IT Asset Management Best Practices

How are you managing your IT assets today? Are you using spreadsheets? Passwords on Post-It notes? Do you just sort of keep it all in your head? There’s a better way. Let’s talk about how to manage IT assets like the pros.

Centralization

This seems simple enough – keep everything you know in one place. But of course, when you first start a business, even if you’re diligent about documentation, different things might be documented in different places. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that in the short run but in the long run it’s going to be a challenge to remember which information is kept where. And storing key IT asset information across multiple systems isn’t even remotely scalable. Best to build out a centralized location early on, so that your asset management system can grow with you.

Structured

There’s more to IT asset management than just writing stuff down. That sort of flat documentation doesn’t really add a ton of value. Structured documentation does, because it enables you to link things together in meaningful ways. So you know which user has which hardware, which software and which passwords. Flat documentation can tell you that your client has ten computers. Structured documentation tells you which user has which computer, what that computer is connected to, and what they use it for. Being able to flow seamlessly through different asset types allows you to get actual value from the documentation you’re using.

Automated

Writing things down manually takes time, and it’s not a particularly good use of your time if you don’t have to do it. Automate as much as you can so you’re not just documenting your IT assets, but actively managing them. Automated documentation remains up to date with little work on your part, which means you can spend more time managing assets instead of just writing stuff down.

Proactive

This is the management part of IT asset management. When you know when warranties are up, when things need to be replaced, where the security risks are, you’re in a better position to proactively manage your assets. If you’re dealing with budgets that need to be approved ahead of time, having a sense today of what will need to be done tomorrow makes a difference – you get the budget you need ahead of time.

How IT Glue Helps

IT Glue is the gold standard of documentation systems, precisely because it makes IT asset management easy. IT Glue provides a centralized, structured documentation system with a high level of automation. Use IT Glue to proactively manage your IT.

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