Asset managers often need to update the properties of a group of assets. Updating these assets one at a time can be tiresome, especially if there are more than a handful of assets to update. One or more properties of assets in Freshservice can be updated in bulk using the Bulk Update option. 


This solution covers the following:


Bulk Update basics

You can select the assets you want to update and click on the Bulk Update option. Follow the steps below to bulk update assets in Freshservice:

  1. Navigate to Assets and click on Inventory.
  2. Select the assets you want to update.
  3. Click on Bulk Update to open the pop-up window.
  4. The pop-up window lists all the fields that can be updated for the selected assets.
  5. Choose a value for a specific field, and it will be marked for updating.
  6. Clicking Update.

    Updating Assets in Bulk

Clearing the values in fields

To clear the value in a particular field for multiple assets using the Bulk Update feature in Freshservice, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Assets and click on Inventory.
  2. Select the assets you want to update.
  3. Click on Bulk Update to open the pop-up window.
  4. In the pop-up window that appears, select the checkbox for the field you want to clear, but do not select any value.
  5. Click Update to apply the changes to all selected assets.

    Clearing values using Bulk Update

For instance, if you want to clear the Company field for all selected assets, select the Company checkbox but do not select any value. Once you click Update, the Company field will be cleared for all selected assets.


To know what fields were updated for an asset, kindly click on the particular asset and navigate to the asset activity.




 


Properties that can be updated in bulk

The fields available for update in the Bulk Update pop-up are based on the selected view. For example, from the All Assets view (default), only the common fields such as Location, Department, and Asset Type will be available for editing. 


If the list of assets is filtered based on Asset type, then the fields relevant to the asset type are displayed. For example, if the list is filtered by Asset type, say Hardware, then the Hardware properties will also be available for update. 


Fields available in Bulk Update

The following field types are available in Bulk Update. Any custom fields of the following types will also be available for update in bulk.

  • Dropdown fields
  • Nested fields
  • Date fields

Changing the Asset Type in Bulk Update

You can also change the asset type of multiple assets using Bulk Update. However, changing the Asset type of multiple assets may result in information loss from some asset fields. 

  • Upon selecting a new asset type in the bulk update pop-up, you will get a confirmation that some field data may be lost 
  • The bulk update form will then be reset, and all the fields relevant to the new asset type selected will be displayed
  • Some fields may be mandatory for the new asset type selected. For example, selecting the Desktop asset type will make the fields of Product, Vendor, and Asset State mandatory. These fields will be selected by default, and you can only complete the bulk update by updating these values
  • If there are some common properties between the old and new asset types, these will be retained for each of the selected assets. For example, the used by, location, department, etc. will not be overwritten because the asset type has been modified.


Faq's


1. What should I do if I want to delete an asset type but I'm informed that I must remove all assets assigned to that type first?


You would require to remove all the assets which is associated with this particular asset type, sometimes if you have the respective assets in the trash the issue will still be faced.

To delete from trash, click on the 3 lines in the asset inventory from the top left corner--> And click on Trash from the list.



2. How to update the managed by group of the assets in bulk?


Navigate to the Admin section, then select Workflow Automator, and click on Scheduled Workflow. From there, choose New Workflow and set the module to assets. Define the event and conditions based on your specific use-case. Next, configure the action node according to the image provided below and assign it to the relevant group.