Frequently Asked Questions: K-12 Schools and Visual Asset Manager

Public and private K-12 schools and districts of all sizes rely on Visual Asset Manager asset and resource tracking software for increased productivity and easy tracking on an individual school or even district-wide basis.

Browse through our list of Frequently Asked Questions just for K-12 education to learn more about how Visual Asset Manager (VAM) can help your school:

It’s the start of a new school year, and our IT group is already overwhelmed. Is there an option to get Visual Asset Manager as an Internet-based appliance service? What about help with installation and training?

Yes. Visual Asset Manager gives you the flexibility to either install the software on your in-house server, or to use our On Demand appliance service. With our On Demand service, you only need a Web browser to get complete access to a fully featured and hosted version of Visual Asset Manager on a VMWare Appliance or 1U Hardware Server.

As for training, we understand that IT departments in the Higher Education environment are subject to many demands, so we offer comprehensive installation, support and training services so that you’re never on your own when it comes to experiencing the benefits of Visual Asset Manager for your school or district.

We need different levels of security permissions and access for our district. Can Visual Asset Manager accommodate our needs?

Yes, Visual Asset Manager has role-based security permissions and capabilities so you can create different user access based on your school’s internal security needs and priorities.

This means you have full control of who has access to the assets or what type of access they have — such as if you want to designate one person in each department or school to manage property. You can also set security permissions for groups of sites.

Can we use Visual Asset Manager to track vehicles like buses and other district resources for school field trips and special events?

Yes. With our unique fleet intelligence add-on, you can track the location of each bus or van with precise accuracy via Marcus V8 — Visual Asset Manager’s unique interface to our Fleet Intelligence tools. With additional hardware, we track the data reading from the vehicle's on-board computer to predict such items as preventative maintenance and improper use of the vehicle.

Not only can you track instantly the whereabouts of your buses or transportation vans, but the unique features of our fleet intelligence add-on allow you to send text messages to a Garmin device connected to the hardware in the vehicle, and create an instant route for the driver to follow. You know exactly where the vehicle is located on a map that is updated in real-time by GPS and GPRS hardware on the vehicle.

We would like to display valued assets and locations on a handheld barcode or RFID scanner or tablet PC. Can we do that using Visual Asset Manager?

One of the unique features of Visual Asset Manager is that we have developed our unique portable data collection using Windows Mobile Devices or Small UMPC Windows XP so you can display assets or locations whereever your facilities staff need to be; in cafeteria, administration rooms, labs or classroom locations.

RFID readers are perfect for the outside of often-used labs, and our interactive search capability allow you to see the most current location of portable equipment when and where it is moved. Our active-tag RFID has tamper alarms to protect valued equipment from damage or theft.

Can we customize Visual Asset Manager so it fits our district protocol and unique tracking system?

Yes. You can customize Visual Asset Manager with whatever categories are unique to your school or district, including particular school numbers, buses and much more.

We need to be able to easily track our assets and resource usage for district's financial reporting purposes. What kind of reporting does Visual Asset Manager offer?

Visual Asset Manager comes with built-in reports that are viewable in the industry-standard MS Sql Server Report format. You can also connect your Visual Asset Manager scheduling database to any number of leading reporting tools to design and author your own unique reports.

We have Spiceworks® or Track-IT®. Why do we need Visual Asset Manager?

Visual Asset Manager was designed to be a powerhouse tracking system that effortlessly keeps track of what you own, where it is, and how much it is worth. Spiceworks or Track-IT keep track of computer related equipment only.

Add to that the ability to maintain the accuracy of the database by making it transactional (you keep the database current each time you physically move, add or remove an item with a hand-held scanner, RFID reader, or tablet/notebook software) — and it’s easy to see why Visual Asset Manager is the top choice.

We also understand that Spiceworks is the personal IT software of choice for many campuses, so Visual Asset Manager is designed to work seamlessly with Spicework's network discovery capabilities. For example, any IT Asset that has been noted by spiceworks can be imported directly into Visual Asset Manager's IT Lookup table which is sent directly to the handheld or tablet PC data collection device..

With Visual Asset Manager's lease tracking capability, the time spent searching for items spread out across the enterprise is eliminated. IT items kept on a single lease schedule are noted by office and room, and when it it moved by your IT group, the location is changed automatically (something that Spiceworks or Track-IT can't do).