Feature Request : Checkout Consumable to Asset

[dahiya81]

Dear Sir/Madam,

It will be great to link the consumable to the Assest so better tracking can be done .

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[pmsudhi]

For that matter Accessories to asset also.. Keyboard and mouse associated with a PC. In the case of assembled PC, it can be Mother board,CPU etc..

[dahiya81]

how to link can u guide me on that

[pmsudhi]

For Consumables - example could be Ink toner for the printer. if multiple printers are available i can track which printer is using the consumables.

For Accessories : While adding/checking out accessories, i will choose the associated Asset like we do with License. This will help to track the item as an single unit.

[SylentBobNJ]

I like the consumables -> printer linking, that would make tracking usage much easier!

[Rhaelyx]

I'm also liking this idea. I originally thought this was the way to go but was mistaken.

+1

[DannyHolyoake-zz]

Seconding this.

I would've loved to use the consumables section to manage printer toner purchases. Not being able to check consumables out to assets is a roadblock to that.

[MarijkeCornelis]

For consumables we don't find it very easy to use for our workplace inventory.
The idea is great, but if we have like 100 studs en we give our students 10.
Remaining is 90 but if we wanted to add a quantity then we have to add it to the 100.
Why not update 90?

[faxesystem]

This would also be a nice addition. So we could checkout a toner to a certain printer (asset). So at the end of a year one could see how much toner has been used by a certain printer / department.

Thank you for your awesome work,

Faxe

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions!

[wilsonlspacheco]

+1

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions!

[SylentBobNJ]

Back off stalebot... We still want this!

[stale]

Is this still relevant? We haven't heard from anyone in a bit. If so, please comment with any updates or additional detail.
This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Don't take it personally, we just need to keep a handle on things. Thank you for your contributions!

[ethede]

I would really like to see this implemented as well. It would help out a lot with printers and toner.

[yosiasz]

same here! right now we can get by using a fake printer user 😃

[ethede]

I would do a fake printer user, however I want to be able to see which printers are using more toner than others, and track it. I have a fleet of around 25 printers so being able to see where more resources are being used is valuable, so that I can cut down on printing or also arrange for more preventive maintenance in a certain area. Again, this feature would really help in a production environment.

@snipe I understand the concern of making consumables assignable to assets, but in a manufacturing or production environment, there really isn't a "person" in charge of a certain area. Please, please, please incorporate this soon!! We would all benefit from it and appreciate it!

[Brauten]

+1

[famaia]

Any news on this?
This is a must-have feature for consumables.

[cldjr1]

+1 - It seems like this is how this should work.
Ideally, my users would be able to sign in and see what toner is available for them to check-out based on the printer they have.

[Tirith]

Topic was written 5 years ago. Is any hope to implement that feature?

[crax0]

This feature would be awesome. I dont know why they couldnt implement it in 6 years :D Its really important!

[tsdigital]

Still relevant

[apizz]

Yes I think this is one of the few core features that snipeit is missing

[simogalpa]

+1 still relevant and, seems to me, still missing,

[ipuloka]

from 2015 to 2022 and you still haven't create checkout consumable to asset feature?

[AnatoleF]

+1

[maverick85]

+1 for this feature. It would be indeed great to be able to assign consumables to the assets when they are being used.
@snipe could you please provide some feedback about the current state of this feature request? Thank you

[TonadoWatch]

I love Snipe-IT so far, but not having this has been a huge bummer. Any word on if this feature will be implemented and if not is there a home-brew solution out there?

[snipe]

@maverick85 the state remains unchanged. This is not a high priority for us, as an asset cannot be held responsible for something that is missing, broken, etc. Only people can be held accountable.

[SourSpoon]

I personally would use this a lot for projector lamp replacements.

While I know this could be done with the maintenences feature (which is what I currently use) it's nice to have the ability to message me about stock levels.

[yosiasz]

1. Its a free product $0.00
2. Anyone can complain about a free product. Implement that complaint into a PR
3. Where there is a missing functionality that will not be implemented in near future, fork and make that change or create yourself a side app for the feature you want with full knowledge you will own any breaking changes on snipeit upgrade 😉.

We have used snipeit for few years, loved it. Now we use Fresh Service.

[maverick85]

@maverick85 the state remains unchanged. This is not a high priority for us, as an asset cannot be held responsible for something that is missing, broken, etc. Only people can be held accountable.

Hi @snipe thank you for your reply and feedback.
I'm sorry to hear it remains unchanged. Would you go for entering a discussion phase where people could provide feedback on how it could work?

For example, I say: an asset has someone responsible for it, so the asset responsible is the consumable responsible.
Other, through entities, just like there's locations maybe an entity representing the person responsible for that physical location hence being responsible for those consumables?

Thank you.

[iQuip]

@snipe when a consumable (i.e. the frequently requested toner) is assigned, checked out, or otherwise paired with an asset, that asset is assigned to a person and therefore someone is accountable for said consumable.

The only type of consumables that need to be assigned to people are ham sandwiches with a little mustard to calm Shaggy's nerves.

Consumables that are relevant to Snipe-IT are those that can be assigned to assets.

[snipe]

@iQuip for your workflow, sure. Not for everyone's. This feature is not off the table, we're just busy working on Snipe-IT v7 right now.

[marcwbbstr]

+1

[rowansc1]

+1

[jarrodCoombes]

Wondering what the latest is on this feature request. It would really help us over here. We want to be able to checkout bulbs to projectors, which are assigned to rooms, not users (as they are permanently mounted) and want to keep track of stock for said bulbs.

Similarly, we'd love to be able to do this with toner for printers, and some other room specific items that make little sense to check out to a user as they change rooms and what not year after year. We actually have nothing that we would consider consumable that we would ever need to check out to user, so that section goes completely unused here for now.

[awinterton]

This was first requested, at least in this thread, in 2015. How is it that almost a decade later, this still has not been resolved? I understand the argument of holding someone accountable for the consumable, but that doesn't fit everyone's use case. How is a user responsible for a projectors lamp or printer toner? How does one get stock levels for said consumables? How does one track irregular consumable usage to a specific asset? In these instances a department is responsible for both the asset and the consumable, but the tracking is different.

Can we get some options or flexibility added in so this can be done?

[snipe]

@awinterton:

This was first requested, at least in this thread, in 2015. How is it that almost a decade later, this still has not been resolved?

Because we had other priorities and hundreds of features that we deemed more important, as evidenced by ALL of the releases and commits we've made in the last nine years. We have to care for the priorities of the entire project, not just folks who use one aspect of it. I'm sorry if that reality is lost on you.

How is a user responsible for a projectors lamp or printer toner?

How is a projector responsible for anything? Or a printer? Inanimate objects by definition cannot be responsible for things, and when 100 packages of toner go missing because they were assigned to a printer, who is held to task?

Consumables are often not even used by the majority of users, so they are lower priority.

If you think you have an answer, by all means open a PR. Otherwise, we appreciate your patience.

[apizz]

I get the other higher priorities, but almost 10 years later after 80+ comments? I sort of equate this feature similarly to Slack's addition of scheduled messages in threads in that it took more than 2 years after they introduced scheduled messages for what was a seemingly small & logical next step. It's a relatively small thing, but it is impactful nonetheless. I know at a prior job we're still using 2 systems - SnipeIT and something else - and that something else was just for toner management. it would be amazing if this got added to remove the unnecessary system / management overhead. I imagine some people are still just using a spreadsheet... shudders.

How is a projector responsible for anything? Or a printer? Inanimate objects by definition cannot be responsible for things, and when 100 packages of toner go missing because they were assigned to a printer, who is held to task?

I understand what you're saying, but fundamentally you don't install toner into people you install them in printers. When I assign an asset to a location, it's not that the location is responsible for it, it's just that's where it went. Same idea I think is applicable here. True, you might give toner or other consumable to a person as a spare / for safe keeping and consider it "consumed", but imho this is one of those seemingly really basic things that should be something you can do in the system. But generally speaking, I take toner and maybe I store it in a location or leave it with a person, but it ultimately is used/consumed by an asset. From a metrics perspective it would a huge boon to know exactly where your consumables are truly going. I imagine some people may have gone as far as creating "dummy" people that serve as quasi-locations.

ofc this is an OS project and anyone can work on this, but sadly this isn't my area of expertise otherwise I would have 😅 .

Thanks for continuing to maintain this awesome OS project, Snipe... just want to voice my 2 cents since I've followed this one for a while and hope to one day see this get developed (by you or some other good samaritan) and closed out 😃

[jarrodCoombes]

@maverick85 the state remains unchanged. This is not a high priority for us, as an asset cannot be held responsible for something that is missing, broken, etc. Only people can be held accountable.

On paper, your point makes perfect sense, but in reality the ability to only assign consumables to people means we have less ability to hold someone or some department accountable for excessive use of consumables. How can you hold a user accountable if the consumable is being used for a communal resource, eg a printer in the middle of a department, a projector in a conference room etc.

For example, if we notice a ton of toner is going missing here, finding out that it was all checked out to Jim does us not good, as he will simply say he installed it in whatever printer needed it. There is nothing actionable we can do with this, but if we can track that toner down to the specific printer, then we can take action, we can tell Jim, or accounting, or whoever is responsible for that asset, to print less, or pay us back for the toner and we can point to a specific printer that used all the toner. The same would go for projector bulbs, paper, batteries etc.

This request is to add functionality, not remove it. The ability to assign a consumable to a user would still be there, and for the few cases where this does make sense, it could still be used. But I think for the vast majority cases, it makes more sense to assign a consumable to another asset, less for accountability, and more for just simple tracking and reporting.

[TonadoWatch]

I feel like the wording of this feature request may be part of the reason why it's been put off for so long. As an IT admin, I'm not so concerned with monitoring chain-of-custody for my consumables, but I can see where it would be a concern and how modifying the existing functionality could be a huge ask.

Here's what I'd like to propose instead, and I really wish I had the time to learn Laravel to implement this myself, it would be very helpful to be able to link assets to other assets, accessories, and consumables and to see the linked items when viewing the asset details page. This grouping would allow me to see that computer X has a printer, two monitors, a 600VA UPS, and some speakers.