TrackIT: a system for tracking and managing company IT equipment

Task

Client: A company with several sites and an IT equipment warehouse

Laptops, monitors and phones were tracked in several spreadsheets kept by different people. When a device moved from one employee to another or back to the warehouse, the records were updated late, and sometimes not at all.

An inventory check turned into days of comparing spreadsheets with reality. Handover forms were filled in on paper, and requests to accounting to register new equipment were sent by email and got lost.

The client needed one system that shows where every device is and who has it, with documents and requests generated on their own.

Goals

1. 01 Bring all equipment into one register with detailed data on every device
2. 02 Track movements between employees and warehouses
3. 03 Generate requests to accounting to register assets automatically
4. 04 Run inventory checks and reconciliations in the system
5. 05 Generate documents to be signed by an employee and the warehouse
6. 06 Provide reports on equipment use and movements

Solution

• IT equipment register

  Accounting for all company devices in one place, including detailed data on each device for simple and convenient management

• Tracking movements

  The system allows you to track the movement of equipment between employees and warehouses, ensuring full logistics transparency

• Automation of applications

  Automatic formation of applications to the accounting department for adding assets to the account, simplifying the inventory management process

• Support for inventories

  Conducting inventories and reconciliations, allowing you to quickly update data on the status and location of equipment

  
• Document management

  Generation and management of documents for signing between employees and the warehouse, which reduces paperwork and simplifies the workflow

• Analytics and reporting

  The platform collects and analyzes data on the use and movement of equipment, providing reports for optimizing asset management

Timeline

1. Month 1

   Requirements, design and specification

   Warehouse, IT and accounting processes worked out, design mockups, a technical specification and the data exchange with the accounting system.

2. Months 2–3

   Register and movements

   The equipment register, device cards, movements, import from the old spreadsheets. A demo every 2 weeks; by the end of month three, a working version on the staging server.

3. Month 4

   Inventory checks, documents and requests

   Inventory checks and reconciliations, documents for signing, automatic requests to accounting, reports.

4. Month 5

   Testing and launch

   A trial inventory check at one site, functional testing, launch at all sites and a 6-month warranty.

What was hard

• Moving data from spreadsheets

  The old spreadsheets contradicted each other. We built an import with a report of mismatches, so the client sorted out the disputed records before the launch, not after it.

• The history of every device

  It matters not only where a device is now but whose hands it has passed through. Every movement is stored as an event, and the current state and reports are built from the events.

• Exchange with accounting

  The accounting system accepted data in its own format. The exchange is a separate module with a log, so every request is visible with its delivery status.

Result

• All equipment is tracked in one system instead of scattered spreadsheets
• At any moment you can see where a device is and who has it
• Inventory checks run in the system, and mismatches show up at once
• Documents for signing and requests to accounting are generated automatically

Technologies

• Svelte
• Python
• FastAPI
• PostgreSQL
• Docker