Create / Modify Asset Category

Modified on Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 12:47 PM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What Does Asset Category Represent?
Hierarchy & Inheritance
Create / Modify Asset Category

What Does Asset Category Represent?

It's a specific tool type, not a specific Brand or Model. Brand / Model is entered as Custom Field Values per Card.

The Asset card and Asset Category card are significantly different.

In addition to its key References, there are various “AM-Related” Objects connected to them such as a special category of Photo/Video Checklists or the many Asset-Related Extended Requisites.

Hierarchy & Inheritance

Declare Parent on Child Card to create Hierarchy.

Complex Family Trees are possible. Best Practices:

Top Level: broadly different Extd. Requisite / Checklist set.
Bottom Level: Specific Types, BUT NOT by Brands / Models.
Middle-Levels: Disambiguation – “Drill” as Parent to “Mag-Drill”.
Allow to select for New Assets: only Lower Levels.

Hierarchies to support Asset Kitting. Tips:

Key Tool / Key Tool Accessory: Mid-Level Branch
Key Tool as Bottom-Level Category
Key Tool Accessory Sub-Categories

Notes about Kitting:

Kits formed on Individual Asset Cards
Kits can be formed among any Assets

Rules of Inheritance — Extended Requisite Set is inherited by all Descendants Extended Requisite assignment for inheritance.

Highlights:

Inherited Extd. Requisites are not shown on the Category card.
Inheritance is cumulative: Grandchild gets Parent Items.
Important Dates are inherited same as Extended Requisites.
Items are not inherited: Checklists, Name Convention, Etc.

Best Practices:

Most Extended Requisites are assigned at Top Level.
Descendant Levels add increasingly specific Extd. Requisites.

Create / Modify Asset Category

Process Overview:

1. Create Asset Category Card – Name Category.

2. Assign Parent Asset Category to Add to Hierarchy.

3. Assign Asset Category Manager:

4. Allow to select for New Assets

IF NOT Allowed to select for New Assets, skip remaining steps.
IF Allowed to Select for New Assets:

5. Enable Special Actions for Cellular ‘Phone-Like’ Devices.

6. Assign Evaluation & Transfer Photo / Video Checklists.

7. Select Extended Requisites to Include on Asset Card.

8. Define Naming Convention with Extd. Requisite Codes.

9. Define Important Dates Events:

Update Extended Requisites in Assets.

Create Asset Category Card – Name Category

To get started creating an Asset Category, take the following steps:

Look for a usable, existing Asset Category before creating New.
Choose where to place Asset Category in Hierarchy.
Create Record to add New Asset Category Card.
Give Asset Category a type-specific Name.

A. Look for a usable, existing Asset Category Before Creating New.

The default FCX Category Library contains many template Categories which may not be in use yet at your company. Check to see if you can use or adapt an existing card before creating a new one.

To do this, we recommend you:

Search whole unfiltered Asset Reference by key-word.
Search Asset Reference via Category Hierarchy.
Check Asset Reference “Others” Category for other Categories. If a Category is not currently in use in any Hierarchy, it may be under the general “Others” Category. In the Hierarchy pane, click this “Others” Category and search the contents for a possible match.

B. Choose where to place Asset Category in Hierarchy.

In general, it is recommended Asset Categories are type specific, but not make/model-specific, as these attributes can be set with Extended Requisites.

“Kittable” Assets are usually organized with the primary (largest/most valuable) Asset under one Category titled like “Tool / Tool Accessories,” with its accessories in their own subcategories under an umbrella Category like “Tool Accessories.”

An example hierarchy is shown below:

C. Create Record to Add New Asset Category Card.

On the Asset Categories Reference ribbon Home tab, in the New group, click “Create Record” to create a new Category.

D. Give Asset Category a Type-Specific Name

It is recommended that this be as specific as possible, but not specific to any particular brand or model.

For example:

Recommended	Not Recommended
“Cable and Antenna/PIM Analyzer”	“Anritsus” – Too specific
“Torque Wrench”	“Wrench” – Too generic

Assign Parent Asset Category to Add to Hierarchy

Asset Category Hierarchies are always defined in the child Categories, not the parents. Thus, each child Category can be assigned one parent, but a parent may have many children. If you assign to a child a parent which is, itself, a child, the child can become a “grandchild.” Complex, multi-level structures are possible.

To assign a parent to an Asset Category, do the following:

On the Asset Category card, Main Content pane, General tab, locate the “Parent Category” Requisite field.
Click the “three-dot” (…) button to open a “Asset Categories – Selection” window.
Select the parent to create the hierarchy.

Assign Asset Category Manager

The Asset Category Manager is an explicit Role that must be defined for each Category. For more information on the purpose of this Role, see here.

To assign a Category Manager:

On the Asset Category card, Main Content pane, General tab, locate the “Category Manager” Requisite field.
Click the “three-dot” (…) button to open an “Employees – Selection” window.
Select the Employee to assign to the Role.

Allow to Select for New Assets

When creating an Asset Category hierarchy, you might create some Categories which should only serve as “containers” for other Categories, and should not have Assets assigned to them directly.

For this reason, you can uncheck the “Allow to select for New Assets” checkbox on the Asset Category card. On the Asset Category card, Main Content pane, General tab, check the box to Allow, uncheck it to Disallow.

Enable Special Actions for Cellular ‘Phone-Like’ Devices

Special functionality is built-in to “Device” type Asset cards which allows FCX to use the device IMEI/Device ID code and phone number to get access to GPS data.

This functionality is used in pre-built “Phones” Asset Categories where the system auto-registers devices on which the FCX Mobile App is installed.

That said, you can use this functionality for “Phone-like” devices which have a sim card and location services, even if they do not use the FCX App.

Registering non-App phones as Assets with this functionality lets you make “single-point” GPS location requests, pull device logs and send direct sms messages to the device.

The primary use case for this functionality for non-App phones is for telecom “Test Phones”: High-value, customized smartphones with hardware and software built-in which are used by technicians to test signal wireless signals on-site. Obviously, it is very useful to be able to pull location/logs for one of these devices if it becomes lost or stolen.

Enable this functionality for Category by selecting “Devices” in this drop-down.

Assign Evaluation & Transfer Photo / Video Checklists

Use Asset-Type Checklists on Asset Category Cards.

Your company may already use Photo / Video Checklists in FCX to take COP photos in the Mobile App which are automatically named and uploaded to the correct place in the system. You can use similar Checklists in FCX Asset Management. Only Asset-Type Photo/Video Checklists can be assigned to an Asset Category card.

Assign Different Checklists to Evaluation and Transfer Checklist Requisites.

IMPORTANT
You CANNOT assign the SAME Checklist to both Checklist Roles for an Asset Category!
Photos taken with these Checklists will be visible in the same list, so it is important they be named and classified to distinguish them from one-another.

The assigned Evaluation Checklist will let someone with access to the App Warehouse menu take Evaluation photos of an Asset under this Category.

The assigned Transfer Checklist will let a Holder take Transfer photos while transferring an Asset under this Category.

For information on building and using Asset Checklists, see: Asset Photo / Video Checklists.

Select Extended Requisites to Include on Asset Card

Extended Requisites are custom fields users can create and add to tables on specific cards in FCX.

Extended Requisites are very important to Asset Categories and their Assets for 2 reasons:

You can use them to capture different data for different types of equipment.
You can ‘code’ a Category Naming Convention to create an Asset name from its Extended Requisite Values.

For more information on the use of Extended Requisites in AM, see: Extended Requisites: Custom Fields Define Categories.

You can add any combination of Extended Requisites to an Asset Category card to make those fields available on Asset cards created under that Category.

IMPORTANT
In Asset Category Hierarchies, Extended Requisites are inherited!

This means, when you are looking at a child Category card, its Assets will get Extended Requisites you don’t see on this card, because they are coming from the parent Category!

To add Extended Requisites to an Asset Category:

On the Asset Category card, Main Content pane, General tab, locate the “Extended requisite” table at the bottom of the card. Click-into the empty table near its top and you will see a table-row appear.
Click the “three-dot” (…) button at the right of the field to open “Extended Requisites – Selection” in a new window.
Select an Extended Requisite to add it to the Category.
Add additional rows and Extended Requisites to the table in 2 ways:
- Click the small cursor icon to the left of the row to open a little drop-down menu and select “Add”
- Click-into the current row field and press the down-arrow button on your keyboard

Define Naming Convention with Extd. Requisite Codes

Adding Extended Requisites to an Asset Category adds custom, named fields available on Asset cards in that Category. This lets you collect attribute values that help define the Asset.

For example, a 2013 Ford F-150 Pickup Truck is defined by:

Year: 2013
Make: Ford
Model: F-150

When you configure Extended Requisites for an Asset Category, you ask the person registering the Asset to enter the Year, Make and Model to define the Asset.

You can auto-generate an Asset Name built from the values entered in the custom fields. You do this with a few simple codes that tell FCX to pull whatever is entered in the “Year,” “Make,” and “Model” fields into your name.

Don’t panic! This isn’t code like programming.

There’s actually only 2 codes you need: [Ex.“RequisiteCardAbbrv.”] & [Leading reference].

1. [Leading reference] is easy to use:

You type it in verbatim: “[Leading reference]”
The brackets, space and capitalization should be exact.
This code takes the name of the Asset’s Category and puts it in its name.
Assets under Category “Pickup Truck” get named like “2013 Ford F-150 Pickup Truck”.

2. [Ex.“RequisiteCardAbbrv.”] is a little more complicated than [Leading reference].

These are its parts:

[Ex.
1. Type in verbatim, Including bracket, capitalization and the period.
2. Do not add space between this and the next part of the code.
“RequisiteCardAbbrv.”
1. Type in verbatim whatever is in the “Abbrv.” field on the Extended Requisite’s Reference Record card.
2. Copy capitalization, spacing and special characters exactly.
3. Leave out the quotation marks.
] (put a bracket after the Abbrv. with no spaces)
1. Get Requisite’s Card Abbrv. Via Ctrl-F4.

To get the Requisite’s Card Abbrv., you need to open the card of the Extended Requisite whose value you want to pull into your name.

To do this:

On an Asset Category card, locate the desired Extended Requisite in the Extended Requisite table at the bottom of the card. Click-Into the Extended Requisite name and press “Ctrl-F4” on your keyboard.
On the Extended Requisite card, Main Content pane, copy the contents of the “Abbrv.” field to the lower-right.

If the Extended Requisite is not on this Category card, but is on a Parent Category, you have to go to the Parent Category to get the Abbrv.. To do this:

Click-into the Parent Category Requisite beneath the “Name” field.
Press “Ctrl-F4” on your keyboard.
The Parent Category opens in a new window.

Example Asset Naming Convention Output

To formulate your Asset Naming Convention:

Call each desired Requisite with a [Ex.”RequisiteCardAbbrv.]
Type-in any static text you want to include in the Name.
Add [Leading reference] at the end to include the Category name in the Name.

Here are examples of the code and output:

Note
Naming Convention is NOT Inherited.

Update Extended Requisites in Assets

This final step ONLY applies if you are updating an Asset Category and want to apply changes to pre-existing Assets under this Category. To apply these changes, simply click “Update Extended Requisites in Assets” in the “Extended Requisites” group of the Ribbon Home tab.

Define Important Dates Events

In addition to Extended Requisites, there is another kind of custom field you can define on an Asset Category card: “Important Dates.”

Important Dates are the same as Extended Requisites in that they are rows added to a Table, customizable, but have limited functionality since they are not programmed Requisites. Important Dates are different from Extended Requisites in that they do not reside in a separate Reference as their own cards: They are defined solely on the Asset Category card to whose Assets they apply.

Setup Important Dates on an Asset Category card to add a table containing those events, and open fields for dates, to Asset cards under that Category.

3 Dates can be entered on the Asset card, and updated any time: Last, Next, and Expired.

Values entered into the Important Dates table can trigger Notification Events. Notification Events, and their subscribers, can be configured in a separate part of the system. Contact FCX Support or your Implementation Manager to set up a notification event for you: who should be notified and by what channel (job, email, etc.).

Important Dates for Asset Category

To setup Important Dates for an Asset Category, do the following:

On the Asset Category card, Main Content pane, Events tab, click-into the empty table near its top and you will see a table-row appear.
Type-in any Important Date name you want.
To add more Dates, either:
- Click the Asterisk (*) icon to the right of the row and, in the small drop-down, select “Add.”
- Click-Into the field of the current last row and press the down arrow key on your keyboard.

Important Dates Events are populated on the Asset card:

When an asset is created.
Each time the category on the Asset Card is updated.

IMPORTANT
In Asset Category Hierarchies, Important Dates are inherited! This means, when you are looking at a child Category card, its Assets will get Important Dates you don’t see on this card, because they are coming from the parent Category!