Hardware Asset Management

The problem

When an employee changed, their hardware had to follow.

While our team built Seating Chart, I kept seeing the same operational gap. Every hire, move, role change, or departure triggered work for IT, but the employee and device timelines lived in separate systems.

Research and discovery

I tested the model with the people who would maintain it.

I worked with our PM, engineers, the Seating Chart team, and our internal IT asset group, including its director. Across two rounds with roughly ten participants, I tested setup, ownership, and the check-in and check-out language that connected hardware state back to a seat.

Round 01 · Discovery

The inventory worked. Ownership and check-out did not.

Seven moderated sessions tested the first three core tasks. Add and view were understandable. Check-out language and the difference between employee-owned and seat-owned hardware caused the most friction.

CompletedCompleted with frictionBlocked

Round one results for seven anonymized participants across three tasks.

Session	Add asset	View asset	Check in or out
01
02
03
04
05
06
07

“You could use a different type of language rather than check in and check out. It’s very, very ambiguous.”

“Ownership is kind of confusing for me. I could add lists of names here.”

“The dashboard is cool, but there are a lot of indicators. I’m trying to figure out what’s important.”

“If I was going to do a bulk assignment, that’s where I would pull up a template.”

“You could have it where it continues to notify them if it’s overdue.”

“There could be some other fields that are more custom, but those would be the basic functions.”

Round 01 · Tested prototype

The first round showed where assignment language broke.

The same Maya Chen, Seat 04-18, and five asset records now remain consistent across every tested screen.

01Dashboard02Asset record03Move request

Assignment dashboard×

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app.company.com/workplace/assets/overview

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WorkplaceAustin HQ

WorkplaceAssetsOverviewUpdated Jul 18+ Add asset

Assignment overview

Austin HQ · Floor 4 · connected ownership

Search assets

5AssetsOne context

3PersonalMoves with Maya

2WorkspaceStays with seat

Hardware inventory

5 records

AssetAssignmentLocationStatus

MacBook Pro 14HW-2148 · C02MAYA2148Maya ChenMaya ChenSeat 04-18Assigned

MX Master 3SHW-2191 · MX3S-MAYA-2191Maya ChenMaya ChenSeat 04-18Assigned

Keychron Q1HW-2204 · KQ1-MAYA-2204Maya ChenMaya ChenSeat 04-18Assigned

UltraSharp 27HW-1842 · US27-0418-1842Seat 04-18Seat 04-18Seat 04-18Checked in

CalDigit TS4HW-1930 · TS4-0418-1930Seat 04-18Seat 04-18Seat 04-18Checked in

Round 02 · Validation

The simpler model held up across all five tasks.

I clarified the primary assignment, reduced the number of statuses, and renamed the check-out action. Three participants then completed the expanded workflow.

• Primary assignment
• Fewer statuses
• Clearer actions

Round two results for three anonymized participants across five tasks.

Session	Add asset	View asset	Check out	Decommission	Department tags
08
09
10

Competitive landscape

Asset tools tracked devices. HCM tools tracked people. Few connected both to a seat.

I compared six products against the five capabilities the relationship model required. The clearest gap was seat-level context.

SupportedLimitedNot established

Capability comparison across six hardware asset management products.

Product	Inventory	People	Lifecycle	Mobile / QR	HCM / seat context
Asset Panda
Snipe-IT
ServiceNow HAM
Rippling
Freshservice
AssetExplorer

Stakeholder archetypes

Two operating perspectives shaped the product.

These role-based archetypes summarize the anonymized interview notes and journey mapping supplied with this case study. They describe responsibilities and workflow needs, not demographics.

Archetype

Desktop administration supervisor

Context

Owns day-to-day hardware inventory across a large office.

Core job

Keep every device assigned, current, and recoverable.

Friction

Asset work is split across spreadsheets, service tools, and physical walk-ups.

Design need

Fast reconciliation with clear ownership and fewer places to update.

Archetype

IT asset operations lead

Context

Sets process across IT, facilities, and employee lifecycle teams.

Core job

Standardize how hardware moves from acquisition through retirement.

Friction

Employee, location, support, and asset records fall out of sync.

Design need

One auditable model that connects people, seats, hardware, and tickets.

The relationship model

The hard part was deciding what an asset belonged to.

I gave each asset one primary assignment. A laptop could follow an employee while a monitor stayed with a shared seat. The record was designed to carry that context into Seating Chart, mobile work, inventory, and ticketing.

The product

One workspace connected the inventory to the office.

The workspace was designed to let IT find an employee, see their seat, and separate personal hardware from equipment assigned to the workspace.

Seating Chart showed where the employee worked. The inventory view showed which devices moved with them and which stayed with the seat.

On the floor

The same model extended to a phone.

The mobile flow let a technician scan an asset, confirm its owner and seat, and update it without returning to a desk.

Validation and reflection

Testing changed where I drew the line.

I reduced the status model, made ownership visible, and held back automation until the data could support it. The lesson was visibility before automation.