Creating assets

Assets are a collection of files, information, and metadata that solve a specific business problem. Assets should be complete, reusable solutions and can be fairly simple – for example, meeting minutes – or they can also be very complex – for example, a full implementation for an application that runs audits.

To view a brief demonstration of how IBM® Rational® Asset Manager can become a central catalog for reusable assets in your organization, you can watch an On Demand Demo here.

When you submit an asset, it might go through a review process if one has been created for the specific asset type that you chose. During a review process, reviewers will review the contents of the asset and verify the accuracy and completeness of the content.

After an asset has been approved or submitted as-is, other users will be able to find the asset, rate and leave comments about the asset, and reuse the asset if it applicable to their business context. You can also participate in the discussion forums and discuss your asset at length.

When you submit the asset, you will become the asset owner. You will automatically have an email subscription to the asset and you will be notified when a user downloads the asset, updates the asset metadata or content, or discusses the asset.

When to create a new asset

Create a new asset when you want to submit an entirely new asset – not an improvement on or duplicate of an existing asset – for reuse across your organization or community.

When to create a new version of an existing asset

Create a new version of an asset when an existing asset has been improved to solve a new business problem or be used in a different context and when you want to preserve the older, existing version of the asset.

For example, create a new version when:
  • you have a new version of an existing software asset that you want others to use;
  • an existing asset has been modified to work in a different environment or business unit;
  • you want to modify an asset's descriptive metadata or artifacts and also want to preserve the older asset so others can find it; or
  • you want to keep separate governance information, usage statistics, or other metadata from version to version of an asset.

Benefits:

When to duplicate an existing asset

Save time while creating a new asset by duplicating an existing asset that uses similar metadata, artifacts, categories, and relationships that you want in the new asset.

For example, you can create an asset template that others can duplicate in order to more quickly create and submit new assets.

Benefits:

When to modify an existing asset

Modify an asset when you want to edit the existing artifacts or asset metadata of an asset but not create a new version or duplicate of that asset. For example, you may want to change the description or add a new category to an asset.

Benefits:

Drawbacks:


Feedback