Asset Tiger 4. Testing features Reports, Localisation/Date/Time Format and Site/Location , Audit, Geo-location & Map

Reports

Standard reports

The out of the box (OOTB) Asset Report is pretty standard, not too many field, as in, none of the custom fields that you have added come through.

You have 2 options, the Asset by ID Tag  or Asset by Tag with Pictures. (screenshots 1 & 2 below). Both show you all the assets. There is no filtering in  the standard report setup. You have to go for custom reports to get more granularity.

The Asset by ID Tag option allows you to export to “Print” , “PDF”, “Excel” or “CSV”, whereas the Asset by Tag with Pictures only allows you to export to “Print” or “PDF”. So the more flexible option is the former.

You can alter the OOTB format by clicking on the setup button in the top right corner, also you can get reports sent out automatically with the Automated Report button also in the top right corner.

The setup configuration allows you to add all your custom fields.

At the bottom you can also order the column headers by dragging them laterally to where you want the columns to be placed in your preferred order. Then save the setup.

When saving the setup it asks you if this is for your specific profile or one for everyone. These should be standard reports, as you can make custom reports for yourself with the Custom Reports Tab on the sidebar.

The automated report button allows you to setup when to send the report and whom to.

I’m not sure if you could do it anonymously to a colleague’s personal  email for 5am on sunday morning (most probably has a sent from email address- Actually, I just tested this and it is sent from the Cloud, so anonymously).

   There seem to be quite a few standard reports that cover:

• Maintenance
• Audits
• To be repaired
• Broken
• Contracts (see below)
• Personnel
• By Location (Site/Location/Department)
• Checked In/Checked Out
• By Warrenties

Also in different orders, eg by Tag ID or by Date or some other ordering.

Interesting in that there is NO INSURANCE REPORT. I cannot see how you can set it up in the custom report (that seems to be all about filtering assets).

Custom Reports

The custom reports allows you to define your own search criteria over specific assets and also allows you to choose which fields to display in the report. It has quite extensive filtering options to allow you to get a specific overview on your assets. You can then save the report, either for yourself or for everyone. You can also delete reports or  automate sending them by email (see 4th screenshot below).

Localisation/Date Time Format

I was testing the Automated Report option but had not received anything. I also noted that the date format was in US (M/D/Y) format rather than D/M/Y. So I wanted to reset these to reflect location and date format.

Adding Site & Location

After looking at the Audit Video (bottom right video (the last one)) I realised that instead of linking I could filter by Site/Location.

So I re-ran the Knime process on the original Excel Sheet to alter the Location to be checking on “Category” type:

=IF(BX14=”Ground”, BX14, IF(BX14=”Block”, R14&”-“&S14, IF(BX14=”Unit”, R14&”-“&S14&”-“&T14, R14&”-“&S14&”-“&T14)))

If ground, call it Ground, if block, give it the Block code, if unit or room give it the Unit code.  This then grouped all the assets to a Unit level, which is useful for the reports. Also useful for doing Audits as you would only go to Unit level for audit purposes.

I ran a trial audit output based on selecting a unit and it worked fine. This adds to the flexibility of filtering the assets quickly.

Although this extra dimension is good for the Desktop, you cannot access it from the Mobile Device which is a shame.

Audit & Geo-location

I want to give items a geo-location and possibly at Location level but cannot find anything for this. I have decided to Test at block level and have created 3 new custom fields for Blocks only, they are Latitude, Longitude & GPS Coordinates. There is a Data type “GPS Coordinates” and I am not sure if this is both lat/long together or each separately.

I did recollect seeing something about Geo-location and went back to the audit video.

For the coordinates of location I went to Google Maps and filled them in.

The button on the mobile device did not give the Geo-location. Actually, thinking about it, I do not think I had “LOCATION” ON on my phone. Just checked, even with location ON on the phone it still does not work.

In the Report for Audit you can go into setup and select Map. This will show the coordinates.

Actually, all of the coordinates are for New York, all apart from the one I updated Manually.   They only show up in the Audit Report which you can export, not import. So the only thing I can think of is to export to Excel, match 2 files together (using Knime) and copy these coordinates across to the custom fields in Categories (see above). It all seems a bit arduous. There are coordinates, why not make them accessible. Having them in an obscure place like AUDIT seems a bit daft. You can actually see the coordinates for an asset, you have to pick a specific asset and drill down to the Audit Tab to see the coordinates. Not easy to use.

End thoughts

The reporting tool is pretty impressive and the Automated Report process is particularly nice as you can filter it to keep you and your team updated with the current status of multiple issues over your assets.

The audit tool is good as you can keep on top of checking your assets to make sure their condition and placement (for movable items).

I still need to think of the best method of structuring the data to get the best leverage from the tool.

Under locations there is a note:

You may also add Locations. Locations are a subset of Sites. For example, the Site may be a building or address. The Location may be a specific room, office or floor within the Site. Select a Site and add your list of Locations here.

So maybe multiple sites, focusing on Grounds & Separate Blocks and also for large Estates separate levels can be classified as Sites, then Locations can be units. I will need to think on this a bit more.

One thing I tried to do with linking was to create a custom field called “RELATION” and populate it with “Parent” and  “Child” properties, as I saw this was how the Linking was described in, I think, a report. Unfortunately, this did not work. So I do not think making a custom field called Map will make the coordinates accessible either at the “List of Assets” level either .It is a shame that there is a lot of useful data in the programme that you can only access by some rather tortuous methods. They should be made more accessible in my opinion via the setup page. This just means a few more tick boxes. The data is in there.