What is the most efficient way to use Jira Assets as an equipment inventory

[David Audet]

I am trying to create the structure for our equipment inventory in Jira Assets. So far, we created a "Make", a "Model" and an "Equipment" object types and we gave Equipments an attribute for Make and an attribute for Model. This way, we can tell the make and model of any equipement and everything is available in the Equipment view/list. 

That said, I think it would make more sense if Model had an attribute for it's Make and Equipment only had an attribute for Model. That way, we wouldn't have to set a Make attribute for multiple equipements of the same model. The problem with this solution is that the Make isn't shown when consulting the Equipment unless we look at the object graph and set the depth to 2. It was much easier when all the information was available in the same screen.

A third solution we tried was to give Model an attribute for Make while ALSO giving Equipment an attribute for Model and Make. That way, the information was available in the Equipment screen AND there would be a link between Make and Model. Now the issue with this is that there is two Make attributes to set (one for Model and one for Equipment) and they could be set differently by mistake. Using this solution, I tried to limit or at least filter the Make and Model fields of the Equipment objects so that when a Model is selected, only the linked Make is available and vice-versa. The closest I have gotten is by filtering the attributes using a AQL like this : "object having outboundReferences(Name=${Make})". It seems to do what I want it to but I get an error when selecting a object (Object: INV-XXXX is invalid due to restrictions) and if both fields are empty, there aren't any options to chose from since the filter doesn't find any objects that match.

Do you have any suggestions that could help make this more efficient?

[arielei]

Hello @David Audet 
The correct syntax for the filter should be
"object having inboundReferences(Name=${Model})"

This means that when you set the "Make" attribute in the Equipment Scheme to use the Make object - it wont have an outbound, but it will have an inbound since you are looking at the Make object which points back to the Model object.

I tested it, when creating an Equipment object and setting the Model, then when pressing the Make will show only 1 value matching the model.

Hope that helps,
If so, please accept the answer.

Best Regards,

Ariel.

[arielei]

Hey @David Audet , can you please share some images on how you built it? or a design map?

[David Audet]

Here are a few screenshots and a diagram of what currently seems like the best solution. The object types are in French in the screenshots. Just know that "Nom"="Name", "Fabricant"="Make" and "Modèle"="Model".

The issue with this setup is that there are two "Make" attributes. One for the Equipment and one for the Model and they can be different. I need to find a way to make sure that the attribute "Make" of an Equipment always corresponds to the attribute "Make" of the Model chosen for the equipment.

[arielei]

Hello @David Audet 
The correct syntax for the filter should be
"object having inboundReferences(Name=${Model})"

This means that when you set the "Make" attribute in the Equipment Scheme to use the Make object - it wont have an outbound, but it will have an inbound since you are looking at the Make object which points back to the Model object.

I tested it, when creating an Equipment object and setting the Model, then when pressing the Make will show only 1 value matching the model.

Hope that helps,
If so, please accept the answer.

Best Regards,

Ariel.

[David Audet]

Hello @arielei

I confirm that it works! I think it would be even better if the filter worked both ways but if you apply this filter to both, it doesn't work. When either the Model or the Make attribute is empty, no options are available. I tried to make it work by adding a check to see if the other attribute is empty but it's not working : 
${Model} is not EMPTY AND object having inboundReferences(Name=${Model})

Is there another way to make it work?

Thank you very much for your help!

[arielei]

hey @David Audet ,

I really dont understand why you want it to be like that, its not logical to me.

you have a parent -> child between the model and make so its only logical that first you need to choose the model and then it will fetch you the make.

why do you need it bi-directional?

[David Audet]

Hi @arielei

I'm sorry, it's a little hard to explain.

Lets say there are two Make objects : Dell and HP

And there are two Model objects : Dell Laptop, HP Printer

In our system, Make and Model objects will all be created beforehand and will be available to select when creating an Equipment object.

When creating a new Equipment object, if you select "Dell" as the Make first, it is logical that only Laptop would be available to select in the model attribute of the equipment. The same is true if you select Laptop as the model first. Only Dell should be available to select in the make attribute of the equipment.  

It is an ease of use feature that could prevent mistakes from ou agents when adding new Equipment objects to our inventory.

[arielei]

Hey @David Audet 
Thanks for explaining, i understand what you are trying to achieve.

However, you need to understand that the filter in the attribute is there to reduce the results you can see and there is no way to do a bi-directional.

However, you might be able to do a selector of all Make and Model in one field, and then set the next field with the appropriate value,
is that something that could help you?

see image.

 

[David Audet]

Hey @arielei

Yes that does look interesting! How can you select different object types in the same attribute? How would you filter the next field to automatically set the right value?

Thanks

[arielei]

Hey  @David Audet 
If you have a parent -> child objects then you can create an attribute for the parent object and in the "Attribute Settings" -> General - Include Children

There isnt a way to do that, so my advise is:

Tell agents to fill ONLY one param for their choosing - Model or Make - and then write an automation that will populate the correct value to the other attribute.

For that, you will need to have some naming convention on how to create Make or Mode to base the automation on it.