Definitions

In this article we have listed some of Trail's key terms. Please contact us at support@trail.fi if you wish for us to add a definition for some other term.

Department

Department information defines who can access the equipment information. Access rights are controlled usually because for all users it is not necessary (of allowed) to see all equipment. To enable efficient access rights management, all new items in Trail are placed under a department when they are created in the system.

Best practice: Departments are usually named based on who owns the equipment in the organization. 

Category and subcategory

Category is a general descriptive name that groups together similar models. 

Category describes the types of equipment and models that are grouped within that category.Category groups together similar models and via categories, it is easy to see how many different but similar models are used in one group of devices.

It is recommended to keep the category names as general as possible.

Subcategory

Sometimes there might be a need to specify specific subcategories under one category. For this purpose, Trail allows a two-level category hierarchy based on a main category and subcategories.

Model

Model is the descriptive name of the identical items.

Based on the model information, you can see how many different models you have, and how many individual items of each model you have.

Usually the model name is the same as product name. 

For example: Model could be Chainsaw Universal 18V and there can be several individual items (chainsaws) of this same model in Trail.

Item

Item refers to the actual individual device.

Trail creates a unique identifier number (item ID) for each item to help with identifying each item and separating similar items (of the same model) from each other.

All activities (such as maintenances and reservations) will be registered to an individual item. This way of operating enables updating timely information on the item, such as:

• Where the item is located?
• Is the item available or reserved?
• Who is using the item?
• Is the item broken or under maintenance?

Each item has its own item card in Trail where all data about operations will be gathered for later inspection.

Location and sublocation

Location name describes where the item is. Based on the location information, user knows where the item can be found.

In Trail the location of the item can be either (1) the actual physical location (building, room, shelf) or (2) another item (if the item is placed inside of a pallet for example). If location of an item is marked to be another item (parent item), then the physical location of the item is automatically the location of the parent item in the system.

Sublocation:

If you have multiple different buildings, but still want to specify where the item actually is within one of the buildings, you can create a two-level location hierarchy using locations and sublocations.

Item type

Item type determines what information fields will be seen in the item card. In every item card in Trail (for individual items), there are standard information fields (e.g. location, department, purchase price, purchase date, vendor, and estimated lifespan).

For different types of items there is a need to determine additional fields of information on top of the standard ones. The needed fields can be very different based on what type of equipment it is. To some items there is a need for information fields such as color, size, designer and material. To some others more relevant fields would be serial number, IP address, weight and inspector. 

Best practice: Trail supports already various different types of items in the system and can provide relevant fields different item types off the shelf. The need regarding item types is best to determine when adding new items to Trail to ensure that correct item type is available.