CC · Core Concepts
Hardware
Lifecycle, adding a device, assigning it to a person.
4 min read
Hardware covers any physical device — laptops, monitors, network equipment, printers, and anything else with a serial number. Each hardware record tracks its status, cost, warranty expiry, purchase date, the person it's assigned to, and which folder it lives in. A device is either added by hand or synced in from Intune/Entra when Microsoft 365 is connected; synced devices are read-only for the fields Microsoft owns.
- 01
Open Hardware → Add Hardware
The Hardware list shows every device with filters for status, type, and tags, plus search by name, serial number, or vendor.
- 02
Fill in Identity and Details
Name, serial number/asset tag and folder go under Identity. Type, vendor, model and Status go under Details. Required on a new record: name, serial number, type, status, cost and purchase date. Vendor, model, folder and warranty expiry are optional.
- 03
Add purchase and warranty info
The purchase date drives a device's lifecycle — it reaches end of life at purchase date plus your organisation's device lifecycle (Settings → Organization → Advanced Settings; default 3 years, adjustable from 1 to 20). Change that setting and every device's end-of-life date is recalculated across the org — it is also the age at which the end-of-life alert fires and the Hardware Lifecycle report flags a device. Warranty expiry is informational only and never changes a device's status; leave it blank for items that don't have one.
- 04
Attach documents and notes, then save
Invoices and warranty cards can be uploaded directly to the record — up to 25 files, 5MB each, as PDF, JPEG, PNG or WebP. Assigning the device to a person happens afterwards, from the record's Assignments tab.
- 05
Plan and record a retirement
Retirement is a decision, not just something that happens when a device disappears. From a device's menu (or in bulk from the Hardware list) choose Plan retirement: pick a reason (refresh, lease return, replaced under warranty, scrapped, sold, lost, stolen), optionally where it is going and when. The device stays in service and appears on the Hardware page's Retiring tab until you retire it — or, for a Microsoft 365 device, until the sync sees it leave the tenant, at which point the retirement completes on its own. Retire (or Confirm retirement for a device the sync has flagged as gone) takes it out of service and keeps the reason and destination as the disposal record; the Hardware Lifecycle report lists everything retired in the last twelve months with both.