TRACKIT User Documentation¶

Intro¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

About¶

TRACKIT is an Asset Management tool, designed to be delivered via the Cloud as a Software as a Service (SaaS) application. It can be deployed locally and installed on a local virtual or physical machine within a Customer environment.

PRO Version¶

TRACKIT PRO is an Enterprise level version of TRACKIT offering additional functionality such as a Scalable IT Equipment Library, Network and Power Connectivity and cable tracing. In addition, there are many integrations to Enterprise platforms built and configured by TRACKIT Service Partners available.

Asset Management in TRACKIT¶

TRACKIT has been designed to provide an accurate, easily maintainable inventory of Locations and Assets. This could be any size, such as a Small Office environment or Store Room, through to a Large Enterprise scale Data Centre. Applications include Vehicle Fleet Management, IT Asset Management, Warehouse Stock Inventories or Mobile Equipment Monitoring.

Locations¶

Locations are designed to contain either additional child Locations, such as a Building containing Floors and Rooms, and within these Assets can be placed. Locations could be physical such as a Building, or logical, such as an organisational unit or department.

Assets¶

Assets are intended to be anything which requires managing, all Assets have a history, can be added, modified, removed. Assets can be placed within Locations or other Assets using various placement or mount types. To create an Asset, a Product must be created which determines all the physical attributes of the Asset.

Products¶

Products are templates or symbols of any given Asset usually grouped by the Manufacturer of the Product and the Model of the Asset. They include, but are not limited to physical attributes, such as dimensions and weight and could include information such as graphical images, interfaces such as ports and connectivity or financial details such as cost or warranties. Anything could be defined against a Product.

Products should belong to an Asset Class, and can belong to more than one class if required.

Asset Class¶

Products belong to an Asset Class, the following classes are system classes and define Placement Type, they should not be removed:

Floor Mountable - Allows Assets to be mounted on a Floor

Rack/Cabinet Mountable - Allow Assets to be mounted within a Rack/Cabinet Asset with U Space (for IT cabinets).

Device/Instance Mountable - Allow Assets to be mounted within other Assets.

Blade Servers - Allow Assets to be mounted within Asset Slots (for IT Assets)

The remaining are default classes, which can be altered or removed if required:

IT equipment

Software and Licenses

Furniture and fixtures

Machinery

Office equipment

Vehicles

Intangible assets

Asset Classes determine some behavior of Assets within TRACKIT, for instance, how Assets can be mounted in Locations such as on the Floor, within other Assets or whether they can be mobile or not.

Placement Type¶

To ensure Assets are placed correctly, the Product Model must belong to an appropriate system Asset Class.

It is possible for a Product to belong to more than one Asset Class, therefore ensure that the correct class is chosen to determine the placement type, and add any additional classes for reporting/grouping as required.

Categories¶

Categories are the type of Asset which a Product belongs to, the Product must belong to a Sub Category, which belongs to a Parent Category.

For example, if a Car was being added to TRACKIT, the following configuration would be used:

Manufacturer: Ford

Model: GT Mustang

Asset Class: Vehicles

Category: Car

Sub-Category: Performance

Another example, such as a Computer could use the following setup:

Manufacturer: Hewlett Packard

Model: Envy 15-AS104NA

Asset Class: IT equipment

Category: Computers

Sub-Category: Laptops

Additional Data¶

Any additional data can be added to TRACKIT either as additional data fields, called EAV Overview and imported by the User or through an Integration to another product. Examples of additional data are:

Procurement Information, Warranties, Purchase Dates, Asset Values
GPS Information, visually showing where an Asset is on a live map or showing its path over time.
Power Information - Current and historic power consumption of an Asset from intelligent data sources.
Environmental Information - Power, Heat, Humidity information from a Buiding Management System

Platform and Installation¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Installation Overview¶

Depending on the deployment, TRACKIT will have been either setup in the Cloud automatically, and can be accessed via a personalised url, i.e. https://mycompany.trackit.cloud/, or it will have been installed locally via a TRACKIT Engineer. For details on local installations please see installation_steps.

Please contact your Administrator if you are unsure which installation type you have.

Cloud Installation¶

There are no installation steps required, the application link will be delivered via email.

Local Installation via Web¶

Hardware Pre-requisites¶

The TRACKIT architecture is container based. Containers can be placed on the same server or node, or split across multiple nodes. Typically, TRACKIT runs on Linux nodes, with a dedicated Reporting node running Windows. TRACKIT is database and web server agnostic, however we highly recommend PostgreSQL or Oracle as a database platform.

Optimum Specification¶

The following is a recommended node specification for running the TRACKIT application utilising all features and functionality in a multiple location/user environment.

Intel Xeon E5-2440 hexa-core 2.4 GHz or equivalent processor (dual processor if supported by chassis)
16GB DDR3 Memory
144GB HDD RAID1 minimum recommended
Dual Gigabit NIC

Recommended Nodes:

2x Linux Based OS (Ubuntu 16.04) nodes
1x Windows Based OS (Windows 2016 Server Edition) node

External VPN Access for support/maintenance purposes (recommended)

Installation requires and internet connection, if this is not available please see the Local Offline Installation section for further details.

Docker¶

TRACKIT uses Docker as the platform container.

Information on Docker can be found here: https://www.docker.com/ and a list of support Operating Systems can be found here: https://www.docker.com/community-edition

Installation Steps - Linux Node¶

Install Docker¶

Install Docker for Ubuntu, instructions found here: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/linux/ubuntu/

Install Docker as per standard Ubuntu instructions. Ensure you add your system user to the docker group:

usermod -aG docker <username>

You will need to logout and back in again after doing so.

Configure to AWS¶

Authorising to TRACKIT Image Repo. Firstly, install AWS CLI tools.

sudo apt-get install awscli

Configure with the relevant access keys, setting the default region to eu-west-1.

aws configure

Log Docker into the repo:

`aws ecr get-login --region eu-west-1`

Install Database server (PostgreSQL)¶

PostgreSQL should be run on your native machine/VM:

    sudo apt-get install postgresql
    sudo -u postgres psql

    create user trackit with password 'tr4ck17';
create database trackit with owner trackit;

Also install the PostGIS extension, currently this is 2.2, but adjust this for your Ubuntu version.

sudo apt-get install postgresql-9.5-postgis-2.2

sudo -u postgres psql

create extension postgis;

Enable local TCP connections to postgres:

sudo nano /etc/postgresql/9.5/main/postgresql.conf

Find #listen_addresses="localhost" replace with: listen_addresses="*"

sudo nano /etc/postgresql/9.5/main/pg_hba.conf

Add the following line to enable connections from docker IPs

host  all   all   172.0.0.0/8   md5

sudo service postgresql reload

Create Docker Swarm¶

Once the native postgres instance is set-up, we can need to create a swarm and overlay network for our services to communicate across.

docker swarm init

docker network create --driver overlay trackit

Then we can proceed to create services.

Pull Images (Repeated Step)

There is a convenience script in trackit-docker bitbucket repo, path scripts/pull-from-ecr.py. This will pull the relevant images and tag them automatically. It can be repeatedly used.:

vim ./pull-from-ecr.py

chmod +x ./pull-from-ecr.py

./pull-from-ecr.py

App (Single Node Dev)

[Optional] Setup Dev environment. You can use your local trackit code and virtualenv. This is highly recommended. (Ensure your SSH key has been added to bitbucket)

Create SSH key for Bitbucket

Enter the following commands

ssh-keygen

Select default options

cat ./home/ubuntu/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Copy the key and add to Bitbucket account.

Then

sudo mkdir /trackit

sudo chown <youruser> /trackit

cd /trackit

git clone git@bitbucket.org:trackit/trackit8.git

cd /trackit8

git checkout dev

git submodule update --init

git submodule foreach git checkout dev

sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv

virtualenv -p python3 /trackit/env-py3

source /trackit/env-py3/bin/activate

sudo apt-get -y install  libopenblas-dev libfreetype6-dev build-essential postgresql-server-dev-9.5 libcurl4-openssl-dev libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libjpeg-turbo8-dev linux-kernel-headers python3-dev

pip install -r /trackit/trackit8/pip-requirements.txt

This will give you two folders on your machine (/trackit/trackit8 = dev code, /trackit/env-py3 = virtualenv)

docker service create --name app --publish 8000:8000 --network trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_HOST=<your host IP> -eTRACKIT_DB_USER=trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_PASS=trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_NAME=trackit -eDEVSERVER_OPTS="--settings=trackit.debug_settings" [--mount type=bind,source=/trackit/trackit8,destination=/trackit/trackit8 --mount type=bind,source=/trackit/env-py3,destination=/trackit/env-py3] trackit/appdev /bin/runserver.sh

Square bracket part is optional, and will bind mount your local development folders to the docker environment.

/bin/runserver.sh executes the django manage.py runserver script. If you do not specify this command, it will launch using Uwsgi.

Devserver is bound to port 8000 on the host machine.

A convenience manage command is supplied within the image, which will activate the virtualenv and run manage.py, passing through any command line arguments.

Create the Services¶

Create the Broker

docker service create --name broker --network trackit trackit/brokerdev

Queue

Enter the following

docker service create --name queue --network trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_HOST=<your host IP> -eTRACKIT_DB_USER=trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_PASS=trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_NAME=trackit --mount type=bind,source=/trackit/trackit8,destination=/trackit/trackit8 trackit/queuedev

Cleanup Queue

Enter the following

docker service create --name cleanupqueue --network trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_HOST=<your host IP> -eTRACKIT_DB_USER=trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_PASS=trackit -eTRACKIT_DB_NAME=trackit --mount type=bind,source=/trackit/trackit8,destination=/trackit/trackit8 trackit/namedqueuedev

Elasticsearch

Enter the following

docker service create --name elasticsearch --network trackit trackit/elasticsearchdev

Install Docker as per standard Ubuntu instructions. Ensure you add your system user to the docker group:

usermod -aG docker <username>

You will need to logout and back in again after doing so.

Installation Steps - Windows Node¶

Install Reporting App (Logi)¶

Install the Logi Reporting Service.

Decompress the Archive¶

Unzip the file, and add the Reporting folder to the appropriate location on the disk. i.e. C:\trackit8reporting

Add Application¶

Within Logi, add an application, point to the Reporting folder and follow the Wizard. If appropriate, complete the IIS Install.

Install IIS¶

Install the IIS Role on the Windows machine, ensuring ASP.NET is checked.

Check Settings¶

Check the Settings file under C:\trackit8reporting\_Definitions\_Settings.lgx, and ensure that the IP address of the Linux Application nodes have been added under AuthenticationClientAddresses.

Once complete, browse to http:\\localhost\trackit8reporting to check the service has installed correctly.

Local Offline Installation¶

Should TRACKIT be installed into a secure environment where internet connectivity is not possible, TRACKIT provide an offline installer package. Please contact TRACKIT directly for assistance.

Layout¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Interface Overview¶

TRACKIT has a responsive layout, provided the browser is modern and supports WebKit, users can access the application. On entering a valid username and password into the login screen, users will be greeted with the standard application interface detailed below.

Header Menu
- Global Search
- View Layout
- Account Settings
Sidebar
Dashboard
Location/Asset Breadcrumb
Location/Asset Information

Header Menu¶

The Header Bar is a persistent feature that appears at the top of the application throughout TRACKIT.

How the Header Menu appears within TRACKIT.

Global Search¶

This function allows users to search for Assets, Locations and Products. The results are returned in a list with the most relevant matches first. It’s possible to refine the search using the Asset Type filter in the Sidebar.

View Layout¶

This alters the view of the Location/Asset Information Tabs.

Sections can either be displayed as Tabs, as Horizontally or Vertically split sections on a single page, or a specific Image/Floorplan and Asset Grid view is available.

Dashboard¶

The Dashboard is generally displayed as the landing page of TRACKIT once a user logs in. Typically this includes widgets and a Location Map.

Location Map¶

Displays a global map (external Google access required) of all locations with address details.

Location/Asset Information Tabs¶

This area contains all the content and information stored against either the Location or Asset selected.

Using the View Layout, the user can swap between a tabbed layout, a horizontal layour or a vertical layout. There is also an option to view only the SVG element and the Asset Grid.

Depending on the informaiton being stored, the following sections are available:

Details¶

This section shows simple Asset or Location details, such as object name, code, asset/serial numbers and summary details relevant to the object, for instance an asset count for Locations.

Assets¶

A table of all assets within either the Asset or Location selected. Any child assets of the listed assets can be viewed by expanding the row to show a nested table.

This view can be ordered by selecting a column header, filtered by using the text box immediately above the table and if the relevant permissions are available assets can be edited inline.

Reports¶

Reports appropriate to the selected object are listed in this section. For example, if a Location this would be a Full Asset List and an Audit Trail report. Any reports built by and/or shared by Users are listed here also.

Reports can be run by simply selecting the report name, where date ranges are appropriate, some pre-selected ranges are listed adjacent to the report name.

History¶

The entire audit log of either a Location or an Asset is viewable in this section. There are date selectors to choose the date range to search between.

The information available includes:

Client Type - How the update was made, via the web interface, or via an API (i.e. an integration to another system)
Action Type - Was the update modifying an object, or adding or removing an object.
Timestamp - The server timestamp of when the change was made to the database.
Model Type - What type of object was updated.
User - The username of the User who made the update.
Server Host Name - Name of the server which registered the change.
IP Address - The IP of the client from with the change was made.

Where a modification to existing data has occured, a hyperlink is available which can be selected to show the fields modified and the before and after values.

Floor Plan¶

This section requires the object selected to be a Location. If a floorplan has been defined, it can be visualised here.

The floorplan may include layers from an AutoCAD dwg, an Adobe PDF, a Microsoft Visio or from and SVG. It may include a defined floor space, which may be gridded.

Floorplans can be dragged to pan around, zoom in and out of and layers switched on and off.

It’s also possible to drag and drop Products which can be mounted on the floor into the correct physical location in this view.

Image¶

If the object selected is an Asset and an SVG image is available, this would visualised here.

Photos¶

Photos of Assets can be uploaded through either a web browser, or are added automatically via the TRACKIT Mobile App.

Notes¶

Notes added by Users can be viewed in this section. Each note includes the User, Timestamp and note content.

Tasks¶

Any tasks, either current or historical are listed under this tab.

Monitoring¶

If any Monitoring or Metric information have been linked to either and Asset or Location, it will be viewable here. Metrics can be selected from the list and the data values and their respective details can be viewed on the subsequent page.

Alerts¶

If any Alerts have been configured against any Metrics linked to the object, they will be shown in this section. There is an option to toggle between viewing Archived or Current Alerts only.

Tracking¶

Depending on connectivity, should any GPS data have been entered or populated against an Asset, it will be shown visually on a map in this section. On an individual Asset, this would include a time slider at the top of the map allowing the User to alter the range within which to display the GPS data.

If a Location has been selected containing multiple Assets, the last data point recieved for each Asset holding GPS data will be shown on the map, with labels identifying each point.

Wizards¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Wizard Overview¶

There are a number of wizards in TRACKIT to assist users in completing common tasks and importing existing data.

Wizards can be accessed from the Account Menu.

On selecting the Wizards menu, a dashboard is displayed summarising each section:

A view of the Wizard Overview.

Location Wizard¶

TRACKIT has the ability to define locations and structure these however required. A Location could be a physical one, such as a Building or a Cupboard, or a Logical container, such as a Department or Virtual Container. The following sections describes how each Location attribute works.

Locations¶

The Location Wizard allows the User to search for, add, view, edit and delete locations.

It displays the following information:

Location Name

Location Type

Root Location - Whether the Location can be the top most parent in the Location Tree

Allow Assets - Whether it’s possible to add Assets to the Location

Children - When the Location has child Locations, and a link to view any.

Parent - The name and a link to the Parent Location.

Location Types¶

Locations Types can be configured to help group, search or define different types of Locations.

Location Types contain the following fields:

Name

Attributes - the pre-existing fields available

Allowed child types - which Location types can be added as children of this Location type, for instance a Building would allow a Room child type, but a Room would not allow a Building to be a child.

Allow Device Placement - can Assets be placed within this Location, or is it effectively just a structural or group for other Locations.

Require Postal Information - this Location Type requires Users to add an address when creating Locations using this type.

Map Marker Colour - select the colour for this Location Type to be shown where mapping is viewable.

Marker Icon - no longer relevant.

Location Tree¶

This gives an overview of the current Location structure within TRACKIT.

It is possible to use this view to amend the Location structure.

Product Wizard¶

Categories¶

Categories are listed alphabetically, with all child Categories shown alongside each.

It is possible to add new, edit existing or remove Categories.

Manufacturers¶

It is possible to search for, add, modify or remove Product Manufacturers from this wizard.

Information about Manufacturers are shown in this wizard, they include:

Name

Alias - Other known names for the Manufacturer

Models - The number of Product Models using the Manufacturer

By selecting a Manufacturer, it’s possible to view all Models and edit each directly if required.

Models¶

This wizard provides the ability to search for (either Simple or Advanced), add, modify and update Product Models within TRACKIT.

The Advanced Search function allows the User to search across multiple Manufacturers, Product Families and/or Asset Classes.

Import Models¶

This Wizard allows Users to import a list of Models via a text based CSV file. There is no fixed format to this file, it can be defined by the User and any columns contained in the file can either be matched to a field in TRACKIT or ignored.

There are 7 stages to this import.

Choose File - Select and upload a CSV file from the Users local machine.
Match Columns - TRACKIT will identify the columns of data contained in the file and prompt the User to match them to a Model field within TRACKIT.

An example of an analysed CSV.

Match Asset Classes - TRACKIT will attempt to match Asset Classes to existing Classes within TRACKIT or request the User make the match.

TRACKIT attempts to match values based on names, this can be overridden.

Match Manufacturers - TRACKIT will attempt to match the Manufacturer names in the CSV to existing Manufacturers in TRACKIT. It is not possible to create new Manufacturers automatically.
Match Categories - TRACKIT will attempt to match Categories to existing Categories in TRACKIT. It is not possible to create new Categories automatically.
Validate - TRACKIT will review the data to see if there is likely to be any duplication or conflict should the data be loaded. Any warnings are displayed.

Any validation errors or warnings are shown.

Import - Any data which Validated successfully will attempt to be imported. Links to successfully loaded Models are created and displayed, any errors are listed at the bottom.

An example of a Imported result set.

Completing this Wizard prior to importing an existing Asset Inventory is highly recommended.

Asset Wizard¶

Asset Groups¶

This form allows the User to view, edit or remove existing Asset Groups or define new ones.

Each Asset Group has a colour defined, which is used in various parts of the application to help identify specific Asset Groups.

Asset Group Types¶

The Asset Groups Types Wizard provide a form to create the Types available for Asset Groups.

Asset Import¶

This Wizard allows Users to import a list of Assets via a text based CSV file. There is no fixed format to this file, it can be defined by the User and any columns contained in the file can either be matched to a field in TRACKIT, ignored or a new EAV field created.

There are 7 stages to this import.

Choose File - Select and upload a CSV file from the Users local machine.
Match Columns - TRACKIT will identify the columns of data contained in the file and prompt the User to match them to an Asset field within TRACKIT, ignore the field, or create a new field.

An example of an analysed Asset CSV.

Match Locations - TRACKIT will attempt to match Location data to existing Locations within TRACKIT using the name. It’s possible to load Assets into the system, but against a PLACEHOLDER Location. This is not recommended, Locations should be defined first.

TRACKIT attempts to match values based on names, this can be override.

Match Models - TRACKIT will attempt to match the Product Models in the CSV to existing Product Models in TRACKIT. It is not possible to create new Models automatically, so Models should be loaded into the application prior to running this wizard.

TRACKIT attempts to match values based on names, this can be overridden.

Match Parent Assets - TRACKIT will attempt to match the Parent Assets based on the earlier selected Parent field. Parents should be included in the CSV data.
Validate - TRACKIT will review the data to see if there is likely to be any duplication or conflict should the data be loaded. Any warnings are displayed.

Any validation errors or warnings are shown.

Import - Any data which Validated successfully will attempt to be imported. Links to successfully loaded Models are created and displayed, any errors are listed at the bottom.

An example of a Imported result set.

EAV Wizard¶

EAV Groups¶

This wizard allows Users to add and edit EAV Groups.

EAV Fields¶

EAV fields can be added, edited or removed in this Wizard.

EAV (Entity Attribute Values)¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

EAV Overview¶

EAV Groups¶

Order¶

This defines the priority order within which to show the Attribute Groups on the forms within which they’re displayed.

Name¶

The name of the EAV Group.

Bootstrap Class¶

This determines the width of the field, if Small or Extra Small are chosen, the field will consume the full width of the screen (designed for small screens). Medium and Large are the opposite.

Extra Small - Full width
Small - Full width
Medium - Half width
Large - Half width

EAV Attributes¶

Name¶

The name of the field.

Order¶

The priority order to display the field.

Slug¶

A unique name, which does not allow spaces

Required¶

Is the field required when the object is added. A validation error will appear if no Default Value is entered.

Include in Main Grid¶

If this option is checked, the field will appear in the Assets grid table.

Include in Sub Grid¶

If this option is checked, the field will appear in the Assets expanded grid table, i.e. where a Parent Asset has been expanded and the child Assets are listed.

Description¶

Some text which will be displayed below the EAV field to help Users identify what the field is for.

An example of the description text underneath the EAV field.

Attribute Group¶

The name of the EAV Groups which the field should belong to. The field can only be a member of one group.

Data Type¶

The type of data that can be stored in this field. The following options are available:

Text - A string of text
Float - A number or decimal
Integer - A whole number
Date - A datetime value
True/False
Multiple Choice - If chosen, the Choice Group field must be populated.
Distance Field

Type¶

This determines what object type the field belongs to, it can be either:

Asset or Location.

Choice Group¶

It is possible to create and edit Choice Groups. If the Multiple Choice option has been selected under Data Type, this field must have a value.

A selected Choice Group, showing the Edit Group option open in a new window.

Default Value¶

A default value, if required. This could be 0 or None.

Locations¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Locations Overview¶

Locations can be created in the Location Wizard.. Ensure the correct Location Types. exists first, and consider how the Location structure should appear.

Typically, a structure would look something like the image below, however it could be generated to represent any parent > child relationship between objects:

An example of a simple Location structure.

Ensure the correct properties are assigned to a Location Type, for example, the a Building type has the ability to accept Floor and/or Rooms as Child Location Types.

It is possible to amend a Location Structure at any time using the Location Tree, so it can be updated as required if the model structure isn’t appropriate.

Location Details¶

Location details can be updated using the Location Wizard or the Edit Location button in the Sidebar when viewing a Location.

Any Location fields, including EAV fields can be updated on this form.

Edit Floorplan¶

It is possible to create a visual floorplan of a Location in the following situations:

If the User wished to define a new area.
If data has been imported from TRACKIT Mobile.
If data has been imported from a previous version of TRACKIT.
If data has been imported from another product, such as a CMDB or DCIM tool which has space information.

Importing Floorplan Data¶

If existing data is available in a support format, this can be added to a TRACKIT Location.

Supported formats are as follows:

AutoCAD DWG - All valid layers will be imported and the scale retained.
Microsoft Visio - Everything is imported as a single layer which would require scaling to the correct size.
Adobe PDF - Everything is imported as a single layer which would require scaling to the correct size.
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) - Imported as a single layer which would require scaling to the correct size.

Floorplans can be imported by simply dragging and dropping from a Desktop or File Explorer on the Users PC into the web browser.

The import screen of a Floorplan

Once the file has been imported, it can be scales, rotated or moved as appropriate.

If the User requires, they can create an area on the floorplan to allow mounting of Asset using Edit Borderpath.

Edit Borderpath¶

If a floorplan has been added, it’s possible to define an area on the floorplan to designate as a set Locations mounting area.

To do so, select the Edit Border Path button on the Edit Floorplan form.

Once the floorplan has loaded, choose the option on the Sidebar to add points, creating enough to surround the area accurately.

The import screen of a Floorplan

Regions¶

If the Map is used on the Dashboard screen, regions can be defined to place locations into. Regions are created in the Administration menu, under Location Management.

Assets¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Asset Overview¶

Assets can be added against either Locations or Parent Assets.

Data can added, edited and removed in a number of ways:

Using the TRACKIT Web Client.
Added via the TRACKIT Import Asset Import.
Via the TRACKIT RESTful API

Placement Types¶

There are a number of methods of placing Assets in TRACKIT.

Placement Type	Main Location	Cell/Grid Placement	Parent Asset	Mount Location	Offsets	Rotation/Orientation	U Position	Mounting Area
Floor Mounted	Required	Required			Required	Required
Rack/Cabinet Mounted	Required		Required	Required	Required	Required	Required
Asset Mounted	Required		Required			Required		Required
Basic Placement	Required		Optional

Adding Assets¶

The Add Asset button is available in a number of places through TRACKIT, usually in the Sidebar. Once selected, the Add Asset Form is presented, the User can complete this to Add an Asset to the database.

The Add Form comprised 3 parts:

Step One - Basic Details and Placement Type
Step Two - Product and Placement/Parent Details
Step Three - Additional Information

Basic Details¶

This first step asks for some basic information on the Asset Name, any Serial or Asset Numbers.

It also requests the User add what Placement Type to use. This will determine what Products and Placement detail to collect on Step 2.

Step 1 of adding an Asset showing the different Placement Types

Product and Placement Details¶

The next step requires the User to select the Product to use for the Asset.

Depending on which Placement Type was selected, any additional Placement Types data might be required at this step.

An example of Floor Placement required fields in Step 2 of adding an Asset

Additional Information¶

The final step allows the User to complete additional data fields. These typically include EAV fields for Assets.

The Add Asset Form will validate the data at each step and warn the User if there are any issues. Once completed, the Asset will be added to the system.

An example of form validation on adding an Asset

Editing Assets¶

Edit Asset Button¶

When viewing an Asset, the Edit Asset button is visible in the Sidebar. This will take the User through the 3 steps of the Basic Details Add Asset form, however any existing data is pre-populated.

Viewing the details of an Asset Edit in the History tab.

Assets Table¶

It’s possible with appropriate permissions to edit Assets in the Assets Table.

An example of editing an Asset in the Asset Table.

Deleting Assets¶

Assets can be deleted from TRACKIT, however they cannot be restored once deleted.

It is highly recommended that Assets are instead moved to a Decommissioned or Remove Location which can be reported on and retains the History of the Asset through it’s lifecycle.

Delete Asset Button¶

Should it be a requirement to delete an Asset, it can be done by selecting the Delete Asset button visible in the Sidebar when viewing an Asset.

Confirmation and Warning message when Deleting an Asset.

Deleting an Asset will remove all Child Assets and should only be done where there is an error and/or the History of the Asset is not required.

Products¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Product Overview¶

Ensure that the Products, Asset Class and Categories sections have been read and understood.

Products are fundamental to ensuring good quality data within TRACKIT. Correctly defining distinct Manufacturers, Models and Categories means data can be added, maintained and reported quickly and accurately.

To maintain Products, use the Product Wizard.

Maintaining Categories¶

Categories can be maintained in the Categories.

The main purpose of Categories is to Group Products and Assets for Reporting.

Maintaining Manufacturers¶

Manufacturers can be maintained in the Manufacturers.

It is possible to add Alias’ for Manufacturers, i.e. Hewlett Packard, HP. This reduces the confusion and increases the consistency in the data.

By selecting a Manufacturer, it’s possible to view all the Product Models created in the database using that Manufacturer.

Maintaining Models¶

Models can be maintained in the Models.

Reports¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Reporting Overview¶

Reports

Tabular Reports¶

Columns¶

All data fields available against the report data, i.e. the Assets, Locations or Products are listed under Columns. By default, some Columns will be selected, however the User can show or hide any columns they choose.

Any EAV fields that have been configured within TRACKIT will also be listed and can be included in the report data.

Columns can be selected or unselected.

Formula¶

Formulas allow the User to create a new field of data in the report based on the data columns available.

It’s possible to determine the Type of Data, i.e. date, number, text etc. and display the values in specific formats, as gauges or colours.

Any additional Formula columns created can be sorted, grouped, filtered etc as with any other fields.

Formulas are expressions made up of columns, constants, functions, and operators.

Columns are values that come from the data. Their names are are enclosed in square brackets, like [ShippedDate]. Depending on their data type, they may be used as text strings, numbers, and date/time values.

An example of a Formula in the Reporting.

Here are some other examples:

[Price] * [Quantity]

Multiply two data columns, Price and Quantity, to make an ExtendedPrice column:

[Price] * .04

Multiply a data column by an constant value to calculate the tax applied to the price:

DateDiff("d", [OrderDate], [ExpiryDate] )

Get the number of days from the order to the shipment:

DateDiff("w", [ExpiryDate], Now )

Get the number of weekdays since the shipment date:

WeekdayName( Weekday( [ExpiryDate] ) )

Return the name of the day of the week of the shipment date:

[LastName] + ", " + [FirstName]

Concatenate columns and strings together. This might return: Smith, John:

UCase( [LastName] + ", " + [FirstName] )

Convert to upper case. This might return: SMITH, JOHN

Sort¶

This option provides the functionality to Sort columns depending on the content. It’s possible to sort on multiple columns in a specific order of priority.

An example of sorting on multiple columns.

Filter¶

The filter function allows the User to display or hide specific data based on the data itself.

It’s possible to filter on multiple columns and individual columns multiple times.

An example of filtering on multiple values.

When filtering multiple times, selecting the And/Or text between the Filter row swaps the Filter rules from And (where the data being filtered must meet both requirements), or Or (where the data being filtered can meet either of the requirements).

The following types of Comparison operators are available:

=, Equals, the data being filtered must match the given string exactly
<, Less than, the data being filtered must be less than the given value
<=, Less than or equal to, the data being filtered must be less than or equal to the given value
>=, Greater than or equal to, the data being filtered must be greater than or equal to the given value
> Greater than, the data being filtered must be greater than the given value
Not =, The data returned will not exactly match the given string or value
Starts With, The data returned will start with the given string
Contains, The data returned will contain the given string
Not Starts With, The data returned will not start with the given string
Not Contains, The data returned will not contain the given string

Group¶

An example of grouping on multiple columns.

Aggregate¶

An example of an aggregate value on grouped data.

The results of an aggregate value on grouped data.

Chart¶

A bar and pie chart, showing the same data, number of Asset per Product Manufacturer.

Crosstab¶

An example of a crosstab showing the number of Assets per Parent Asset in a Location.

Paging¶

A view of the Paging options.

Saved/User Reports¶

Trend Reports¶

Dashboard Reports¶

Users and Groups¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Permissions Overview¶

Managing Users¶

Users can be created, edited or removed in the Admin Overview Section. The following fields are required against a User:

Email Address (Username)
First Name
Last Name
Active - Users can be disabled to temporily or permanently revoke access but retain the User.
Staff Status - Will the User have access to the Admin site
Superuser status - Gives the User access to all permissions without explicitly assigning them.
Groups - Lists the Groups the User is a member of.
User Permissions - Individual Permissions granted to the User outside of any Group permissions they may inherit.

Resetting Passwords¶

It is possible to reset a User password through the Adminstration Menu of TRACKIT.

Deleting Users¶

Deleting a User from TRACKIT will remove the history and ability to restore the User. A more suitable option has been designed, where a User can be Suspended, but retained in the system for reporting and auditing.

Maintaining Groups¶

Groups can be added, edited or removed in the Admin Overview Section.

A view of the Group Permissions selector in TRACKIT Admin.

It’s possible to select multiple permissions by holding down the Ctrl key and selecting a number of permissions.

Mobile Apps¶

New in version 16.02.

TRACKIT Mobile Overview¶

TRACKIT is an Asset Management tool, designed to be delivered via the Cloud as a Software as a Service (SaaS) application. It can be deployed locally and installed on a local virtual or physical machine within a Customer environment.

TRACKIT Mobile App¶

TRACKIT has been designed to provide an accurate, easily maintainable inventory of Locations and Assets. This could be any size, such as a Small Office environment or Store Room, through to a Large Enterprise scale Data Centre. Applications include Vehicle Fleet Management, IT Asset Management, Warehouse Stock Inventories or Mobile Equipment Monitoring.

A view of the TRACKIT MOBILE App.

TRACKIT Mobile¶

TRACKIT Mobile is a Windows tablet based application designed for Offline Data Collection of IT Rooms and Datacentre Assets.

A view of TRACKIT Mobile.

Administration¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 17.02.

Admin Overview¶

TRACKIT provides access to all features and functionality within the tool through the Administration section. Only Admin Users should be setup to have permissions to access these functions as they can determine the way TRACKIT works.

Do not update any settings in this section without confidence in what is being acheived or without guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

Administration Options¶

Below is a list of each Admin section and a summary of the contents.

Access and Authentication¶

Allows updating of the Users and Groups.

Asset Management¶

This section covers everything to do with managing the assets, groups, envrionments, contracts and mount locations.

Audit Trail¶

An administrative view of the audit trail for everything within TRACKIT.

Constance¶

This Config provides access to global system settings, usually this is pre-configured, however it’s possible settings could be changed here if directed by TRACKIT Support or Services.

Custom Forms¶

This should not be used.

Djcelery¶

This section manages tasks and workflows within TRACKIT, it is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

Dynamic Model Validation¶

This section manages rules and validation within TRACKIT, it is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

EAV¶

This provides access to the EAV fields. It’s possible to add, modify or remove EAV fields and groups in this section.

Filer¶

This section manages folders within TRACKIT, it is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

Import and Export¶

This section manages the import and export of data within TRACKIT, it is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

Location Management¶

Many Location functions are available in this section.

Location Cell Names - Provides the ability to modify cells mappings for Floorplans with grids and cells.
Location Drawings - Allows the viewing/modification or removal of Floorplan drawings that have been added to Locations.
Location Images - Allows the viewing/modification or removal of images that have been added to Locations.
Location Mappings - Allows the viewing/modification or removal of Floorplan mappings, such as Grid definitions, that have been added to Locations spaces.
Location Types - Full access to Location Types
Locations - Full access to Locations
Region - Provides functionality to define Regions
Region Types - Allows Region Groups to be added/modified or removed.

Monitoring and Metrics¶

Power¶

This section is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

SVG Drawing/Annotations¶

This section is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

Token_Auth¶

This section is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

Trackit¶

This section is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

Trackit External API¶

Trackit Product Library¶

Trackit Reporting¶

Valuation¶

Wizards¶

Workflow and States¶

This section is preconfigured and should not be tampered with except under guidance from TRACKIT Support or Services.

Monitors and Metrics¶

New in version 16.05.

Changed in version 17.02.

Monitors and Metrics Overview¶

Metric Classes¶

Metric classes determine what type a Metric is, for example, Power, Temperature, Security etc.

Any classes that have been created are listed here. The slug value is automatically generated and can’t be edited, but the Name can be.

Metric Values¶

This section lists the values that have been collected for any Metricsexist. It is possible to search for and find any problem values in here and delete them. It’s also useful for checking to see what actual values are.

Metrics¶

The view allows Metrics to be created and updated. It shows the latest value collected which can be useful for troubleshooting. Metrics can be edited or deleted from here too.

Monitor Input Groups¶

These groups are generated by the monitoring naming standards to group items based on the same source device. If required, they can be altered, but it recommended to leave these.

Monitor Input Values¶

This section lists all collected values from the monitoring system (often millions of them). It can be searched and filtered and it’s possible to remove erronous values from here.1

Monitoring Source Types¶

The list of available monitoring API’s loaded into the system.

Monitoring Sources¶

Here it’s possible to add additional, edit existing or remove any monitor sources in the system.

Monitors¶

This sections provides the ability to create, update and remove monitors based on an existing monitoring source.

Threshold Breaches¶

Allows creation, editing or removing of threshold settings for a specific metric.

Configure a Monitor and Metric¶

This section describes how to set up Monitoring using an existing (in this case t-mac) API.

Ensure that the required Monitoring Source Type is available

Ensure that the correct Monitoring Source is available. If not, add a new one, the details required will be similar to as follows:

Add a Monitor¶

Add the Monitor for the area or space required, the following details (or similar) will be required. Upon saving, the Monitor inputs will be calculated as Trackit connects to the Monitor. This may take a few moments. Once complete, the Number of inputs will no longer display 0.

Add a Metric¶

Now Metrics can be created for the monitor.

A Name should be something unique that follows a standard

An Asset should be something within the correct space, either a monitoring rack (to link the metric to a space) or an individual asset such as a rack or device if appropriate.
The Monitor should be the correct Monitor create earlier
The Group is automatically generated, however can be overwritted. If in doubt, leave blank.
The Code is a short unique name that should follow a standard
The Metric Function can be one of the following:

Mean Average - Will provide a single average value based on all input values added.
Count of Values - Will generate a count of all input values added.
Divide Values - Will generate a value based on dividing one input value by another i.e. Input Value 1 / Input Value 2.
Maximum Value - Will show the maximum value based on all the input values provided.
Minimum Value - Will show the minimum value based on all the input values provided.
Pass through Input Value - Will simply pass through an input value as a metric value. Useful if the monitoring system already provided a metric such as PUE or Rack Temperature.
Basic Formula - The most useful function, allows the user to generate a metric based on a formula of input values and then lists those inputs below.
Sum of Values - Simply adds all provided input values together.

Classes refer to Metric Classes and can be added or new ones generated. A metric can belong to multiple classes
Minimum required value and Maximum required value are values which can be provided to prevent erronous or anomoly values from being collected and producing incorrect charts. These should not be confused with Threshold values.
Description is the description of the Metric created.
Unit of Measure is automatically generated, however it’s possible to override this if required.
Metric Inputs can be added, autocomplete attempts to search for the correct input. If using the Basic Formula option, the inputs are added automatically.
Metric Thresholds can be setup to trigger an alert when the Metric value is within a certain range. See the Threshold section for more details.

When complete, save the Metric and the value will be calculated.

Integration¶

New in version 16.02.

Changed in version 16.09.

Integration Overview¶

In order to integrate both internal products (such as the Trackit 8 Web front-end and Trackit 8 Mobile Apps), and external products (such as a customer’s own specific product), Trackit provides two main strands of API.

Data API - RESTful JSON API for retrieval/modification of data structures, based on Django Rest Framework. This is typically used for manipulation of data within the main application, and the mobile application, via standard XMLHttpRequests. Connectors are implemented for our backbone.js models within the basis module static files.
Application API - WSDL/JSONRPC API for programmatic and function calls, based on Spyne.

2.1 This is used to implement Remote Procedure Calls. 2.2 This could be anything from logging in, to retrieving or executing specific commands. 2.3 It defines a set of commands which can be called using WSDL and or JSONRPC.

Application API Autodiscovery¶

Spyne is a protocol agnostic library which allows quick and easy implementation of RPC based APIs in a Pythonic manner. It has good integration with Django, and is an excellent fit for the application. It also generates WSDL schemas for use with external SOAP clients.

The library provides a variety of transports and protocols which can be utilised without needing to implement extra code. Protocols include SOAP 1.1 and JSONDocument, and can be “mixed and matched” in terms of input and output documents. In order to simplify development, the trackit/trackit_api folder within the main trackit module provides API autodiscovery within the AppConfig ready method. This builds on the Spyne Django implementation, and automatically discovers any Spyne methods within a module called api.py in any INSTALLED_APPS. The process is as follows:

When Django calls the ready method, check that the API_ENABLED Django setting is True. If so, proceed to autodiscovery.
Iterate all of the installed AppConfigs. For each iteration, check if an api.py module exists within the application root folder.
If so, then iterate through each member of the module, and check if it’s a Spyne service by checking if the member is an instance of ServiceBase or DjangoServiceBase.
- Where possible, spyne.util.django.DjangoServiceBase should be used as a service base class, as this implements some additional exception handling specifically for Django errors, such as validation, and re-throws them as the relevant Spyne error. Please see the API Service Example that follows.
Look at the API_ENABLED_PROTOCOLS Django setting to determine what RPC protocols Trackit should create. This will very easily enable us to suppor additional protocols in the future, such as Yaml or MessagePack.
- A protocol consists of three components:
  An input protocol. This determines the format/protocol that data supplied by an API call should use. For example, Soap11 or JSON. This defines how Spyne will parse the input HTTP request to determine a) what API call needs to be made, and b) what input data should be parsed/passed to the Service.
  
  An output protocol.This determines the format/protocol that the API call should return to the callee. This determines how Spyne will serialize objects that the Service returns.
  
  A validator. This determines what module will be used to verify valid input data - for example, lxml for WSDL/Soap calls.

For more information on Spyne high-level concepts, please see this documentation page.

The default defined protocols are as follows:

JSON: Input protocol = JSON, Output Protocol = JSON, Validator = Soft validator. Name = json

WSDL: Input protocol = Soap1.1, Output Protocol = Soap1.1, Validation = lxml. Name = wsdl

For each defined protocol in API_ENABLED_PROTOCOLS, create the relevant protocol instances, and store in an AppConfig property.

Within the urls.py for the trackit_api module, iterate over the protocol instances.

For each protocol instance, create a standard Django URL pattern.

This is a combination of the application name according to the AppConfig (e.g. prolib) and the protocol name as above (e.g. wsdl), and is mapped as, for example, ^/prolib/wsdl/. This is also a named URL pattern of the format “prolib_wsdl”. * For the relevant URL, create a Spyne DjangoView to map directly to the defined Spyne services.

Implementing API Services¶

Whilst knowledge of the API autodiscovery is useful, it is not a requirement to implement API services. An API service can be thought of as a group of one or more RPC methods, to perform specific functionality. Generally it is a Python class, which extends the “DjangoServiceBase” class provided by Spyne, and implement one or more functions. Each function can be mapped directly to an RPC function.

Please note, each Service is not currently namespaced, so if you implement more than one Service within an api.py module, you should ensure the function names are unique across all services. To implement an API service, first create an api.py file within the relevant module, if it does not already exist. Within the api.py file, implement one or more Spyne services, according to the Spyne documentation. An example Hello World service can be found here.

Please note, it is imperative that the rpc decorator be used over the srpc decorator if you wish to gain access to the Django request object.

The Django request object is stored within the Spyne context object, which is passed as the first argument to a service (if the rpc decorator is used to define the service). It can be accessed via the req property of the transport property of the context arguement. For example:

class HelloService(DjangoServiceBase):
    @rpc(Unicode, _returns=Unicode)
    def whoami(context, input_argument):
        django_request = context.transport.req
        return "You are %s (%s)" % (django_request.user, input_argument)

This will be accessible via the URL endpoint determined by the URL mapping as described in the previous section. Depending on the input protocol, the method you use to call it may differ, but as an example, to call via the JSON protocol we could use curl to simulate this. Assuming the module is within the “trackit_api” Django application, and the server is running on port 8000 on localhost, we would use the following CURL method to do so:

curl -s http://localhost:8000/en-us/api/trackit_api/json/ -d \
             '{"whoami": {"input_argument": "Hello!"}}'

The initial object key (“whoami”) determines the function to call within the service, and the associated object determines the parameters to be mapped to the function (e.g. input_argument = “Hello!”). The context argument is automatically provided by Spyne. This provides the following output:

"You are AnonymousUser (Hello!)"

This neatly demonstrates a) the Django request object access, and b) how Spyne automatically serializes the returned Python object into JSON format. You can test WSDL functionality using the Python library suds, via the same method, as follows:

from suds.client import Client
cli = Client("http://localhost:8000/en-us/api/trackit_api/wsdl/")
print(cli.service.whoami)
<suds.client.Method instance at xxx>
print(cli.service.whoami("Tester!"))
You are AnonymousUser (Tester!)

This demonstrates a) the automatic WSDL generation (which can be seen in a browser by navigation to http://localhost:8000/en-us/api/trackit_api/wsdl/), and b) the automatic RPC discovery via suds, and how the results are serialized.

TRACKIT User Documentation¶

Intro¶

About¶

PRO Version¶

Asset Management in TRACKIT¶

Locations¶

Assets¶

Products¶

Asset Class¶

Placement Type¶

Categories¶

Additional Data¶

Platform and Installation¶

Installation Overview¶

Cloud Installation¶

Local Installation via Web¶

Hardware Pre-requisites¶

Optimum Specification¶

Docker¶

Installation Steps - Linux Node¶

Install Docker¶

Configure to AWS¶

Install Database server (PostgreSQL)¶

Create Docker Swarm¶

Create the Services¶

Installation Steps - Windows Node¶

Install Reporting App (Logi)¶

Decompress the Archive¶

Add Application¶

Install IIS¶

Check Settings¶

Local Offline Installation¶

Layout¶

Interface Overview¶

Header Menu¶

Global Search¶

View Layout¶

Account Menu¶

Sidebar¶

Dashboard¶

Location Map¶

Location/Asset Breadcrumb¶

Location/Asset Information Tabs¶

Details¶

Assets¶

Reports¶

History¶

Floor Plan¶

Image¶

Photos¶

Notes¶

Tasks¶

Monitoring¶

Alerts¶

Tracking¶

Wizards¶

Wizard Overview¶

Location Wizard¶

Locations¶

Location Types¶

Location Tree¶

Product Wizard¶

Categories¶

Manufacturers¶

Models¶

Import Models¶

Asset Wizard¶

Asset Groups¶

Asset Group Types¶

Asset Import¶

EAV Wizard¶

EAV Groups¶

EAV Fields¶

EAV (Entity Attribute Values)¶

EAV Overview¶

EAV Groups¶

Order¶

Name¶

Bootstrap Class¶

EAV Attributes¶