Understanding Asset Status in UniAsset

Understanding asset status

Status records the operational condition of an asset. UniAsset ships three built-in statuses, and you can add your own on Orbit and above.

The three built-in statuses

These are created automatically when your organization is created, so no configuration is needed before your first asset.

Custom statuses

(Available on Orbit, Odyssey, Cosmos)

Built-in statuses are deliberately minimal. Real workflows need more vocabulary — "In Calibration", "Awaiting Parts", "In Transit", "Reserved", "Under Inspection".

Custom statuses carry a name, a colour and an order position, so lists and dashboards stay readable.

Manage them at Dashboard → Asset Statuses or Settings → Statuses (Owner and Admin). See How to manage asset statuses.

Status is not the same as…

This is where most confusion comes from. Four different things describe an asset's state, and they are independent.

Status vs availability

Availability describes custody, not condition. An asset is available, checked out, or overdue, and that is derived at read time from its check-out records — it is never a stored value, so it cannot go stale.

An Active asset can be checked out. A Damaged asset cannot be checked out at all.

See Assignment, location and check-out.

Status vs criticality

Criticality — Critical, High, Medium or Low — records how much your operation depends on the asset. It does not describe its condition.

It is not decorative: on Odyssey and above, criticality multiplies SLA response windows on work orders. The same emergency gets a tighter deadline on a critical asset than on a peripheral one.

See SLA deadlines and escalation.

Status vs archived

Archiving removes an asset from active lists, reporting and alert evaluation, and releases its storage quota. It is the user-facing delete, and it is reversible.

Archiving is not a status. An archived asset keeps whatever status it had.

See How to archive and restore assets.

Status vs PM status

PM status shows whether an asset's preventive maintenance is due, due soon or overdue. It is computed from PM rules, not set by hand, and it appears as a badge on assets and lists (Orbit and above).

How to change a status

1. Open the asset from Dashboard → Assets (Individual).
2. Use the status control on the detail page.
3. Save.

Every status change writes an event to the asset's timeline with the old and new values and who made the change.

Roles: Owner, Admin, Manager and Employee can update an asset's status. Viewers cannot.

Common mistakes

Setting status to Disposed by hand. Use Record disposal instead (Odyssey and above). That computes gain or loss against net book value, writes the disposal record, and archives the asset atomically. Setting the status manually gives you none of that. Below Odyssey, archive the asset instead.

Using status for location. "In Transit" is a legitimate custom status. "Warehouse" is not — that is a location.

Using status for custody. "With Jane" is not a status. Assign the asset to Jane, or check it out to her.

Creating twenty custom statuses. Every status is something someone has to choose correctly. Five or six well-chosen ones beat twenty overlapping ones.

Troubleshooting

I can't create a custom status. Custom statuses require Orbit or above, and the Owner or Admin role.

A custom status disappeared from the dropdown. Statuses are archived rather than deleted. Check the archived list under Settings → Statuses.

My asset shows Damaged but no work order exists. Status and work orders are independent. Raise a corrective work order for the repair. See Corrective maintenance.

I downgraded and my custom statuses vanished from the picker. Nothing was deleted. A downgrade never destroys data — custom statuses stop being offered while the capability is absent and return exactly as they were on upgrade.

Related articles

• How to manage asset statuses
• Assignment, location and check-out
• Asset lifecycle stages
• How to record an asset disposal
• How to archive and restore assets