[rt-devel] Asset Tracking within RT?

[Tobias Brox]

> I am currently using RT 1.0.1 in a mid-sized (125 user) fast growing
> business environment.  RT has done well for the trouble-ticket facet of my
> workspace, but where it is really lacking (especially when one considers
> commercial products) is an integration of asset management tools.

Hm, my English comes a bit short here.  An asset, what is it?  I have a
feeling that you're thinking of values the companies owns, such as all
kind of equipment, bank accounts, loans, cars, software licenses, food 
in the fridge, +++?

There is some tools I've always wanted for personal usage as much as
anything else; a good asset management, a good tool for tracking
requests as well as private mail, a good tool for keeping a
calendar/diary, and  a good tool for tracking worktasks, and all this
perfectly integrated.  Every item I have should have a built in GPS and a
wireless communication to the database.  There should be a bar code reader
and a weight at the fridge door, so it always would be easy to update the
database of what's inside the fridge.  That way I would always manage to
locate my passport, my keys, the box opener (we have started the concept 
of redundancy at home; in every drawer there is a scissor, and we have
four box openers and three wine openers distributed through the drawers
- but still it's an expensive concept), the cheese I bought last week
and maybe I would even manage to find my kitchen table.  I'm too much of a
mess to keep track of all those things myself, I need technology to help
me.  Well, in most cases low-tech solutions might help out better for a
single individ (because the database administration might be too
cumbersome and time consuming), but for a mid-size and big company it's
different.

I have a dream that all those things might come true for some future
version of RT.  RT3, maybe :)

While RT1 is good enough for our support department, I must admit that
it's not good enough for me.

So I absolutely encourage you to share your ideas, and come with the
different instances where it makes sense combining an asset manager with a
request tracker. 

> I think that the best scheme would be to coordinate the integration with
> RT, but have the asset management 'seperate' enough that it could be
> developed and extended as a psuedo-independant entity.

*nod*.  We have the link concept that should make it easy to "draw links"
between one external database system and RT.

> I'm just tossing out the idea tonight... I have deeper ideas on the
> subject, but am too beat to search for them. Please do contact me if you
> want to converse on this more.  I'm sure I am not the only one who wishes
> they had a web-based asset tracking/managment system right there alongside
> RT on an internal webserver!

I guess it's really hasn't that much to do with RT.  Put it up as a
project at www.SourceForge.net, or ask Jesse to create a project for it at
cvs.fsck.com, and get a separate mailinglist for it.

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