Assets Management
A register of what the company hands out, an approved assignment of each asset to a person, a receipt they confirm themselves, and the record of who holds what now, who held it before, and what has come back.
What it is
Assets Management is where a company keeps track of the things it hands to its people — a laptop, a door card, a software seat, a set of keys, the staff handbook. You build a register of those assets, assign them to one or more people through an approval workflow, each person confirms receipt themselves, and when an asset comes back (or is lost, or an access is withdrawn) you record that too. The result is a live answer to the questions that otherwise live in a spreadsheet: who has this laptop right now, who had it before, what does this person still hold, and who has left the company with something they never returned.
This module was called Onboarding until October 2026. Everything it did — assign items to a new joiner, approve, acknowledge — still works exactly as before; the register, the one-holder rule, returns and the reports are what the rename added. Old links to …/onboarding-management/… redirect.
Screens
- Overview — a landing page that adapts to your role. A holder sees their own assets and what is waiting on them; an approver sees requests waiting on them; an administrator sees the figures: assets on the register, live assignments, people holding something, pending requests, assets returned in the last 30 days, and leavers who still hold assets, broken down by category and by standing.
- My Assets — the holder's own list: what was assigned to them to confirm, and what they have already handed back.
- Asset Register — every asset the company owns in this sense, with its category, tag, who holds it now and its full history.
- Assignment Requests — one list for everyone: All shows the requests you raised or that are about you (the whole company's if you hold an assets permission), Awaiting me shows the ones waiting on you.
- Assignments Report — every assignment ever made, filterable and exportable (see Reporting).
- Forge workflow — the approval chain an assignment runs through, and the emails its steps send.
The asset register
An entry on the register is one thing you hand to people. Give it a name, a category from a fixed list (Laptop, Desktop computer, Phone, Tablet, Monitor & peripherals, Access card / key fob, ID card, Key, Software licence, Account / system access, Vehicle, Furniture, Uniform & apparel, Documents & handbooks, Tools & equipment, Other), an optional tag or serial number (unique in your company, so the register can tell two identical laptops apart), a description, and whether it is a one-holder asset.
One holder at a time is for physical things that sit with one person — a laptop, a key, a door card. Hubtoll refuses to assign such an asset to a second person while the first still holds it, or while a request for it is still awaiting approval, and refuses to put it on one request for several people. Leave it off for things many people get at once, like the staff handbook or a licence seat.
The register entry's own page shows who holds it right now, whether a one-holder asset is available, how many times it has been assigned, and every assignment ever made of it. Retire an entry to stop offering it without touching the records it already sits on; an entry that has ever been assigned cannot be deleted, because its history is part of other people's records.
Assigning assets
- Click Assign Assets.
- Choose who gets them — search your team and add one or more people. Everyone you add gets the same assets, each as their own request.
- Pick the assets. Each tile shows the category and tag. A one-holder asset that somebody already has is greyed out with the holder's name; a multi-holder asset someone already holds shows a warning but can still be re-issued (a lost handbook is replaced that way).
- Submit — the request enters the approval workflow. Approvers act from Awaiting me or the dashboard's approvals card, where the row names the asset and its tag.
Once approved, the assets appear on each person's My Assets page. Editing an approved request raises a change request that replaces the original when it is approved; a change cannot add a one-holder asset that is with somebody else.
The holder's side
The person opens My Assets and sees everything assigned to them, with a live count of what they have confirmed. As they receive each asset they tick it Received (with an optional note — "charger missing", "screen scratched") and save. They can only confirm their own assets, only once the request is approved, and the receipt of an asset that has since been returned is part of the record and can no longer be changed.
Returns, losses and revoked access
When an asset comes back, or stops being with the person, an assets editor records it from the assignments report, the asset's page or the person's page: Returned, Access revoked (a licence or a door card withdrawn, nothing physical changing hands), Lost, or Returned damaged, with a note. The assignment closes, a one-holder asset becomes available again, and the person's page moves it from current to past. Return all on a person's page closes everything they hold in one step — what you reach for when someone leaves.
Every assignment has one of these standings, derived the same way everywhere: Awaiting approval, Rejected, Superseded (replaced by an approved change), Assigned (approved, not yet confirmed), In use (confirmed), Returned, Access revoked, Lost, Returned damaged.
Reporting
- Assignments Report — every assignment, with the asset, its category and tag, the holder, the standing, when it was assigned, confirmed and returned, the return reason and who recorded it. Filter by holder, asset, category, tag, standing, request status or any of the dates; Export CSV downloads what you see (up to 5 000 rows).
- A person's page — what they hold now and what they have had, with Return all, and a notice when the person has left (an approved exit, or a disabled account).
- An asset's page — its current holder(s) and its whole history.
- Leavers with assets — on the Overview: everyone who has left but still holds something, with what they hold. The thing to check before an exit is closed.
Permissions
| To… | You need |
|---|---|
| Maintain the asset register (add, edit, retire, delete) | ASSETS_MANAGEMENT_REGISTER_EDITOR or ASSETS_MANAGEMENT_EDITOR |
| Assign assets to people | ASSETS_MANAGEMENT_INITIATOR or ASSETS_MANAGEMENT_EDITOR |
| Record a return, a loss or revoked access | ASSETS_MANAGEMENT_EDITOR |
| Approve assignments | Whoever your approval workflow routes the step to — no dedicated permission (the workflow decides each approver) |
| See the whole company's requests, the register, the assignments report, people's pages and the leavers list | ASSETS_MANAGEMENT_READONLY (everyone always sees their own requests and their own assets) |
| Confirm receipt of your own assets | Any licensed member (self-service) |
| Design the approval workflow, its form fields and emails | ASSETS_MANAGEMENT_WORKFLOW_EDITOR (read with ASSETS_MANAGEMENT_WORKFLOW_READONLY) |
All actions require an active HR licence.
Good to know
- You need an active assets workflow before you can assign anything.
- A tag or serial is optional, but once given it must be unique in your company — that is what lets the register tell two identical laptops apart.
- A one-holder asset cannot be with two people, or on two open requests, at once. Record its return first.
- People confirm receipt only on an approved request, and only for themselves; a returned asset's receipt can no longer be changed.
- The workflow's conditions and emails speak
asset.*: the assignee and their email, the requester, the number of assets, their names, categories and tags, whether a one-holder asset is included, and whether this is a change request.
Continue reading
Reach the Hubtoll team on WhatsApp or email cloud@digitalvortextech.org. We usually reply within a few hours (Mon–Fri, 8:00–19:00 GMT).