Best way to store user info

[Vini]

Ok, with rapid growth in our business, I'm looking into better ways to store our user info such as laptop serial numbers, model names, usernames, phone numbers etc...

How do you folks look after this info?

[ikonia]

if you look on the ITIL based sites, you'll find many recommendations for Configuration managment databases, ranging from things like basic serial number tracking, to model, spec, configuration, owner, serial, OS, patch level, software, software serials, owner/upgrade history, location etc etc.

ITIL standards cover the full range of usability and if you pick a tool thats endosred by the ITIL standards then you may find it easier to get ITIL certification for your business should you ever chose to get it.

[Vini]

Sounds spot on, not 100% what to google for but found http://www.sitehelpdesk.com which looks perfect if a little basic looking.

Could do with finding a few more to compare prices etc



holy grail http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

woo!

[ikonia]

you may want to register here and ask on here, you can even layout your specific requirements of X,Y but not Z on a budget of $X and you'll get some fanstic responses from people who specialise in industry standards for this sort of thing.

http://www.itilcommunity.com/

[peterb]

I have been given a similar task at work al;though more in the asset management field.

Although my first thoughts were some form of database, asset management is such a common requirement so I did a quick google search on asset management and found several packages of varying degrees of comp[lexity/cost.

A lot depends on your actual requirement! Are you planniong a staff directory that aalso includes the assets that that personb holds, and its configuration and other data, or an asset register that focuses on the asset, but also lists the user/custodian and their details?

In fact both views are the same and can eadily be handled by a relational database, which is what most of the commercial packages use.

If your are looking a (say) 50 users, it might be more cost effective to write a simple Access database to hold the data - that is expandable. For a larger organisation, sql server ot MySQL might be more appropriate. In any evrent careful design to ensure that all future requirments can be accomadated is essentila (you might want to record software licenses for all installed software for example) This is why a commercial package might be a better investment, as many of these things will be incorporated.

One other thjing to consider is how to capture the data initially - and then keeping it up to date.

I suppose the bottom line is that much of the task concerns policy and management decisions, and only when those are resolved will the technical solution become clear.

[Vini]

It wont be for rolling out licenses or policies, more asset register with a few parts of an asset inventory. Such as being able to see free hdd space etc...

At the minute we use a spreadsheet to catalogue the info, but its not easy to enter the data and isnt very feasable.


This contains the information we would like to store on users... but the rest of the package seems to let it down.

[peterb]

Unless you are looking at providing a help desk for your users, it might be a bit of overkill. Although asset tracking is essential for help desk, the main use is for tracking faults and their resolution.

I have been looking at DataTrak's asset-fm (www.datatrak.ltd.uk) or Assetware (www.assetware.co.uk) There is a lot of useful genreral stuff on asset management at www.asset-management-software.org

HTH

[Vini]

Cheers, basic fault logging such as the picture above would be handy, but I agree, the majority of info in the menu would be overkill.

[Vini]

This looks like my afternoon play: http://www.spiceworks.com/

[peterb]

That looks interesting - seems to do everything but make the tea! Asset management, discovery and helpdesk!

[Vini]

It's been scanning since about 1pm, not too fast but I presume this is a one off. Looks to do 80% of what we want, hopefully there will be a way to add information such as purchase date/warranty/username etc

[Vini]

I'm not 100% on it yet, but I think by the morning I could be over the moon with this software. Looks dead easy to use and should be sooo helpful! The only downside is that it's not much use for laptops out of the network, however, you can add manual assets so it should be pretty close to what I wanted.