Overview of device management

Do you need to track devices?

A device (also known as an asset, configuration item, installed asset, installed product) is a product from your product list that is associated with one of your customers.

While you can manually associate devices with a customer, most Autotask customers use configuration management in conjunction with Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software. When there is an issue with a device and the monitoring software triggers an alert, an Autotask ticket is automatically created with the related device information already filled in.

Instead of an alert email that has to be manually triaged, Autotask does the following:

• The Autotask Workflow Engine allows you to automatically move alert tickets into the right queues, based on a number of parameters, including issue types, device categories, device types, and organizations.
• A billing contract can automatically be applied to the ticket.
• If you have a Service Level Agreement with the customer, it can be applied through the contract, and due dates can automatically be determined based on priority.

In short, the once unmanageable task of applying complicated billing rules and SLAs to every single alert ticket can be completely automated. For a list of applications that have integrated device tracking with Autotask, refer to Adding devices to your Autotask instance.

Even if you do not use Remote Monitoring, tracking devices lets you determine immediately if the device the customer wants you to support is a covered device, or if it is still under warranty.