How to Assign an Asset to a Person

How to assign an asset to a person

Assignment records who is responsible for an asset. It is the durable, long-term answer to "whose is this?".

When to use this

Use assignment when the arrangement is meant to last: a laptop issued to an employee, a vehicle allocated to a named driver, a toolkit that belongs to a specific technician.

For a temporary loan with an expected return date, use check-out instead. See Assignment, location and check-out.

Requirements

• Available on: Nova, Orbit, Odyssey, Cosmos
• Roles: Owner, Admin, Manager

Steps

1. Go to Dashboard → Assets (Individual) and open the asset.
2. Find the assignment panel.
3. Choose an Assigned Person.
4. Save.

You can also set the assigned person when creating the asset, and change it at any time afterwards.

Assets are assigned to People, not user accounts

This is the part worth understanding.

A Person is the canonical record for a human in your organization. A User is a sign-in account. Every user has exactly one person; not every person has a user.

Assets are assigned to People. That has two consequences you will be glad of:

• A contractor who cannot sign in can still be responsible for an asset. They need a Person record, nothing more.
• Custody history survives someone leaving. Deactivate their user account and their name still appears correctly against three years of history.

If the person you want is not in the list, create them at Dashboard → People. See How to add and manage people.

What happens next

• An event is written to the asset's timeline naming the previous and new assignee.
• The asset appears under that person's holdings on their person page.
• Filters and reports can be narrowed by assigned person.
• The asset's location and department are not changed. The three axes are independent.

Reassigning an asset

Set a different person, or clear the field to leave the asset unassigned. Both write an event. There is no need to unassign before reassigning.

When someone leaves

1. Reassign their assets to whoever picks up the responsibility.
2. Deactivate their user account — do not delete it. Deactivation revokes access on their next request and preserves the attribution of everything they did.
3. Their Person record stays, so the history remains readable.

Archive the person only when they should no longer be selectable. An archived person cannot receive an assignment or borrow an asset. See How to deactivate a user.

Common mistakes

Using assignment for a two-day loan. You lose the expected return date and the overdue alert — the two things you wanted. Use check-out.

Naming the asset after the assignee. "Jane's laptop" plus "Assigned to Jane" is redundant, and wrong the moment it is reassigned.

Creating a second person for an existing contractor when inviting them as a user. Link the invitation to their existing Person record instead. See How to invite team members.

Deleting a departing employee's account. Deactivate it. Deleting breaks nothing in the history, but deactivation is the supported path and keeps the seat reusable.

Troubleshooting

The assignment control is not there. Assigning assets needs Manager or above.

The person I want is not in the dropdown. Either they do not exist yet — create them under People — or they are archived. Archived people cannot receive assignments.

I assigned the asset but it still shows in the old location. Correct. Person, location and department are independent axes; changing one does not change the others.

Assignment did not change when the asset was checked out. Correct, and deliberate. Check-out never modifies assignment.

Related articles

• How to assign an asset to a location
• Assignment, location and check-out
• How to check out an asset
• How to add and manage people
• People and users — what's the difference?