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Creating attributes for IT Asset Management (ITAM)
Assets in Jira Service Management is a Premium and Enterprise only feature. Learn more about Assets.
How to use this guide
This step-by-step guide will walk you through creating attributes and references in Assets.
Each step will include detailed instructions about how to use Assets in Jira Service Management, and also some tips and best practices about how to get the most out of this powerful feature when using it as part of your team’s IT Asset Management (ITAM) process.
There are two types of information in this guide:
The headers with the blue background will help you get started in Assets. They will provide you with information about each step in the guide, including examples of data and how each feature can be used.
The text with the white background will give you a series of steps to help you navigate through Assets, or it will contain detailed information about an Assets concept.
And some notes about the text:
Information in bold indicates text that you will find in Assets itself, such as the name of a menu option, a feature you can toggle on and off, or a button.
Information in code is text that’s part of our example object schema for IT Asset Management (ITAM).
Information in bold italics is a concept or idea that forms an important part of Assets.
Understanding attributes
Now that we have created an object schema and some object types, it’s time to flesh out the details of our objects with some attributes.
An attribute is a specific detail that is attached to an object, such as a description of that object, its model number, another associated object, or a user assigned as the object’s owner.
Every object includes four default attributes that appear when the object is created:
Name - this text attribute is created by default. If you wish, you can configure the name of an object to be unique. Find out more about setting unique values. You can change which attribute contains the name of the object by selecting that attribute to be the label.
Key - a unique identifier for this object. You cannot change the key after the object has been created. The object key is based on the object schema key, plus a unique identifying integer. If you are creating multiple objects, the keys of these objects may not always be sequential.
Created - the date and time the object was created. This attribute cannot be modified.
Updated - the date and time the object was last modified. This attribute is updated whenever an object or one of it's attributes is changed.
Attributes can hold many different types of information – text values, numerical values, a status, or even references to other objects. They can also be customised to hold very specific information, such as a post code, a certain pattern of strings, an object of a particular type, or a mandatory value. Find out more about different attribute types.
Working with attribute types
Attributes are described by their attribute type, which determines what kind of information each attribute can hold.
An attribute type determines what kind of information can be held in an attribute - text or number information, references to other objects, users or groups, projects, statuses, or links to a Bitbucket repository.
Attributes are divided into seven groups: Default, Object, User, Group, Project, Status, and Bitbucket repository.
Default attribute types - contains a persistent value, such as a string of text, a number, or a URL. There are several subtypes:
Text - contains normal text such as Dell W385553 with a maximum length of 255 characters. Text attribute types can include a suffix. Learn more about suffixes. Text, email or URL attribute types can be configured with a regular expression. Learn more about validating attributes with a regular expression. Text attributes can be configured to be unique.Learn more about configuring a text attribute to be unique.
Boolean - contains a yes or no value, such as true. Can only contain a true or false value.
Integer - contains an integer number, such as 42, from a minimum value of -2,147,483,648 to a maximum value of +2,147,483,647. Integer attribute types can be configured to show the sum of other attributes. Learn more about configuring an integer or float attribute type to display a sum.
Float - contains a number with a decimal, such as 42.01. Float attribute types can be configured to show the sum of other attributes. Learn more about configuring an integer or float attribute type to display a sum.
Date - contains a date, such as 13/Feb/23. The date will be formatted and offset according to the language and time zone configured in your Atlassian account settings.
DateTime - contains a date and time, such as 13/Feb/23 4:06 AM. The date and time will be formatted and offset according to the language and time zone configured in your Atlassian account settings.
URL - the URL contains a URL field, such as www.google.com. Text, email or URL attribute types can be configured with a regular expression. Any URL attributes must start with the prefix http:// or htps://. Learn more about validating attributes with a regular expression.
Email - contains an email field, such as support@atlassian.com. Text, email or URL attribute types can be configured with a regular expression. Learn more about validating attributes with a regular expression.
Textarea - contains a larger section of text with a maximum of one million characters, including line breaks and formatting. You can use the Assets rich editor to customise the content.
Select - contains one or more text values that can be selected as discrete options, such as Laptop, Keyboard, and Server.
IP Address - contains an IP address (IPv4), such as 192.168.1.1..
Object attribute type - contain a reference to another object. For more information, see References. The maximum or minimum number of objects contained in this attribute type can be configured. Learn more about cardinality. You can also filter the possible objects that can be linked here using AQL. Learn more about filtering the value of references using AQL.
User attribute type - contains a link to a Jira user. Assets will automatically detect all Jira users that you have permission to view.
Group attribute type - contains a link to a Jira group. Assets will automatically detect all Jira groups that you have permission to view.
Project attribute type - contains a Jira project. Assets will automatically detect any project that your account has permission to access. Learn more about permissions.
Status attribute type - contains a status. Statuses are selected from a combined list of global and object-schema-specific statuses. The selected statuses will appear as options for this attribute; if no statuses are selected the entire list will be available.
Bitbucket attribute type - contains a link to a Bitbucket repository. Assets will automatically detect any repository your account has permission to access. Learn more about adding a Bitbucket repository to an attribute.
Creating attributes
Let’s create some new attributes for the object type that we created in the previous guide - Hardware assets.
Remember, because we have Hardware assets set to inherit attributes to it’s children any new attributes we create in the parent object type will be passed onto the child object types.
Let’s create the following attributes. Each has a defined attribute type:
Asset tag (Default/Text) will contain the label or tag of the IT asset.
Serial number (Default/Text) will contain the serial number.
PO number (Default/Text)
Invoice number (Default/Text)
Lease contract (Default/Text)
Maintenance contract (Default/Text) will contain the contract for future/ongoing maintenance.
Purchase date (DateTime)
Refresh date (DateTime)
Last scan date (DateTime)
Ownership type (Select)
Owner group (Text)
Device type (Default/Select)
OS Version (Default/Text)
Support group (Default/Text)
Operational status (Status)
Status (Status)
Device type (Select)
But what about our other parent object type - Models? Because the information we have for these is fairly abstract, we’re stay with the four default attributes created when we created the object type:
Key
Name
Created
Updated
We can always add more attribute types if we want in the future!
To create an attribute, you must be logged in as a Jira admin or have Object Schema Manager permissions.
Select Assets in the top navigation bar.
Select Object schemas.
Select the relevant object schema.
Select the relevant object type.
Select Attributes.
In the listing of attributes, enter a Name, Description, Type and Type Value.
Select Add.
Creating attributes for child object types
Now let’s add some attributes that are specific to only the child object types. Remember, child object types with inheritance enabled will inherit all of their parent’s attributes, as well.
For the Phone object type we will add two attributes:
IMEI (Default/Text)
Phone number (Default/Text)
For the Server object type we will add two different attributes:
IP Address (Default/Text)
Domain name (Default/Text)
You’ll notice that attributes inherited from a parent are marked with an icon, while attributes unique to that object type are unmarked.
And now we’ll configure unique attributes for the child object types of Models:
For Hardware models:
Category (Object/Model categories)
Model ID (Default/Text)
Bar code (Default/Text)
Description (Default/Text)
Product information (Default/Text Area)
Unit Price (Default/Integer)
Status (Default/Status)
For Model categories we don’t add anything new!
And for Software models, we add a specific attribute for the version of the software:
Version (Default/Text)
To create an attribute, you must be logged in as a Jira admin or have Object Schema Manager permissions.
Select Assets in the top navigation bar.
Select Object schemas.
Select the relevant object schema.
Select the relevant object type.
Select Attributes.
In the listing of attributes, enter a Name, Description, Type and Type Value.
Select Add.
Understanding references
A reference is a unique type of attribute that holds a link to another object. It’s an attribute that holds a link to another object - but doesn’t hold the object itself!
References are how we connect objects in Assets into a very useful web of information.
A reference is a connection between two different objects in Assets. Each object in Assets can be connected to many other objects, not directly, but through attributes containing references to other objects.
An Assets object schema can contain an enormous number of total references. This makes Assets a powerful tool that can provide rich context about objects and their inter-relationships.
Because each reference is a link between an object and an attribute on another object, they are divided into two types: outbound references and inbound references.
Outbound references point from the current object to another object, while inbound references point from another object towards the current object. The direction of a reference is relative; it will change depending on which object you are examining.
Additionally, each reference can have a reference type, which describes the type of relationship between two objects. This could be a ‘Dependency’, ‘Link’, ‘Replaced By’, or any custom value, and provides another dimension of detail that you can use to manage complex networks.
Adding a reference
Now, let’s add a single reference to connect our Hardware assets objects and our Models objects. This means we can find information about each of our pieces of hardware in our inventory, but we’re not duplicating technical specifications or details multiple times.
We’ll call this reference Model Name and it will be of the object type Hardware models. We’ll connect the two with the Reference type Reference, which is one of the default reference types included with Assets.
To create a reference, you must be logged in as a Jira admin or have Object Schema Manager permissions.
Select Assets in the top navigation bar.
Select Object schemas.
Select the relevant object schema.
Select the relevant object type.
Select Attributes.
In the listing of attributes, enter a Name and Description.
Under Type and select Object.
Under Type value, select the object type you wish to reference.
Under Additional value, select the Reference type you want to connect this reference.
Select Add.
Good work!
We’ve now added attributes to our object schema, and we’ve created them in such a way that some information is shared between object types - via inheritance - and some is unique to each object type.
We’ve also included references, which are very important for connecting objects together.
Next, let’s move onto the next section in the guide: Configuring an object schema for IT Asset Management (ITAM).
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