Receiving Process: Bug or Feature?

Being a newbee to 6.5, I was excited to try out all of the new features I had been wanting for in 6.2. So, where else to begin, but the beginning?

I setup my Locations, my Stockrooms, my Suppliers and my Catalog items. Now all I needed was some inventory to manage. Bypassing the Purchase Request, I went straight for the Purchase Order and created a number of new records for assets I was expecting in any day. I picked a Purchase Order, right clicked and Received my items. Lo and Behold, there were now Receiving Slips.

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The Receiving Slip was created and I then saw a list of generic Assets created under the Associated Resource column.

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I then went to one of the assets and this is where the confusion begins.

When you open up the asset, under the Accounting Tab, all fields in the Cost Items table are populated. All fields except the all important Purchase Order field. However, there is a line inserted into the Description field that notes the PO Number and Receiving Slip numbers, as well as a reference to the Purchase Order inserted into the Comments field. Regardless, the report listed on this site, linking your Purchase Order Number to your Assets works - I mean worked - that is, until you merge your Received Assets with your Existing Assets.

So, what happens when your assets begin to come online? Well, the only way to merge your Received Assets with your Existing Assets is to have a common field, such as a System Number, a Serial Number or a Resource Name. Well, it doesn't make sense to change the Resource Name, since that is discovered. And changing the System Number doesn't really work either.

My only solution was to export the Received Assets to a spreadsheet and add a column for Serial Numbers. I then took the Serial Numbers of the Discovered Assets and populated the Received Assets Serial Number column, so there would be a common field with which to merge.

I imported the information (Update method):

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I then went to the Merge Receiving Items with Existing Assets and selected Serial Number as the Merge Key. Everything merged perfectly. Or so I thought.

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I went back to run the report tying my Purchase Orders to my Assets and remarkably, I was no longer getting the results I had prior to the Merge. I went back to my Receiving Slip to look at the Associated Resource, just to find that those computer names had been dropped in the Merge.

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I assumed that I had done something wrong and opened a case with Altiris. However, I needed a workaround in the meanwhile. I created a Resource Association from the Asset to the created Purchase Orders and wrote a new report that would link directly from the Asset to the Purchase Order, thereby bypassing the Receiving Slip entirely. I have attached that script for your reference. This report will give you the Asset Name, Status, Barcode, Manufacturer, Model, Location, Location Address and System Number. I also included a search by Purchase Order Number, so you will need to create a Parameter called Purchase Order.

Come to find out, that I wasn't doing anything wrong. When I heard back from Altiris, I was told that this was in no way a feature - it is, in fact, a bug. There is no quick way to reassociate the Asset to the Receiving Slip. No way to import them. No way to select an entire location or group of assets. You would have to do it one asset at a time. When you're dealing with hundreds of records, there is just no time to do that.

Hope this workaround works for you, as it did for me.