Printers, IP Addresses, and 11 Floors of Chaos: A Case Study in Structure

While working at GHD Engineering in Brisbane in 2009, I built SharePoint Lists to manage the IT Department's assets... and printers are a prime example.

At the time, GHD was spread across 3 buildings in the CBD, multiple floors in each building (11 in total), and each floor had multiple printers.

The printer naming convention was solid in that it told us the exact location of each printer but IT staff were constantly asking each other for their IP address, what toner cartridges they took, and which company to call to order more.

This situation was ripe for some structure!

So I created a SharePoint List with the following columns:
Printer Name, IP (linked to the printer Admin console), Location, Colour/BW, Cartridge Model No’s, Order Cartridges (linked to vendor website), Serial, Admin PW, Warranty Expiry, Printer Repair Number.

This took very little time to compile and saved a massive amount of time and redundant questions about the printers because everyone knew where to look.

What information needs structure in your business?
Software?
Hardware?
SOPs?