What’s new in the Technology Suite

The newest Follett Software product is IT Asset Manager. Use it to manage all your technology devices. Students and staff can create support requests, while IT staff can assign and track them. Administrators can run reports to view the number of requests, labor costs, purchase costs, inventory, request response times, and more.

Learn more about IT Asset Manager.

The new Follett Software Ops app lets you create and view requests on the go. Based on your permissions in the web app, you can also change a request status, view assets, add notes and labor, and scan assets.

Learn more about the Follett Software Ops app.

The redesigned dashboard gives you a comprehensive view of your requests and assets at a glance:

• See open requests organized by priority and assignment.
• View recent notifications with improved formatting.
• Access quick actions for common tasks.
• Track request trends with visual charts.

Learn more about the Dashboard.

Two new columns make it easier to manage users.

Create Date column

When a user is created, whether manually or through a sync, a Create Date is stored in IT Help Desk. Create Date is now an available optional column on the Manage Users page. The date and time appears in the column when selected.

Create Method column

To make troubleshooting easier, when a user is added to IT Help Desk, how the user was created is logged. You can add Create Method as a column to the Manage Users page.

The column logs when a user is created in any of the following ways:

• Manually on the Manage Users page and the Check-Out Assets page, using the + Add User button
• Via a custom form, email, or import
• Google SSO or Destiny SSO
• Active Directory
• SAML Azure, SAML Classlink, SAML Google, or SAML Okta
• OneRoster
• A user is created in FacilitiesDrawings and synced

You can sort and filter on both the Create Date and Create Method columns.

Learn more about managing users.

There are many new fields on the Manage Users page. You can't add these fields as columns to the Manage Users page, and they won't appear on a user's details page.

New fields on the Manage Users page include: 

• Middle Name
• Mobile Phone Number
• Name Suffix
• Secondary Phone
• Secondary Mobile Phone
• Secondary E-Mail
• Alt ID
• State ID
• District ID
• Grade Level
• Graduation Year
• Birthdate
• Locker

Address is in a separate collapsible section. You can add primary and secondary addresses. Address fields include:

• Address 1
• Address 2
• City
• State
• Zip

Learn more about managing users.

Before seeing data on the View All Requests and View All Assets pages, you now need to search or apply a filter. This update will load data quicker.

In addition, the following updates were made to buttons and links on all pages that let you view requests and assets:

• If you filter on a column, a filter icon appears in the column header. To sort a filtered column, click the filter icon to see the sort icon.
• Clear filters sets the page back to showing no data.
• The Columns button is now a link called Add, re-order, or remove table columns.
• The delete icon is red.
• Inactive requests or assets are now gray instead of red.

When filters are set, the next time you access that page, the filters will continue to be applied.

Funding Source and Instructional Classification are now single-select drop-down fields that can be added to asset records of a specific type. Users with the Manage Site Settings permission can customize these fields, creating unique category names and linking them to specific asset types. For example, maybe you want the PTO funding source linked to iPads.

There are also new EFR standard fields in asset records:

• Condition: Track if an asset is new, good, fair, poor, usable, damaged, or unusable.
• Date Last Accounted For: Manually enter the date you accounted for an asset.
• Depreciation Convention: Determine how much an asset depreciates over the course of its life. This is based on IRS depreciation conventions of annual, half-year, mid-month, and mid-quarter.

Learn more about managing custom fields and assets.

Administrators can enable a new 'Auto Generate Barcode for New Assets' field in General Settings > Assets tab. When an asset is created – either manually or via an asset import –IT Help Desk will automatically generate a barcode if that field is blank.

Barcodes will use Code 39 Generic format. They will be 10 characters, start with a 5, and can contain numbers, uppercase letters, and the following characters: minus (-), plus (+), period (.), dollar sign ($), slash (/), and percent (%).

Learn more about general settings and managing assets.

Duplicate barcodes are now supported. When duplicate barcodes are found, you are required to select the correct asset from a pop-up. This pop-up will appear on pages where you can search for assets, such as Check In, Check Out, Quick Circulation, when adding an asset to a request, and when creating a request.

During mass circulation, the checkout is not completed and a note is added to the error log.

Learn more about assets.