Change & Lifecycle Management¶
A lifecycle is essentially a combination of a few core actions performed over time, kept together on the asset record. It is a built-in functionality of GLPI, which gives you full visibility and control over every stage of your IT assets’ lifecycle - from purchase to retirement.
Using Change & Lifecycle basics, you can achieve a number of important goals, such as:
knowing the current state and history of any asset,
quickly identifying assets due for maintenance, warranty renewal, or decommissioning,
fast troubleshooting and decision-making by linking assets to users, locations, contracts.
Below you can find main functionalities of the GLPI’s Asset Management Lifecycle.
Status as the Lifecycle Driver¶
Each asset has a Status (labels depend on configuration, typically In stock, In use, Under maintenance, Retired/Disposed). This is the simplest and most important way to represent “where the asset is” in its lifecycle.
You can open the asset (for example under Assets → Computers / Assets → Network equipment) and update Status in the asset form.
Fig. 194 Asset Status¶
Typical flow:
In stock → available equipment (warehouse/spares)
In use → deployed and assigned
Under maintenance → temporarily unavailable (repair/diagnostics)
Retired/Disposed → end-of-life, kept for history/audit
Assignment and placement¶
As soon as an asset is deployed, you keep it aligned by linking it to:
a User (and optionally a responsible Group/Technician in charge, depending on your process)
a Location (physical site / office / rack / room)
This makes lifecycle information operational: status + user + location describe the real situation.
Procurement, stock, and delivery tracking¶
Lifecycle management also covers the “before production” steps:
registering assets coming from procurement,
keeping them in stock/warehouse until delivery,
recording the delivery/assignment moment when the asset becomes “in use”.
Change documentation on the asset¶
During its life, an asset changes (upgrades, repairs, replacements, configuration adjustments). In GLPI you capture this directly on the asset record by:
updating relevant fields (for example, key attributes that describe the item),
adding notes for context (what changed and why),
attaching documents (delivery notes, maintenance reports, manuals).
Financial, warranty, and contract context¶
To support lifecycle decisions (renew, repair, replace, retire), you keep:
financial information (where applicable),
warranty/coverage and/or links to Contracts.
Built-in history (traceability)¶
GLPI keeps an automatic history/audit trail of updates on the asset, so you can review how the asset evolved over time (status changes, assignment changes, field updates).