID".
 

[James Ainsworth]

@CraigP @Jim

The focus of this feature is not for requests, but rather for assets. From the Automation details, you will see that the Entity is for Assets and not Requests.  The main goal for this is to extend the ability to create Custom Buttons on an asset that runs an Auto Task.

When this automation is used with an asset entity, the Asset ID in the automation can be populated automatically, like the Request ID on a request automation.  There are some existing automations for updating assets, but I'm sure we will see additional automations specific to the asset entity added over time.

 

As far as requests go, in the Asset section of the request, we are looking into having custom buttons for each asset available.   This would allow someone to run an Auto Task against an asset from this view.  At the moment, the user will need to click on the asset name to view the asset record and run the Auto Task from there.  You can imagine being able to do things like include an integration node in the Auto Task that goes off and does a hardware/software scan of that asset.  

 

I hope that helps.

 

[Jim]

Hi @James Ainsworth absolutely! I currently use a few custom buttons making api calls to do these updates as there isn't actually a node to update asset yet (or I am really missing something?) but this node helps me query something such as a state for an asset and make a button flip that state rather than just one use which is very useful, I would definitely like to see more of these nodes that are dedicated to assets in the near future

[James Ainsworth]

Jim,

You are correct.  There are asset updates available for assets associated with a request, but these are not yet available to be run from an individual asset.  The first step was to have the Get Asset Information so that this could feed into integrations.  I'm sure that there will be more to come.