Swapping a device

SECURITY  Security level with access to CRM and object permissions to add, edit, and delete devices for organizations to which you have access

SECURITY  To request an RMA, Can request RMA Contract security settings enabled.

NAVIGATION   > CRM > Search > Devices > context menu

NAVIGATION   > CRM > Search > Organizations > Organization page > Devices accessory tab > context menu

NAVIGATION   > Contracts > Search > Contracts > context menu () > View Contract > Devices > right-click menu

NAVIGATION  Dashboard > Device drill-in tables and widgets

NOTE   To use the Swap Device Your Autotask instance may be configured to use one of the following terms instead: Asset, Configuration Item, Installed Asset, Installed Product. Wizard, you must use the Autotask Inventory module to manage the items that you will use as replacements. For information on the Inventory module, refer to Introduction to Inventory.

The Swap Device Wizard allows you to replace a device with a stocked item from your inventory, and to put the outgoing device back into your inventory. All non-posted subscriptions and all current contract associations will be transferred to the incoming device. All existing tickets for the outgoing device will remain associated with the outgoing device, unless otherwise specified.

To swap devices, do the following:

  1. Launch the Swap Device Wizard. To open the page, use the path(s) in the Security and navigation section above.
  2. Populate the following fields:
Field Description
Page 1: Identify outgoing and incoming device
Name, Serial Number, Reference Number, Reference Name The wizard displays the Name, Serial Number, Reference Number, and Reference Name of the device you want to replace. Take a minute to review this information to be sure that you have selected the correct item. For field descriptions, refer to Device field descriptions.
Radio buttons

Select what to do with the outgoing device:

  • If you select Put this device back in my inventory, the wizard will return the outgoing device to your inventory. Choose this option if the device can be reused.
  • If you select Do not put this device back in my inventory, the device is not returned to inventory. Choose this option if the device is broken or obsolete.
Inventory Product Select an Inventory Product for the incoming device.

The Incoming Device (replace with) field is not required. This allows you to swap out a device without replacing it. You can still return the device to Inventory. If you leave the field blank, the device will be deactivated. The automated tasks that are required when the outgoing item is replaced are modified or eliminated.

Stocked Item

If the inventory product is serialized, you must select a specific Stocked Item to replace the outgoing device with.
Page 2: Confirm or add information about outgoing device
(this step will appear only if you selected "Put this device back in my inventory" on page 1)

NOTE  If the outgoing device is already associated with a stocked item, all fields on this page will be filled with the stocked item's existing data and will be disabled, except for Return Type, Determine New Price Using..., and New Price.

Vendor

A vendor is an organization Your Autotask instance may be configured to use one of the following terms instead: Account, Business Unit, Client Company, Customer, Site. whose primary business relationship with your company is to provide goods and services.

  • Products can be associated with multiple vendors, one of which is designated as the default vendor.
  • All other entities that reference a product vendor are associated with one specific vendor (the one from which the item was actually purchased). The field will default to the Product Default Vendor, but additional Product Vendors (associated with the product) and Other Vendors (not associated with the product) are available from the dropdown menu.
  • Services can only have one vendor. If you change the vendor of a service, contracts that include the service will reference the new vendor as of the next billing period.

Vendor Invoice Number

The Vendor Invoice Number is associated with purchase order items when they are received into Autotask as stocked items. The same vendor invoice number is assigned to all purchase order items that are received in the same shipment. If a purchase order item is partially received over multiple shipments, it may have multiple associated vendor invoice numbers.

On the purchase order, the Vendor Invoice # field becomes read-only when the first item on the purchase order has been received. It will contain all vendor invoice numbers associated with all purchase order items that are part of the purchase order, separated by commas.

This field is required if the Require Vendor Invoice Number on received purchase order items and when manually adding stocked items to inventory system setting is enabled.

Return Type

When you are adding new stocked items, this field defaults to None, indicating that the item you are adding is a new item. When the item is returned to inventory, the field defaults to Returned. Manually select from one of the following:

  • Returned
  • Refurbished
  • Clearance Item

Serial Number

 If the outgoing device is serialized, confirm or enter the serial number that is being returned to, or entered into, inventory.

NOTE  You can use the serial number field to set up a system to track items returned to Inventory. One option is to add a prefix or suffix to the Inventory Product serial number when the item is returned. In this way, the base serial number remains the same and you have a consistent system to track items that have been swapped back into inventory. Another method to track returned items is to set up a unique inventory location for returns. This method can be used with non-serialized items as well.

Determine Cost Using...

This field is required. Select the method of determining the cost of the stocked items you are adding from the following options:

  • Blank (default): if this option is selected, the Cost field will be cleared and disabled.
  • Average cost for this Product: if this option is selected, the Cost field will be populated automatically.
  • Catalog cost for this Product: if this option is selected, the Cost field will be populated automatically.
  • Cost of last instance of this Product received/added: if this option is selected, the Cost field will be populated automatically.
  • Manual entry: if this option is selected, the Cost field will be cleared and enabled, and you must manually enter the cost of the stocked item.

Cost per item

This field is enabled if Manual entry was selected in the Determine Cost using... field. It refers to the cost of an individual stocked item. On the Inventory Item Import Template, it is required on rows that include stocked items.

For serialized items, it refers to the cost per individual stocked item. For non-serialized items, it refers to the cost per unit.

EXAMPLE  For serialized laptops, this is the cost of each specific laptop. For a non-serialized roll of CAT-5 cable, it is the cost per yard.

The cost is used when stocked items are quoted or picked, and in profit reporting. If Multi-currency is enabled, the cost is stored in the internal currency.

Determine New Price Using...

This field is required if enabled. Select the method of determining the price of the stocked item to be created:

  • Blank (default): if this option is selected, the Price field will be cleared and disabled.
  • Cost of items: if this option is selected, the Price field will be populated automatically.
  • Percentage of cost of items: if this option is selected, you must enter a percentage value into the Percentage field, and the Price field will be calculated.
  • Catalog price for this Product: if this option is selected, the Price field will be populated automatically.
  • Percentage of catalog price for this product: if this option is selected, you must enter a percentage value into the Percentage field, and the Price field will be calculated.
  • Manual entry: if this option is selected, the Price field will be cleared and enabled, and you must manually enter the price of the stocked item.

Percentage

This field will only appear if Percentage of cost of items or Percentage of catalog price for this item was selected in the field above. Enter the percentage to use to calculate the New Price field.

New Price

Depending on selections in the previous fields, the new price of the outgoing device that is being returned to inventory may be direct entry or calculated.
Page 3: Associate the Outgoing Device with an Inventory Product
(this step will appear only if you selected "Put this device back in my inventory" on page 1)
Before the outgoing device can be placed in your inventory, you must associate it with an existing inventory product or create a new one. The On Hand quantity of the selected/created inventory product will be increased by 1 (if selecting an existing inventory product) or set to 1 (if creating a new inventory product).
Select an Existing Inventory Product (for outgoing device) If the device's product is based on a product you are tracking in your inventory, click the icon next to the Inventory Product field and select the appropriate one. The dropdown list will contain the inventory product that shares a product with the device, in all inventory locations.
Create a New Inventory Product (for outgoing device) Selecting this option activates the Inventory Location, Reference Number, and Bin fields. A new inventory product is added based on the device's product.

If you do not have permission to add inventory products, this option is unavailable.

Product Name

The product name for the new stocked item cannot be changed.
Inventory Location (required) From the menu, select an inventory location for the new stocked item.
Reference Number

Reference numbers work like serial numbers, but you can assign them by using your own system. Reference numbers are not required by product categories. You can report on this field by using standard reports or LiveReports (refer to Reports on products that are associated with customer organizations as devices).

Bin

This field tracks the sub-location for the inventory product. Similar to inventory locations, bin designations are specific to your inventory system.
Page 4: Manage Open Tickets Associated with the Outgoing Item
(you will see this page if the outgoing device is associated with one or more open tickets)
This page of the wizard displays a list of all open tickets associated with the outgoing device. The list is sorted by ticket number, but you can click a different column heading to sort the list by that column.

Radio buttons

Select what to do with tickets associated with the outgoing devices:

  • Complete sets the ticket status to Complete and adds a note to the ticket.
  • Associate with Incoming Product replaces the outgoing device on the ticket with the incoming device and adds a note to the ticket. This option is available only when you are replacing the outgoing device.
  • Do Nothing causes the outgoing Device to remain associated with the ticket, and the ticket status to remain as is.

NOTE  A right-click menu allows you to select one option to apply to all tickets in the list.
Ticket Number, Title The list includes the ticket number and title. If the ticket has been outsourced, the text "[Outsourced to <companyname>]" appears after the title.

NOTE  Hover over the Ticket Number or Title to display a text box that contains the first 500 characters of the ticket Description field.

Pages 5 and 6: Notification
Refer to Generating a manual notification.
Page 7: Summary of Actions to Perform
The Summary of Actions to Perform list displays all the actions that the wizard will perform when you click Finish.
  1. Click Finish.

IMPORTANT  Once you click Finish, the wizard will complete the listed actions. There is no undo.

When you complete the Swap Device Wizard, if you replaced the outgoing device with an incoming item, the incoming device will replace the outgoing device in all features in Autotask including contracts, subscriptions, and service or service bundle associations. You will see changes in the following areas of Autotask:

Outgoing device

If you put the outgoing device back into inventory on page 1, if the device is associated with a stocked item, the following will happen when you click Finish:

  • The status of the stocked item is set to Available.
  • The return type of the stocked item is set to the value in the Return Type field on page 2.
  • The Returned Item Price of the stocked item is set to the value in the New Price field on page 2.
  • The relationship between the outgoing stocked item and its old device, its charge (if it had one), and its quote (if it had one) is cleared.

If the device was not associated with a stocked item, a new stocked item is created with the values you entered in the wizard.

With both options, the following will also happen:

  • An entry will be added to Inventory Transfers & Updates to indicate that the device was returned to Inventory. The Inventory Transfers and Updates entry will include the Project Name, Contract Name, or Ticket Number the item was transferred from, along with the associated Organization Name; if the item was not associated with a project, contract or ticket, only the Organization Name appears. In addition, the row displays the inventory location the device was transferred to, the Product Name of the item, Quantity returned to Inventory, Serial Numbers of returned items, a Transfer Note, the Transfer Date, and what resource transferred the item.
  • If the outgoing device was returned to Inventory, it is available for installation to another organization or re-installation to the same organization. It appears in the Inventory Product data selector when running the Swap Device Wizard.
  • If the outgoing item was returned to inventory, is serialized, and was originally transferred from inventory to the organization as a ticket or project charge, a note is added to the original Inventory Transfers & Updates record to indicate that the item has been returned to inventory and when. Note that the time will reflect the time zone of the default organization internal location settings.
  • If the outgoing item was returned to inventory, is serialized, and was originally transferred from inventory to the organization as a ticket or project Charge, the Inventory Product, Quantity, and Serial Number associated with the charge cannot be edited.

NOTE  Once you swap out a device, you cannot re-activate it. The Swap Device Wizard option is unavailable for this item because it has already been swapped. A note is added to the Notes field on the Device page indicating that the part was replaced, who replaced it, and what device replaced it.

Incoming device

  • The incoming device is associated with the organization of the outgoing device. The device location, contacts, and terms from the outgoing device are transferred to the incoming device. All notes from the outgoing device are copied to the incoming device, excluding the note added by the wizard. A note is added to the incoming device detail indicating the date that the device was added, who added the item, and the name, model, and where applicable, the serial number of the item that this device replaced.
  • The device category of the incoming device is set to the default device category of the device's product. If it has not been set, the system default is used.
  • The incoming device appears in the list of devices for any contracts that the device is associated with.
  • Active and inactive subscriptions are transferred from the outgoing device. Canceled subscriptions are not transferred.
  • A note is added to any ticket that was completed by the wizard or, if the outgoing item was replaced, transferred to the incoming device. The Note Title will always be Device Swapped - [Device Name], and the note will be published to All Autotask Users, so this note will appear in Client Portal. The Note Date will be the date/time that the user clicked Finish on the Swap Device Wizard, and the Resource Name will be the name of the person who ran the wizard. The Note Description will contain information about the outgoing device and, where appropriate, the incoming device.
  • The available units on the stocked item for the incoming device will be reduced by 1, and the delivered units increased by 1. If the stocked item is serialized, it will be set as Delivered.
  • If the outgoing device is replaced, an entry will be added to Inventory Transfers & Updates to indicate that the stocked item selected as the incoming device was transferred to its current organization from its original inventory location.