Connected Assets

🔌 Connected assets - what is plugged into what

A monitor sits on somebody's desk, plugged into their computer. A phone lives in a dock, and a label printer hangs off a PC in the warehouse. FreeITSM had no way to record that. The nearest thing was a custom field pointing from one asset to another: one way, set by hand, with no history.

Now every asset has a Connected tab that shows what is attached to it, from both ends. People can record connections themselves, tools that scan your network can report what they see, and every connection and disconnection is kept.

Requested by @Dr4inder in #200. This is part C of the design.

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🧭 At a glance

Where	Any asset → Connected tab
Who	Anyone with access to Assets. Recording what is plugged into what is ordinary work, like assigning an asset to somebody
Who else writes it	A tool reporting through the REST API, using the connections section of an inventory report
What it is not	Not who holds it (custody and handover) and not a service dependency (the CMDB). A monitor can be connected to one computer and signed out to a person, and neither changes the other
Existing installs	Run Database Verification after upgrading. Every asset type shows the tab until you hide it in that type's layout

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🖱️ Recording one yourself

1. Open the asset, say the monitor, and go to Connected.
2. Click Connect, and search for the other asset by name, serial number or asset tag.
3. Pick it. The connection appears on both assets: the monitor lists the computer, and the computer lists the monitor.

Both assets must be in the same company. The same pair can only be confirmed once at a time.

Each row has a small label saying who says they are connected: Manual for one a person recorded, or the tool's name (say lansweeper) for one a tool reported. When both exist for the same pair, you see both rows, each with its own label.

To end it, click Disconnect beside your confirmation. It moves to Earlier connections, with the dates and who disconnected it.

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📡 What a tool sees

A tool that scans your machines, such as an RMM or Lansweeper, can report the monitors and other devices attached to each computer through the REST API. Its rows look different on purpose:

lansweeper · Last observed connected by lansweeper 3 hr ago

That is exactly what the tool knows: when it last saw the monitor on that computer. It is not a claim that the monitor is there now. An observation from a month ago shows its date, so an old one reads as old.

If you agree with what the tool saw, Confirm adds your own confirmation beside it.

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🧱 The rules that keep it trustworthy

• Each source keeps its own row. What you confirmed and what a tool observed sit side by side. If the tool sees the monitor on a different computer from the one you recorded, you see both, and nothing is overwritten.
• A tool never ends your connection. Only a person can disconnect a person's confirmation.
• A person does not end a tool's row. It belongs to the tool, and ends when the tool reports the monitor gone. If you disagree, confirm your own view beside it.
• Nothing is disconnected by silence. A report that doesn't mention a monitor leaves it as it was. Only the tool that saw it can say it has gone, either by saying so outright or by sending a complete list without it.
• Nothing is guessed or created. If a tool reports a monitor by serial number and no asset has that serial, or two assets share it, FreeITSM does not create one or pick one. It keeps the case for a person to look at (part D), and connects it automatically on the next report once there is exactly one asset with that serial.
• Everything is in history. Every connection and disconnection, by a person or a tool, is written to both assets' View History.

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🙅 What it does not do

• The inventory agent does not report monitors yet. Reading a monitor's serial from Windows is a separate change to the agent. For now, connections come from people and from REST tools.
• It does not affect tickets or impact. A connection never makes one asset depend on another, so it plays no part in CMDB impact analysis.

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Related

• Assets · Asset type layouts · Inventory freshness
• REST API: Assets - connected assets
• For developers: Connected assets - Developer Guide