Managing people

Overview#

The Overview section provides complete details of the person.

The first row displays title, department and status.

The second row highlights the person's name.

The third row displays address, email, phone number and organization.

The fourth row displays costs associated with the person.

Current assignments#

The current assignments section lets you toggle between the assets, subscriptions and locations assigned to this person.

Along with the name, this section includes a badge indicating how long it has been since the assignment was made.

Timeline#

The timeline documents everything that has been associated with this person: every asset, subscription and location, including events this person was responsible for, such as accidental damage to an asset. Every activity is recorded in one place, and each timeline entry can be edited with a single click.

Comments and attachments are supported on all timeline entries. Click any item to edit it, and you can add comments or upload attachments. Timeline items with comments show a comment bubble icon, and items with attachments show a paperclip icon on the activity line.

Actions button#

The actions button in the top right corner is how you manage the person. This is purposely the only button on the page: any action you need to perform on the person is done from the actions button.

The To-do button records a to-do on that person. If something needs to be completed in the future by you or someone else, this is where you create it. For example, a person in your organization comes to you with a broken cell phone and needs a replacement or repair; you can make a to-do for that person to follow up and get the phone fixed.

The Quick Note button is simple and straightforward. It creates a timeline entry that is a simple note. Use it for recording informational, one-off events on the person.

The Set Active / Inactive flag changes the status of the person. It does not change any assignments.

Under the assignments dropdown you can update the current assignments of assets, subscriptions and locations.

Under the lifecycle dropdown, Edit Person Details is where you update the base details of the person, such as name and address.

Merging duplicate people#

Sometimes the same person ends up in AssetCenter twice: someone was added by hand before directory sync was connected, a name was typed slightly differently, or a bulk import ran twice. Two records for one person means their equipment and history are split across both, and neither one tells you the whole story.

Merging folds the duplicates into a single record. Open the People list, press the ⋯ button in the top right and select Merge Duplicates. Only an AssetCenter account administrator sees this option.

AssetCenter looks for people who share an email address, ignoring capitalization, or who share the same full name. Each set it finds is shown as a group, with a badge saying what matched them.

Choosing which record to keep#

Every record in a group is listed with its email address, how many assets it holds, when it was added, and whether it came from directory sync. Use those details to pick the one to keep, then press Merge and confirm.

If you are unsure, keeping the directory-synced record is usually the safer choice, because it is the one Microsoft Entra will carry on updating.

What happens when you merge#

Everything attached to the other records moves onto the one you keep:

• Assets currently assigned to them.
• Their full timeline history, including events where they handed an asset to someone else or received one.
• Subscription and location assignments. If both records held the same subscription or location, it is kept once rather than twice.
• Notes, to-dos, comments and attachments.

Any detail the record you keep is missing — an email address, phone number, department, job title or address — is filled in from the duplicate, so nothing is lost. Details it already has are never overwritten.

If the record you keep was not linked to directory sync but a duplicate was, it takes over that link. Without this, the next sync would simply create the duplicate again.

Names already written into the timeline are left as they were. A timeline entry records what someone was called at the time it happened, so merging tidies up your people list without rewriting your history.

Once the duplicates are merged they are deleted, and this cannot be undone. If you are not certain two records are the same person, leave them alone.