JSM Assets Data Manager is here – mature your ITSM efforts
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JSM Assets Data Manager is here – mature your ITSM efforts
Deniz Timartas
1st October, 2024
8 min read
Deniz Timartas
1st October, 2024
8 min read
If your organisation already has mature ITSM processes in place, then you’re probably using Jira Service Management’s (JSM’s) native asset and configuration management tool – Assets.
Well, we’ve got some big news – Assets is now improved with Assets Data Manager, an evolution of the tool you love, packed with loads of new features for a more comprehensive approach to asset management. Let’s take a closer look!
What do I need to know about Assets in JSM?
Available with JSM’s Premium and Enterprise plans, Assets provides a single source of truth for teams to track assets and configuration items (CIs) – an asset management must-have for mature ITSM teams. It makes it easier to resolve service requests, gain visibility of and troubleshoot underlying problems, and minimise risk of new changes, among other benefits.
For those not mature enough to have incorporated asset and configuration management into their ITSM processes yet, here’s a quick explainer:
- IT asset management (ITAM) is the process of making sure all your IT assets – like laptops, servers, and phones, software systems, and valuable information – are accounted for, effectively deployed and maintained, and then disposed of when appropriate.
- Assets are the tangible or intangible item managed by your organisation, and CIs are the technical details or configuration of a particular item. Storing and managing that information is typically done using a configuration management database (CMDB).
What is Assets Data Manager?
In 2023, Atlassian (the brain behind JSM) acquired AirTrack – a tool that gathers, aggregates, and analyses multiple IT data sources, making it much easier to pinpoint any issues and stay focused on important tasks. AirTrack’s technology has been incorporated into Assets, which is now known as Assets Data Manager.
Still only available on JSM Cloud Premium and Enterprise plans, Assets Data Manager connects and pulls in asset data from multiple sources, cleanses and reconciles it, makes sure that data is complete and correct and up to date, before importing it into schemas.
What are the problems with existing service management systems?
If your organisation is like most, different teams use different tools for asset-related purposes. Maybe they’re keeping track of inventory or fulfilling requests. But because all this information is spread out across various systems and managed by different teams, it’s really hard to track. You end up with inconsistencies, duplications, and information you just can’t find.
Disorganised, incomplete, or inaccurate data leads to poor operational and strategic decision-making. This can impact request fulfilment, incident resolution, and risk analysis. It poses a security threat and can also result in unexpected costs. According to Gartner’s 2023 predictions, 99% of organisations using CMDB tooling that doesn’t confront data quality gaps experience visible business disruptions.
How can Assets Data Manager help?
With Assets Data Manager, you can easily visualise, manage, analyse, and report on your ITAM practices. Teams can create and share dashboards to work more collaboratively, and they have the insights they need to make more informed decisions. It prevents security vulnerability too, by making sure your assets are compliant, speeds up issue resolution, and makes it safer to make changes.
When it comes to configuration management, human agents can only cover about 75% of devices for patch and update management. But Assets Data Manager ensures that nothing remains unpatched by automatically triggering a message to the appropriate person when missing or inconsistent records are found.
It can also support your security efforts by finding uncovered assets. With data breaches impacting 74% of enterprises, many as the result of lost or stolen assets, like laptops and mobile phones, having that level of coverage can be the difference between keeping your data safe and a serious security breach.
Assets Data Manager can also make a big impact when it comes to billing. If your teams struggle to provide monthly baselines for active assets, it’s probably because their data isn’t up to date. JSM’s automation identifies and initiates corrections for under- and overspend by customers of third-party support suppliers, helping everyone have confidence in the billing process.
What else can Assets Data Manager do?
Data coverage
Assets Data Manager-with its more than 30 out of the box connectors-connects all your system sources, extracts the raw data and assesses your coverage. It ensures that all your active and current records are consistent and that governance issues or system failures aren’t affecting your data.
Data quality
Use Assets Data Manager to validate specific information about your assets and understand your data quality. This allows you to pinpoint inventory and security gaps, improve data accuracy, and spot where assets aren’t meeting compliance requirements.
Data cleansing
Assets Data Manager applies proprietary logic (or you can define your own) to cleanse your data before its imported. This helps avoid duplication, disabled objects, or uninventoried objects, ensuring you’re focussing just on the total, unique, and active data across each source.
Data correlation
Assets Data Manager then correlates all that information, giving you a single source of truth – one unified view of all your assets across all data sources.
Data analysis
With highly configurable dashboards, you’ll be able to easily spot coverage gaps and data quality issues. Use detailed analysis to make smarter decisions: take action and automate processes, giving teams clear next steps about what to focus on.
Master IT Asset Management with Adaptavist
We offer expert CMDB design and asset management strategies to maintain an accurate inventory. Our services include:
Tailored CMDB Design:
Customising the CMDB structure to reflect your unique business processes and IT landscape
Asset Discovery & Reconciliation:
Implementing tools and processes to automatically discover IT assets, ensuring that your CMDB remains accurate and comprehensive.
Integration Excellence:
Seamlessly integrating the CMDB with other IT service management (ITSM) processes and tools to enhance data utility and operational workflows.
Are you ready to elevate your asset and configuration management? Don’t let the chance slip by to optimize your IT infrastructure, make smarter decisions, and enhance operational efficiency. Unlock Adaptavist’s expertise in CMDB design and asset management strategies to maintain a precise and up-to-date inventory.
If Assets Data Manager sounds too good to miss, but you’re not sure where to start, we can help. Adaptavist’s experts have a wealth of experience in ITAM, whether it’s installing JSM, upgrading your plan to Premium or Enterprise, configuring the tool to work best for you, or taking care of everything with service management. Contact us today to find out how we can support your ITSM journey.
Written by
Deniz Timartas
Strategic Advisor
Deniz Timartas is a strategic advisor that uses Atlassian tools and ITSM best practices to help customers achieve efficiency and success. Deniz is also an ITIL Managing Professional and trainer.