Assets Dictionary for Beginners
To be on the same page, we would like to summarize the Assets dictionary, which we use in our documentation and ticket responses. You can think of Assets like a database. If you are not familiar with databases, you can also think of them as folders on a computer. The table below gives examples.
Assets | Database | File System |
|---|---|---|
Object Schema | Database | Folder |
Object Type | Tables in the Database | 1 sheet of an Excel File |
Attributes | Columns of the Table | Columns of Excel file |
References | Relationships of the tabels | Links in the cells |
Objects | Data in the table rows | Data in each row of the sheet |
Label attribute | N/A | N/A |
Identifier attribute | Primary Key of the table | N/A |
The labels and identifiers are special to Assets. They can be different for each object type. For example, in the Microsoft Intune schema they are as follows:
Object Type | Label attribute | Identifier attribute |
|---|---|---|
Managed Devices | Device Name (deviceName) | ID (id) |
Users | Name (userDisplayName) | UserID (userID) |
The purpose of setting Device Name and Name as Labels is to display them in Assets custom fields in a user-friendly way.
Asset custom fields have nice search features. It is possible to allow users to search across multiple attributes.
You may find 2 Assets Custom Field examples below:
https://piosoftware.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/WS/pages/44466177
https://piosoftware.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/WS/pages/673120257
In these examples, you will find how to use multiple attributes as search options.