How Many? Let me ask a simple question: How many PC's do you have? 9 out of 10 businesses cannot answer this question. The basic reason is that PC's are so cheap, that they are not really considered as a major asset like the fleet of fork lift trucks or the company cars. But just add up the value of all your PC's by multiply the number of employees by £1000. Frightening, isn't it? Tracking your assets isn't really that hard, but once your tracking system is set up, you have to make sure it is kept up to date. Oops, There Goes Another One! Once you buy a PC, what happens to it? Does it go to the user, or does it languish around at the back of a storeroom for a while to be discovered at some later date during a clear out? Or, even more sinister, does it arrive in the support office, and then end up in the back of someone's car? Large organisations do struggle with tracking large numbers of PC's and yes, things do go missing. I have had a manager complain of reduced performance 24 hours after a memory upgrade and upon investigation it was found that not only had the new RAM gone missing, but some additional RAM had gone as well? Lock 'Em Up If you look at the back of many tier one manufacturer (HP, Compaq, etc), you will find a lock. This lock will prevent unauthorised access by locking the removable part of the cabinet to the main chassis. If any tampering goes on with this lock, then the motherboard will detect this and can report it to a central server to alert the security department. Unfortunately I don't believe you can prevent theft of keyboards or mice. If it Don't Move, it Wont Go. Ok. So you have a lot of laptops and you want to make sure they stay put. I have found that the best way to use a laptop at its usual location is by utilising a docking station. These systems allow the permanent connection of screen, keyboard, and mouse. You then slide the laptop into the front of it and hey-presto, you have an instant desktop PC. The docking station will also lock the laptop into place making it difficult to remove quickly. However, it is still possible to pick it up and walk away with it. I have used Kensington security devices and I believe they have become an industry standard for laptops and PCs. Look at the side of your laptop and you will see a small oval hole with a lock symbol along side it. This hole is to accept the Kensington lock. The lock fits into the hole and is locked into place using a barrel key. The lock has a nigh-tensile steel cable running through it that has a large loop in the other end. The trick is to loop the cable round a table leg and then lock the laptop to it. Try getting that laptop off. You can, but you will end up smashing the cabinet of the laptop! You can also obtain an extension that locks into a similar receptacle on the docking station. Security The best way to stop hardware going missing is to set up a security department. If you feel that your company does not warrant a full department, then appoint someone to cover the subject, but make sure they can stand up to the hardest employee. The first area to cover is to ensure every PC that comes in MUST be recorded in some sort of system. If it is a manual system, then use a bound book. Loose leaf is not a good idea as pages can be removed or altered. A better way would be to record them in a database and put it on one of your file servers so that the people, who need access to it, can. All items associated with the PC, such as the monitor, keyboard, and mouse should also be recorded. To fully record the system, you will have to record: - Make - Model - Serial number - Type (Monitor, PC, etc) - Description - Date of purchase - Purchase order number I Am Not A Number! Secondly, there has to be a way of identifying all parts of each system. As PC systems can be made up of items from different manufacturers, there could be the chance that serial numbers could be the same. Bearing this in mind, you cannot use the serial number as a method of tracking. The only way of uniquely numbering each part of the system is to use self-adhesive labels with a unique, sequential number. Seton Labels do such a labelling system that can have your company logo, barcodes, and different colours printed onto an aluminium foil label. These labels are tamperproof and are destroyed if any attempt is made to remove them. It is up to you what parts of the system you want to track. Usually only the monitor and system unit are labelled, as the keyboard and mouse are considered as disposables. You should then record this number (called the asset number) against the security details as a unique identifier for the unit. Bundle it up Each PC is made up of several items: System unit, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and printer. It could also have a scanner, modem, and some other peripherals. Mostly these parts will stay together as a complete entity, so another trick is to make the system unit asset number the main identifier, and link all the other asset numbers to it. This way, you can move the complete unit by altering a single asset number. You can then add software and other internal parts to the system to keep track of the configuration of the system. Location, Location, Location You have set up your asset recording system and now you know how many PC's and of what type you have. But you still don't know where the kit is. Here's the trick: Get the label manufacturer to print up some more labels, but this time have a different prefix to the number. One suggestion (and I have used this in the past) is to use 'LOC' (short for LOCation), then get someone to run around the building sticking them onto desks, and onto storage shelves. Now, you can record the location of any piece of hardware. Mobile systems such as palm tops, laptops, and mobile phones could use the users name as the location as it is unusual for a user to have a laptop to simply remove it from its docking station and put it in a draw. You should also draw up some reasonably accurate plans of the building detailing all the offices, and showing the locations of all the desks and possible storage locations. Tracking You now have the list of PC's, the facility to find any location in the building. You now have the most mind numbingly boring tasks in the world (apart from the workman I witnessed cleaning traffic cones with a sponge and bucket in the pouring rain on a 5 mile stretch of road works). If you have used the barcode labels for the asset numbers, you can use a simple barcode reader to record the relevant details. The only other way is to take your bound book around and enter the location details into it. If any items should move or be sold, make sure the book or database is updated. Make sure that the security department is kept informed of hardware movement, maybe make them responsible for the tacking information. Updates If any system is altered, then update the asset system. The asset system will be an administrative overhead, and there will be many arguments that people will say that they do not have the time to keep the system up to date. This is such a limp excuse. They don't forget to complete their expense forms or holiday requests. The secret is to make the system as accessible and as easy to use as possible. If you use an Access database, then you could always add a simple web front end. And Finally.... The main trick is to keep your records up to date. At first, it will seem laborious and time consuming. But when it takes a few seconds for you to answer the question we started with, which is how many PC's do you have, it makes all the effort well worth it.

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