Asset tracking in Wrike, whether tracking digital assets like images and templates, or physical equipment like printers and monitors, follows the same core approach. The principles apply across both.
Building an asset tracker in Wrike starts with identifying what the assets are being used for and how often.
Start by defining your asset types
Before touching anything in Wrike, decide what categories of assets you are tracking. Creative assets by type, images, videos, templates, copy? Equipment by department? Software licences by user? The category structure determines how you set up Custom Item Types, which is the right way to differentiate asset types in Wrike.
Custom Item Types let you create a distinct item type for each category of asset, with its own fields, statuses, and visual identity. An Image asset type can have fields specific to images, such as dimensions, format, and rights clearance status. A Video asset type can have different fields. This is much cleaner than trying to use a single task type with conditional fields to cover everything.
The custom fields you need
Regardless of asset type, most teams end up needing a consistent set of fields across assets: asset type if you are not using Custom Item Types, the purpose or project it is associated with, a usage count, the owner, and the date it was added and last used.
Usage count is the tricky one since Wrike does not automatically increment a count when an asset is linked to a project. You either build that tracking manually using a number field that someone updates when they use the asset, or you use cross-tagging to associate the asset with each project it is used in and then count the cross-tagged instances in a report. Set a standard and enforce it from the start.
Linking assets to projects
The most useful thing about an asset tracker is the ability to see what is being used and where. Cross-tagging is the Wrike mechanism for this. An asset task or item can be tagged into multiple project folders simultaneously, appearing in both the asset library and the project where it is in use.
From there, dashboards and reports can surface the most-used assets, assets by category, and assets associated with specific campaigns or projects.
For physical assets, use Wrike’s Asset Scheduling feature. Tracking physical equipment like monitors, printers, cameras, and AV gear means Wrike has a native Asset Scheduling and Tracking feature that handles adding, organising, and managing non-human resources in your workspace. This is separate from the Custom Item Type approach above and is worth exploring before building something custom, since it is purpose-built for exactly that use case.