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Asset Types

Hardware (laptops, desktops, monitors, peripherals, network gear), software (license records with seat counts and renewal dates), mobile devices (phones, tablets, MDM-managed), contracts (vendor agreements with renewal alerts), and consumables (cables, batteries). Each type has its own field schema, lifecycle states, and audit cadence. Configure types under Admin -> Asset Management -> Asset Types. Adding a new type later is fine; renaming a type after thousands of records exist requires a re-import migration that breaks dashboards, so plan the type taxonomy before the bulk import.

Discovery

Three discovery channels populate assets without manual entry. The Freshservice Discovery Agent (installed on Windows, macOS, Linux endpoints) reports hardware specs, installed software, last-seen IP, and logged-in user every 24 hours. The Discovery Probe (a small VM on your network) scans subnets via SNMP, WMI, SSH for switches, printers, servers. Cloud Probes use IAM credentials to inventory AWS, Azure, GCP, and they pick up SaaS apps via the Freshworks Marketplace integrations for Okta, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace.

// Pull discovered assets via API
fetch(`https://${domain}.freshservice.com/api/v2/assets?include=type_fields&filter="last_audit_date:>'2026-04-01'"`, {
  headers: { Authorization: auth }
});

The first discovery scan typically returns 3-5x the count the team expected — most are forgotten lab gear, expired test instances, and shadow IT. Don’t import everything; review and tag before promoting to active inventory.

[Lifecycle

Stages](/articles/hubspot/hubspot-contact-lifecycle-stages/): Procurement requested -> Ordered -> In Stock -> Deployed -> In Use -> In Repair -> Retired -> Disposed. Each stage transition is auditable. Compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001) care about the In Use -> Disposed path because that’s where data destruction certificates live. Configure required fields per transition: a move to Disposed requires a wipe certificate attachment. Don’t skip stages — auditors flag the lifecycle gaps and the cost of remediation exceeds the discipline cost.

Every asset is or relates to a CI in the CMDB. Hardware assets are CIs directly. Software licenses relate to the assets they’re installed on. The relationship is what makes change risk and incident impact analysis work — when an asset fails, the CMDB shows downstream services, and the on-call sees the blast radius before responding. Configure relationship rules under Admin -> CMDB -> Relationship Types. The most-used relationship verbs: installed on, assigned to, runs on, connected to.

Integration

Procurement requests in the Service Catalog automatically create asset records at fulfillment. The Service Catalog item form collects requester, justification, and product code; on approval, a workflow creates a placeholder asset record in In Stock. On delivery, the receiving team scans the serial and the asset moves to Deployed. Retirement workflows reclaim attached software licenses (the seat count on the license record decrements) and trigger the disposal task with vendor pickup or e-waste documentation. Closing the loop is the difference between an inventory that costs money and one that saves it.

Common Failure Modes

The four classic patterns. First, no owner per asset type — without owners, lifecycle stages drift and the inventory rots. Second, software license records that lack seat counts — you can’t track over-deployment risk if you don’t know the entitlement. Third, retired assets that stay assigned to former employees because the offboarding workflow doesn’t reclaim them; build a leaver workflow that runs every Friday. Fourth, manual updates to discovery-managed assets — the next discovery cycle overwrites the manual edit; either disable discovery for that asset or push the edit upstream.

Cost Considerations

Asset Management is included in Pro and Enterprise tiers of Freshservice. The Discovery Probe is free; the Discovery Agent is free per-device. Cloud asset discovery for AWS, Azure, GCP requires the Enterprise tier. Marketplace SaaS-discovery integrations vary — Okta and Microsoft 365 are typically free, smaller niche connectors charge per seat per month.

What to do this week

Run a “last audited” filter for assets not seen by discovery in 60 days. Review the list with each asset owner — they’re either disconnected from the network, decommissioned without being marked retired, or stolen. All three need action.

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