Asset Reclamations in ServiceNow
In today’s blog, I’m going to cover the asset reclamation feature in ServiceNow.
Within this blog I’ll be covering:
What asset reclamations are
How to create an asset reclamation request
And how to fulfill an asset reclamation request
Asset Reclamations Explained
Before we go into the system, I want to explain what an asset reclamation is. With the Hardware Asset Management professional subscription in ServiceNow, an asset reclamation catalog item is included and activated in the service catalog.
The asset reclamation process is the reclamation of hardware assets when an employee leaves a company, or no longer needs their assets. The asset reclamation process integrates the asset management module with the HR module to create a seamless asset reclaim process.
Hardware asset reclaim requests are typically made by HR, an end-user, or a manager.
Managing and tracking your company's reclaimed assets is extremely beneficial, as it allows you to easily report on what assets have been returned, and it also helps provide a clear audit trail for the movement of hardware assets.
Creating an Asset Reclamation Request
Now that we’ve covered what asset reclamations are, let’s go into the system and create an asset reclaim request.
For demo purposes, we’re going to log an asset reclaim request for an end user that is leaving his company.
To get started, open up ServiceNow, and head over to the service portal, by adding “sp” to the end of your instance's URL. This will take you to the service portal.
To get to the “Reclaim Asset” catalog item, type in “Reclaim Asset” into the portal search bar, and hit enter.
You’ll now be taken to the search results page, where you can see we have the “Reclaim Asset” catalog item.
Click on the catalog item.
A blank reclaim asset catalog item form will now load.
In the first field “Requested by”, this field allows you to specify if the reclamation request is being made by HR, a manager, or by a user. For this example, I’m going to select “User”, since I’m submitting it for myself.
You’ll notice that when you select the “User” option, the “Requested for” field appears with your name prepopulated. This is because the request is not only being made by yourself, but it’s also for yourself. If you selected “HR” or “Manager”, then you’d be able to specify a specific user.
Next, we have the “Assets” field, this field allows you to select one or more assets that you would like to have reclaimed. In this example, you can see we have the “Apple MacBook Pro” available to reclaim. This field looks at hardware assets that are assigned to the “Requested for” user, which in this case is myself.
In the next field we have “Reclaim date”. This field allows you to specify the date in which you’d like to have the assets reclaimed. For demo purposes I’m going to select today’s date.
Next, we have the “Reclaim method” field, this field allows you to specify how you would like the assets to be reclaimed. The field allows you to select either “Ship”, “Pick up”, or “Drop off”. For demo purposes I’m going to select “Drop off”.
Please note, depending on the option that you select in this field, will determine what task is opened during the reclamation workflow. For example when you select “Ship”, a shipping related task will be opened. In the last field, we have “Notes / Special instructions”, this field allows you to enter any notes or special instructions that you’d like to add to the request.
Now that we’ve completed populating the form, click on the “Submit” button to submit the request.
You’ll now be taken to this my request page where you can the number for the request.
I’m going to copy this request number, and open up the request in the NOW UI as a fulfiller.
As you can see, when I open the request, you see all of the fields that were included on the original request, and below these fields, we have a related list called “Hardware Asset Reclamation Lines”.
This related list displays a reclamation line item record for each asset that is being reclaimed. If the request contained more than one asset, then you’d see multiple reclamation lines.
Let’s open up the hardware asset reclamation line for the “Apple MacBook Pro” asset.
Please note, each hardware asset reclamation line has its own lifecycle and associated stage. As you can see on this reclamation line, the stage is currently “Ready”, and we can see the asset at hand, and its current location.
To begin the reclamation process, open up the “Schedule drop off” task from the “Hardware Asset Reclamation Tasks” related list.
The purpose of this first task is to have the asset dropped off at a stockroom. As you can see, the “Stockroom” field is required. For demo purposes, I’m going to pretend that I’ve just dropped off the Lenovo laptop at the “Santa Monica Warehouse”.
Now click on the “Close Task” button to close the task.
You’ll now be taken back to the reclamation line record, and you can see we now have a second task to receive the asset.
For this task, the workflow is ensuring that you’ve received the asset back. As you can see, we have a field called “Is asset reclaimed?”, I’m going to check this checkbox, and close this task.
As we’re taken back to the reclamation line record, we have an “Evaluate asset” task. Click on this task to open it.
The purpose of this task is to evaluate the asset upon return, and to log its current state. As you can see in the “Evaluation status” field, you can select either “Re-deployable”, “Needs repair”, or “To be disposed”.
Please note, the option that you select in this field will determine the state and substate in which the asset will be set to when the task is closed. For demo purposes, I’m going to select “Re-deployable”. This will set the asset state to “In Stock”, with a substate of “Available”.
If you selected “Needs repair”, then the asset would be set to “In Stock”, with a substate of “Pending repair”, and if you selected “To be disposed”, then the asset would