Getting Started

When your Snipe-IT installation is first set up, it can be a little overwhelming to figure out where to get started.

The first place to start is usually your Admin Settings. We go through each of the specific admin options one by one in the Admin Settings section (and sub-sections) of this documentation, but that's where you can set your branding (logo, etc), alert preferences, LDAP configuration, two-factor authentication and so on.

Once you've gotten your settings all sorted, you'll want to think through exactly how your workflow currently functions, and what that should look like in Snipe-IT.

A common setup will have Assets being checked out to People, however you can also check out Assets to Locations and other Assets. (That last one can get a little confusing, so we generally don't recommend it outside of very specific and already-established workflows.)

If you've already been using something (even spreadsheets) to keep track of your asset data, you probably already have a workflow of sorts, even if it's something very straightforward (and perhaps not even officially formalized), such as:

• New employee is hired
• Asset(s) are assigned to them
• System is updated to reflect who the Asset is checked out to
• Employee leaves, turns in Assets during final interviews
• Asset is marked as "Pending Imaging" and added to the queue to be backed up/wiped
• Asset imaging is completed, Asset is put back into circulation to be checked out to someone else

Some organizations will have different workflows, and Snipe-IT tries to be flexible enough to accommodate those as well. Additionally, how People and Assets get added into Snipe-IT may differ depending on your workflow. For example, for some organizations, this process is all manual (by choice). For others, they may use LDAP sync or rely heavily on importing assets to keep everything up to date. Even still others use the Snipe-IT API to automate some of these things to work with the other tools in their Asset Management toolchain.

New to Asset Management?

To figure out what workflow will be best for you, you'll need to examine what tools, IT support staff and other resources you have available to you - and don't panic. Even a straightforward, manual-only Asset Management program is better than spreadsheets, and your system will evolve over time as you tailor your workflow to your own organization and resources. Snipe-IT can grow with you as you refine your process.

Adding Assets from CSV

How to best start adding assets depends on what information you have to start with. If you have an existing CSV (Google Doc, etc) with asset data in it, your first stop will be importing your assets through the Import tool. See the Importing Assets and More documentation for details and sample CSVs.

Adding Assets Manually

If you don't have any existing asset data and you're just getting started on developing your asset management program, you'll likely want to start by creating Categories and then Asset Models.

Think of categories as high-level descriptions of your assets, for example "Laptops", "Desktops", "Servers", etc. You'll want to adapt this for the types of assets you have, but Categories are important because you'll determine whether or not assets require your users to accept delivery and/or EULAs of the assets, and whether they should get email notifications on asset checkout/checkin.

You can learn more about how categories work in the Categories documentation.

Adding Assets via the API

Snipe-IT comes with a powerful API that lets you add/update assets, users and more. If you have multiple systems that are already scripted, using the API might be your best bet. You'll find comprehensive instructions on using the API here .

Note: Adding assets via the API is recommended for developers or folks familiar with scripted languages only.

Hooking up LDAP

You'll find the LDAP settings in Admin Settings > LDAP. It can be a little tricky to get LDAP working to start with, and it's difficult for us to document that, since everybody's LDAP/Active Directory is set up differently, but the LDAP Sync & Login documentation has examples of the most common settings within LDAP and Active Directory.

Making Assets Available to Only Certain People

If you'd like to limit the assets that your users can see within your Snipe-IT setup, you'll want to enable Full Multiple Company Support and use different "companies" to segment those users and assets. (Companies within Snipe-IT don't have to be actual companies - some users prefer to treat them more as roles or departments.) You can learn more about Full Multiple Company Support here.

Importing Custom Fields

Custom fields allow you to include arbitrary data with your assets that doesn't come out of the box in Snipe-IT. Learn more about how to set up your Custom Fields here, and then how to import those custom fields here.

Permissions

Snipe-IT comes with a sophisticated permissions system that allows you to control what actions your users can and cannot do.

A common setup for many organizations is to have a small handful of Superadmin or Admin users who do the checking in and checking out for the organization, and all of the other users are created without any special permissions. Users who are created without any management permissions will only be able to see items checked out to them, or items they have requested.

Learn more about permissions here.

Labels

The way labels work with Snipe-IT, they get generated with a QR code and/or a UPC-style barcode. The QR code allows you to easily scan the code to open the link to that asset on your mobile device, while the UPC-style barcode is designed to be used in the top search in your Snipe-IT UI.

While you can use your own pre-existing labels for your assets in Snipe-IT, you won't get that built-in QR code/top search functionality with them. If you don't need that functionality and already have labels printed out for your assets that include the asset tag, etc, feel free to use your own.

You can learn more about labels and barcodes here.

Failing Imports

When you first get started importing with Snipe-IT ands you try importing assets, if your import fails, there's usually something funky in your data - missing fields, BOMs included in the CSV, or weird characters that got included in your export. Check out our Importer Issues documentation for help debugging those.