Why is Unassigned considered a Previous Owner?

Hi ​@jo.cpa ,

I hope you’re doing great! In the process you mentioned above, when the device is checked-in and assigned to another user, the “Previous Owner” field’s data shows “Unassigned” instead of the previous owner in the timeline, is that correct?

I look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,

Jas

Hello ​@JDhanjal_iiQ - I work with ​@jo.cpa and this is what we notice: 

1. Device is returned and checked in. 
   • This step unassigns the current owner → [Owner] = [blank]
   • The owner is then added as the previous owner → [Previous Owner] = [user that was just removed from device]. 
2. Weeks later (example), the same device is assigned to a new owner. 
   • This step assigns the new owner → [Owner] = [new user]
   • The “Previous Owner” field is then left blank → [Previous Owner] = [blank]
     • This happens even though there hasn’t been a user in between the actual previous owner and the new owner. 

It seems like the system is considering “Unassigned” an owner in between owners.

• When a device skips the “unassigned” state and simply goes from being check out from one student to another in one step, the previous owner reflects the previous user. 
• When a device gets “unassigned” from one user first and is then assigned to a new user afterward, the previous owner field is completely blank when the new user is added. 
  • Even though the previous owner was an actual person… they don’t remain listed as the previous owner if the device is unassigned at any point. 

Hope this helps you understand!

Related to this, it would also be really useful to have an asset timeline/history view on user pages so we could see any devices previously assigned to them. In an ideal world, we’d like to have a comprehensive asset assignment history report that shows all previous owners and assignment history in one place... for now though, the Previous Owner field isn’t reliable for auditing or backtracking devices.