Supercharge your JIRA installation with an IT asset management toolset

Introduction

Automatically adding asset data directly to tickets reduces call time and speeds resolution.

Using the xAssets IT asset management JIRA integration, you can configure your installation to display the data your technicians need - at a glance. Our deep discovery technology instantly provides crucial information such as hardware, software, classification, ownership, and location data.

Benefits include:

• Faster ticket registration
• Faster call resolution
• Improved service desk data accuracy
• Improved customer satisfaction

When tickets drag on longer than expected due to a lack of clarity, functionality or oversight, everyone loses. To make sure this doesn’t happen, your helpdesk teams need all the pertinent information for assessing and resolving issues in one place, in an easy-to-digest format.

A major component in how successful your IT teams will be in dealing with end-user issues is how quickly they can assess the problem and take the most appropriate action. To do this, they need all the pertinent information in one place, in an easy-to-digest format.

Enter xAssets IT Asset Management

With xAssets ITAM, your helpdesk team can see far more than just user issues. The team can also view the following important information directly inside the end-user's helpdesk ticket:

• Asset details including OS and disk space
• Installed software
• User information
• Location and other classification information
• Hardware details
• Device manager
• Software licensing

Having immediate access to the above information speeds up problem diagnosis and resolution, ensures all stakeholders are fully aware of the issue (as well as the devices they are working with), and builds confidence with your end-users that their issues are being taken seriously.

Asset data can come from any data source. Although xAssets Discovery is a logical choice, you can also pull data from existing systems including:

• Intune (Microsoft Endpoint Manager)
• Microsoft SCCM
• JAMF
• Azure
• AWS
• Google Cloud
• Azure AD
• Local AD
• Ivanti ™

This also makes it possible to track asset reliability by type, make, model and any other classification fields.

What makes xAssets ITAM so special?

Many ITAM solutions either don't have their own asset discovery tool or they have a simplified solution which doesn't scan the endpoints with enough detail. In addition, many ITAM tools do not offer the prebuilt integrations which xAssets provides.

Without the means to reliably gather asset data from all relevant data sources, your helpdesk team is left depending on the end-user to fill in the gaps. And because end-users often aren't technical staff conversant in what systems they're using and what software and licensing they have installed, this can cause real headaches for your support teams.

xAssets ITAM addresses this by automatically populating your service desk tickets with all the end-user data your technical support staff requires.

Its agentless, deep-discovery technology provides a wealth of asset information about the end-user's system. This includes:

• OS, warranty dates, location, user, domain, serial, IP and computername
• Disks and disk space
• Installed software
• Make and Model
• CPU and Memory
• Motherboard make, model, serial, and BIOS type and version
• Peripherals and printers

By having immediate access to both the problem description and the end-user's system information, your helpdesk team spends less time on calls and can resolve outstanding user issues more quickly.

A more proactive approach to problem management

Take this real-world example using the xAssets ITAM integration for JIRA:

An end-user has raised a ticket for a non-specific performance issue. The classic “everything just seems to be running so slowly” issue.

When reviewing the problem description, the call handler can see - at a glance - what machine has been allocated to the user (laptop or desktop), what OS (operating system) they are using, the amount of memory (RAM) installed, what software they are using, and hard drive size and space.

The technician now also notices that the affected machine is an older machine and the warranty has expired.

Rather than spend time trying to diagnose and resolve issues for an older, low-spec, out-of-warranty machine, it would be more efficient to retire the user's computer and replace it with another more up-to-date model.

In this way, valuable resources can be better managed, the service desk queues can be cleared more quickly, and the end-user comes away with a better user experience.

This what we are aiming for. A better managed, more agile working environment, with faster call resolution, where everyone comes out ahead.

Made to measure - just as it should be

When setting up the xAssets JIRA integration, each installation is configured to the customer's requirements, so only the most relevant information is displayed. This saves time and makes both ticket submission and tracking more efficient.

Take this example:

After the end-user has created the ticket, we see that the xAssets ITAM integration for JIRA has populated a pre-defined, fully bespoke set of information on the user's system.

Keeping with our ticket scenario above, we can quickly see that the end-user has a Dell Latitude running Windows 10. We can also clearly see that it was purchased in 2016 and the warranty expired in 2019. This laptop is due for disposal.

Let's also have a look at installed software:

Here we can see that the user runs a number of business-related tools, some of which are very system intensive. Again, the user and the business would both be better served by retiring this machine and replacing it with a more up-to-date asset. Otherwise, your helpdesk technicians are just going to waste valuable time trying to offer suggestions for tweaking performance on a laptop that's no longer a viable business asset.

Configurable

The above example is just one way the xAssets JIRA integration can be realized.

The information displayed in tickets can be individually tailored to suit any given company's needs. The xAssets ITAM integration can even be used to populate other JIRA fields with asset information as an alternative to the asset panel in our example here.

This means that a single implementation can have assets from different sources. For example, all of the following could shown in JIRA:

• Laptop, desktop and server data from Intune or SCCM
• Azure servers
• Amazon AWS servers
• User details from Azure AD or local AD
• Mobile assets from JAMF
• Desktop Cisco IP phones plus firewalls, routers, switches and other SNMP equipment can appear in JIRA from xAssets Discovery

Automatically Allocating Tickets

In many business scenarios, tickets will usually be raised against the user's "main asset". I.e. their desktop or laptop.

xAssets JIRA integration can be configured to automatically assign the users "main asset" as soon as the ticket is created. This means that your technicians can immediately see the selected asset during ticket creation, and this saves time because the technician or user (whoever creates the ticket) does not need to go through a pick list of the user's assets to decide which one to allocate

In this setup it is still possible to choose a different asset with some simple manual steps

Conclusion

Although JIRA Service Desk is a powerful helpdesk solution in its own right, in this article we demonstrated how you can expand and enrich its potential with the xAssets ITAM integration for JIRA.

By leveraging the power of your own highly configurable, bespoke integration, you can easily see all pertinent asset information in every helpdesk ticket your users submit.

This gives your helpdesk team a solid overview of not just the reported issue, but the hardware being used, installed software and level of licensing as well as other system information needed for a speedy and efficient resolution of end-user issues.

Contact us to find out how xAssets can help you get more out of JIRA