Asset Groups

An asset group is the register that asset assessments are opened in. It decides two things the assessments underneath it cannot decide for themselves: how they are numbered, and who may do what in them.

An asset group is the same idea as a risk main form in Health & Safety. Choosing which group an assessment belongs to is choosing its numbering, its authorization and its audience.

Fields

• Code / Name
  The register's identity.

• Code template
  The pattern that numbers the assessments opened here — for example VGR-{{counter}}.

• Counter start value / increment / width / padding character
  How the counter inside the template behaves. Width and padding are what turn 7 into 00007.

• Counter
  How far the counter has advanced. Read-only — it is the register's own history, not a setting.

• Active
  Controls whether the group is offered when opening a new assessment.

• Authorizations
  The authorization matrix — see below.

The code template must carry a counter

The {{counter}} placeholder is required, and a template without it is refused when you save the group.

The reason is worth knowing: without a counter, every assessment under the group would be handed the same code. The refusal would then arrive on somebody else's save, as a duplicate-code error on a record that looked fine — instead of here, on the template that caused it.

note

The counter advances per group. Two groups given the same template both start at 1, independently. That is why the code is unique within its group rather than across the system, and why a task title carries the group code alongside the record code.

The record's own code field shows the template, not a preview of the next number. A preview would name a code somebody else may consume before this person saves; showing the template also lets the system tell "untouched" from "typed by hand".

The authorization matrix

Each row grants one identity a set of operations within this register:

Operation	Allows
Create	Opening a new assessment here.
View	Reading the assessments in this register.
Update	Editing a record that is open for editing.
Revise	Opening a new round on a record in force.
Delete	Removing a record.
Cancel	Standing a record down, or giving up a revision.
View past revisions	Reading the earlier rounds of a chain.

Rows accept users, roles, user groups, positions and organization units — all five — so authorization follows the organization rather than a list of names.

Two properties of the matrix matter in practice:

• It is held on the group and never copied onto a record. A change takes effect immediately on everything under the register, including records already in flight.
• It does not decide the approver. The approval task goes to the record's assessment responsible. The matrix decides who may act at all; the record decides who acts next.

note

A row that grants no operation at all is refused. Until authorizations are set, the group belongs to whoever created it — otherwise saving an empty matrix would lock its own author out.

Deactivating a group

Deactivating an asset group does close the assessments under it, and this is the one place the module differs from Health & Safety's behaviour.

When you deactivate a group that still has open assessments, the system reports how many would be closed and asks you to confirm. Confirming stands the group down and cascades those assessments to inactive.

caution

The cascade writes no state transition against the individual assessments, because nobody performed an action on them — the decision was taken on the group. If you need the assessments to carry their own reason, stand them down individually before deactivating the group.

Passive groups are filtered out of the default group list.

Quick assessment entry

Quick entry is the same create screen on a route that names no group, so the group becomes a field on the form rather than part of the address.

Groups you may create in	Quick entry	Menu landing
More than one	An ordinary picker, empty	The group list
Exactly one	The field arrives filled and read-only	Straight into that group's records
None	An empty state	An empty state

The group picker on quick entry offers only groups you hold create on, while the menu shortcut asks about view. Someone who may read three groups but open a record in only one gets the group list and a working quick entry for their one group — that is the expected outcome, not an inconsistency.

Changing the group on the quick-entry form rebuilds the code field and touches nothing else. Somebody who has already rated an asset and then corrects the group does not lose that work.

Creating a group

1. Open Asset Risk → Definitions → Asset Group Definitions and choose New.
2. Enter the code and name.
3. Write the code template, including {{counter}}, and set the counter's start, increment and width.
4. Build the authorization matrix: who may create, view, update, revise, delete, cancel and read history.
5. Save.

tip

Group by who owns the assets rather than by asset type. The matrix is the group's main purpose, and ownership is what it has to express — a group per IT team or per business unit stays correct as the asset inventory changes underneath it.