Assets / Enterprise Assets / Background Data - Assets

Assign Assets to Custodians and Manage

Use the Assets / Enterprise Assets / Background Data - Assets / Assign Assets to Custodians task to select an asset from the Asset Registry and assign it to an asset custodian or review its chain of custody.

This topic has the following sections that outline the procedures you can execute from the Assign Assets to Custodians task:

Locate an asset and review its custody
Assign an owner or change current owner
Assign a non-owner custodian
Edit owner information for a discarded asset
Edit or delete a non-owner custodian

Note: You can also assign custodians to assets when working with the Assign Custodians to Assets task and from the Equipment Systems Console.

Locate an asset and review its custody

The Assign Assets to Custodians task presents a list of your assets in the left pane. Select an asset and you can see its chain of custody.

Use the filter at the top of the Asset Registry panel to limit the list of assets by the following criteria.
- Show Assigned/Unassigned -- Show only assets that are assigned to custodians, only those assets that are unassigned, or show all assets.
- Asset Type (Building, Property, Equipment, or Furniture)
- Custodian Status -- Set this to Active to show assets who have active custodians, assets who have inactive owner custodians, or all assets.

Select an asset from the Asset Registry panel, and review its ownership.
- The Owner Custodian panel displays the owner custodian currently assigned to this asset (Contact Status is Active) and previous assigned to this item, in order of status and date.
- The Other Custodians panel displays custodians who are not classified as the owner custodian. The panel displays all custodians assigned to the selected asset.

Tip: When reviewing your assets, you may wish to see additional information. The gear-shaped icon in the upper right corner of the Asset Registry pane presents the Tools menu, with the Select Fields command. Use this form to select additional fields to show.

In the above image, note the following about the custodians for Building AB:

There is only one active owner custodian, Will Archart.
Each owner custodian's Membership End Date is one day before the subsequent owner's start date. For example, Caroline Anderson ended custodianship on 5/23/2017 and Paul Abbot became the owner custodian one day later, 5/24/2017. This pattern occurs for all owner custodians.
There are multiple active non-owner custodians.

Assign an owner or change current owner

An asset can have multiple custodians. but must have one custodian who is considered the owner custodian and has ultimate responsibility for the item during a specified time frame.

Once you set the filter, you can choose the Select All check box (located above the field titles) to select all the viewable assets at once.

Select one or more assets from the Asset Registry panel. You can choose items that already have owner custodians as well as those whose Owner Name is empty. As you select each asset, the right panels display the list of assigned custodians. If you doing a bulk assignment, it is helpful to review the assigned custodians and make sure that you aren't duplicating custodian assignments.
Choose the Assign button in the upper right corner of the Asset Registry panel.
From the resulting menu, choose to assign an owner. The view presents the Change Owner form, listing the assets that you selected. Note that you can review Current Owner column to see the current owner for each asset. If an asset currently does not have an owner, this value is blank.
Complete the fields in the Change Owner form as follows:

Field	Description
New Owner Name	Click the ellipses button to choose from the list of employees, vendors, and contacts. The names that appear in these tabs are all members of at least one team and are listed in the Team Members (`team`) table. If you don't see the desired name in this list, you must first add it to the Employees, Vendors, or Contacts table and then associate it with a team. Note that custodianship is tracked in the party's record in the Team Members table, and not in the Vendors, Employees, or Contacts table.
Start Date	Enter the date on which this party will start being a custodian.
End Date	If you know when the custodianship will end, enter the date here. Otherwise, leave it blank.
Team	If you wish to associate a team with the custodianship, choose the team from the list of defined teams. Note that you can choose from all teams, not just teams associated with the asset or the team to which the owner custodian belongs. The custodian list is a separate list from a support team. The lists could be redundant, but many organizations want to keep them separate. Typically, the support team includes people who use, maintain, and repair assets, while the custodian is responsible for inventory tracking and regulation compliance. The party that you choose for Custodian does not need to be a member of the team that you select in this option; likewise, for this option, you can choose any team, not just those associated with the owner custodian.
Notes	Enter any special notes about this custodianship.

When you save the form, the system:
- Sets the Custodian Type field to Owner.
- If a current owner record exists, sets the current owner's team.status to 'Inactive' and sets the team.date_end to one day prior to the new owner's team.date_start. For example, if you select 1/1/2017 for the new owner's Date Start, then the previous owner's Date Start autofills to 12/31/2016.
- Refreshes the Asset Registry grid to display the new Owner Names. If a single asset record was selected, refreshes the Chain of Custody / Owner and Other Custodians panels with the selected Asset record.
- For each selected asset, inserts into the Asset Transaction History (asset_trans) table a record that documents that this asset had this owner custodian for the specified period. Review the transaction history with:
  - Asset Lifecycle Console / Asset Lifecycle Management / Asset Activities panel / Current Activities table.
  - Asset Lifecycle Console / Asset Registry panel / Activities per-row icon
The view refreshes and activates the Digital Signature field. Use this document field to upload a document specifying that the team member is accepting responsibility as the custodian or owner custodian.

Assign a non-owner custodian

Other personnel who are involved in the asset, but do not have ultimate responsibility, can be assigned as custodians.

Select one or more assets from the Asset Registry panel.
There are two ways to access the Assign Custodian form for assigning a non-owner custodian.
- Choose the Assign button in the upper right corner of the Asset Registry panel. From the resulting menu, choose to assign a custodian. The system presents the Assign Custodian form.
- From the Other Custodians panel, choose the Add button. The system presents the Assign Custodian form.
Complete the fields in the Assign Custodian form as follows:

Field	Description
Custodian Name	Click the ellipses button to choose from the list of employees, vendors, and contacts. The names that appear in these tabs are all members of at least one team and are listed in the Team Members (`team`) table. If you don't see the desired name in this list, you must first add it to the Employees, Vendors, or Contacts table and then associate it with a team. Note that custodianship is tracked in the party's record in the Team Members table, and not in the Vendors, Employees, or Contacts table
Custodian Type	Choose the type of custodian this person is. This field is validated by the Custodian Types table.
Start Date	Enter the date on which this party will start being a custodian.
End Date	If you know when the custodianship will end, enter the date here. Otherwise, leave it blank.
Team	If you wish to associate a team with the custodianship, choose the team from the list of defined teams. Note that you can choose from all teams, not just teams associated with the asset or the team to which the owner custodian belongs. The custodian list is a separate list from a support team. The lists could be redundant, but many organizations want to keep them separate. Typically, the support team includes people who use, maintain, and repair assets, while the custodian is responsible for inventory tracking and regulation compliance. The party that you choose for Custodian does not need to be a member of the team that you select in this option; likewise, for this option, you can choose any team, not just those associated with the owner custodian.
Notes	Enter any special notes about this custodianship in this field.

Save your changes and the system refreshes the Other Custodians panel with the new information.

Edit owner custodian information for a discarded asset

From the Assign Assets to Custodians task, you can edit limited information about an owner custodian: the End Date, Digital Signature, and Custodian Status fields.

Since the system automatically sets the first owner's Custodian Status to Inactive and completes the End Date when you change owners, you do not typically need to change this information. However, if an asset has been discarded, you will want to set the Custodian Status to Inactive and complete the End Date without assigning the asset to a new owner custodian.

Note: The view prevents you from setting the status to Active if another active owner already exists for this asset.

Select an asset from the Asset Registry panel.
In the Chain of Custody/Owner panel, click on the row for an owner custodian or click the edit icon.
The view presents the Edit Owner form.

For a discarded asset for which you do not want to assign a new owner, change the Custodian Status to Inactive and set the End Date.
When you save your change, the view:
- saves the Team record
- refreshes the Chain of Custody / Owner grid
- update asset_trans record for any owner termination

Edit or delete non-owner custodian

Once a non-owner custodian is assigned to an asset and the Custodian Status is set to Active, circumstances may change and this custodian no longer needs to be associated with the asset. For example, an employee may change roles in the organization and no longer need to track this asset. In this case, you need to set the Custodian Status to Inactive.

Select an asset from the Asset Registry panel.
In the Other Custodians panel, select the Edit per-row icon or row click to open the edit form for the selected custodian. .
Choose to delete the record, or set its status to Inactive. Saving the record and setting to Inactive will keep a history and you will know that at one time the asset had this non-owner custodian, whereas deleting it will remove it from database.