HaloITSM

HaloITSM Guides

Documentation to assist with the setup and configuration of the HaloITSM platform

Guides > Asset Import - CSV/XLS/Spreadsheet Method

Asset Import - CSV/XLS/Spreadsheet Method

This guide covers how to import assets using the Assets Sample Spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is used for importing new, and updating existing assets.


1) Navigate to: Configuration > Asset Management > General Settings > Import Assets


- Under 'Unique identifier for Assets' there is a drop down selection to chose which field to use to match on existing records. In this example, the unique identifier is the Asset Number. Which is the field below. However, you can chose any option from the dropdown list as the field to match for your existing records. 

- There is also an option to set 'Secondary Matching Field for Assets', this field is used to match an asset from the spreadsheet to an existing asset in Halo if the Unique identifier cannot be matched. 

- If neither of these fields are matched a new asset will be created in Halo


Settings

If trying to match on an asset using i.e. the serial number, if there are any spaces or hyphens in the inputs, these will be disregarded during the matching process.


If there are import rows with users attached, that do not exist in Halo, the default behaviour is to create this user under the client and site specified on the import. Checking this setting on will stop the user being created and will import the asset under the client and site specified on the row.



2) Click on 'Import Assets' and from the next screen download the following file, 'Download Samples'. The sample you want to open will be Assets.xlsx.







3) Head in to the spreadsheet. The fields in blue should NOT be altered, and the matching fields MUST be included on the spreadsheet, otherwise every asset will be created as new. 


- For the import to sync correctly, the Customer Name, Site, and Device Type (Asset Type) must already exist within Halo. These first three columns must also be filled in, the other columns are not mandatory.


- 'CustomerName' = Client Name

- 'SiteName' = The customers site

- 'AssetTag' = Asset Number

- 'User' = End-User

 

You can then fill in any notes relating to the asset, SLA's, warranty, supplier ect. The SLA, priority and Supplier chosen will also need to exist within Halo or this information will not be pulled in.





4) Once you have filled in the fields, you will need to save your the spreadsheet to your documents. Head back in to Halo and click the 'Import Assets' button again. To download the spreadsheet, click on 'Choose file', and choose the saved file. The information entered in to the spreadsheet should appear, and you can then click 'Start' to begin the import:



- Once this has been imported, the result should show 'done':



- Within Halo, you should now be able to see the asset you've imported with all of the relevant fields:




5) Your Asset import is now complete! 


Asset fields and Custom Asset fields


Asset fields: 


In the event that you have fields which do not exist within the spreadsheet, Asset Fields can be used. Below are the instructions for how to create an Asset field:


1) Head in to Configuration > Asset Management > Fields and add new:



There is a drop down for different type of fields including Text, Numeric, Date. In this example I have created the test field as a text field.


2) Once saved, you can chose to add this to all Asset Types, or within each asset type, chose which field you wish to add this to. The new field will now appear in the 'additional details' section of the details tab within with asset:





3) To add Asset Fields to your spreadsheet to import these, you will need to add columns with the Asset Field name to import, prefixed with "AF". For example, "AFTest Asset Field":



To import to the serial number field, the column header has to be AFSerial Number


4) Once the spreadsheet is imported, your Asset Field will now populate with the information from the spreadsheet:



Custom Fields:


Similarly to Asset fields, custom fields can be added in the same way under Configuration>Custom Objects>Custom fields, under the Asset entity:



- Custom fields would be used rather than Asset fields in the event that you wish to show the field on a separate tab within the asset record, and are more advanced than asset fields.


1) Create your custom field. At the bottom of this, there is an option to chose which tab you would like this added as seen below. Custom field names do not contain spaces which you will need to remember when adding the column to your spreadsheet.




3) Once saved, you will now see this Custom field within the Custom field tab within the asset:



4) Similarly to the Asset Field, you will need to add columns with the Custom Field name to import, prefixed with "CF". For example, "CFTestAssetCustomField" (As custom fields do not contain spaces):


 



5) Once saved and imported, your Custom Asset Field will now populate with the information from the spreadsheet:



Finding Errors When Importing

As Halo is an API driven software, all of the fields accessible on Halo are logged on the developer console, changes made to a page will be found in the payload tab of network. To get specific field names in Halo you can use the developer console of your web browser. If for example I wanted to know the field name in the API of a certain variable of the assets section of Halo, I can find this by pressing "Fn+F12" which will open the developer console, use the network module of the console:

 


When a change to the assets configuration is made, you can see the fields that have changed. After I make a change on the details tab of an asset i.e. change the status to "Not Ready" I can see this change in the Payload tab(make sure to save the page in Halo so that the changes made will populate on the developer tools tab:


As shown in the above screenshot, I have opened the dev tools menu navigated to Network > Fetch/XHR, made the status change on Halo and then clicked into the API call on the dev tools associated to the change. From here I can then go to the payload tab of the call and see all the changes made on the page. In this case it is the status_id field that has changed. So now I know to put the status_id field on the import sheet.

Popular Guides

Pin It on Pinterest