IT Visibility Beacon Properties

Important: The inventory beacon information in this section is specific to IT Visibility only. For related information, refer to Uploading Inventory Data into IT Visibility. For help using inventory beacons with IT Asset Management, refer to Using IT Asset Management Inventory Beacons to Collect Inventory.

The properties for an individual inventory beacon are displayed when you click on the Name of the inventory beacon in the IT Visibility Beacons page.

Tip:This page is also displayed when you use the FlexNet Beacon interface on your inventory beacon to collect its configuration file (as described in Configuring IT Visibility Beacon to Upload Inventory to Flexera One). At that time, the page title is Configure Beacon. If, instead, you open the properties of an existing inventory beacon (previously configured) from the Beacons listing, this page displays the inventory beacon's name as the page title.

Two tabs are available on this page: Details, and Upload Status.

Details Tab

If you make any changes to the editable properties in this tab, be sure to click Save to keep the changes. The following properties (listed here in alphabetical order) are available here.

Beacon Properties

Column	Notes
Beacon Status	Displays one of: • Disabled at server—The inventory beacon is reporting its status, but showing that it has been disabled on the inventory beacon itself. To re-enable, log into FlexNet Beacon as administrator, navigate to Beacon configuration > Parent connection, and select the Enable parent connection check box. After you make a change of this kind, it may take 15 minutes or so for the new status to be displayed in Flexera One (you may need to refresh this page). • Idle—The inventory beacon is operational, and awaiting its next scheduled trigger—no action needed. • Never reported—This inventory beacon has not yet uploaded its first status report. This may be normal if FlexNet Beacon has just been installed; but uploads should commence within about 15 minutes (you may need to refresh this page to see new information, as once open, it does not update automatically). This is also a likely value if the Connection Status is showing Check connectivity. If the value persists, visit the inventory beacon and check that the FlexNet Beacon Engine service is running. Also check that the Microsoft Windows scheduled task Upload FlexNet logs and inventories is running (by default, this should fire every 10 minutes throughout the day). • Not reporting normally—This inventory beacon has uploaded its status report previously, but is now overdue for an update. On the inventory beacon, check that the FlexNet Beacon Engine service is running, and the scheduled task Upload FlexNet logs and inventories is running.
Beacon Version	The release number of the FlexNet Beacon software installed on this inventory beacon. This is controlled by your choices in the Version History page.
Description	An optional brief Description for this inventory beacon, intended to assist future management. For example, this may identify its physical location or the specific purpose of the inventory beacon.
Last Policy Update	Shows the date and time when the inventory beacon last checked for changes in beacon policy, and downloaded the resulting file. Beacon policy is an XML file that contains the settings for operation of the inventory beacon itself, plus details that allow each inventory beacon to prepare device policy for any inventory device where the installed FlexNet inventory agent requests it.
Last Reported	The date and time when this inventory beacon last uploaded one of its 'heartbeat' status reports. By default, this should happen about every 15 minutes throughout the day (although the details on this page do not automatically update, and you may need to refresh manually to see the latest data).
Last Upgrade	The date and time when the version of FlexNet Beacon software displayed in Beacon Version was installed (typically by self-update).
Name	The friendly display name chosen when this inventory beacon was configured. You may edit/update this value. Tip:Use only alpha-numeric characters (which may include those from extended character sets) and spaces in the name.
OS Version	The Windows operating system on which the reporting instance of FlexNet Beacon is installed and running, as reported by the inventory beacon in its regular 'heartbeat' uploads.
Parent Beacon	There are two alternatives for this field: • The field is blank when this inventory beacon reports directly to Flexera One. • If this inventory beacon is part of a hierarchy of inventory beacons, and it is a lower level or 'child' beacon in that hierarchy, then this field shows the display name of the 'parent' beacon to which this one uploads content. Tip:Hierarchies of inventory beacons will be supported when the back-end processing through Flexera One allows multiple inventory beacons in an organization.
Policy Status	It displays one of: • No policy—Beacon policy has not yet been requested by, and downloaded to, this inventory beacon. This is typically because FlexNet Beacon has only just been installed, or because there is a connectivity issue to solve, or because the beacon service is not running correctly on the inventory beacon. • Out of date—Beacon policy is being delivered to this inventory beacon; but since its last request to check for updates, there is a change that requires a download of updated policy. By default, this should be fixed automatically within about 15 minutes, when the inventory beacon next checks for updates (remember, you may need to refresh this page to see updated data). • Up to date—Operation is normal—there has been no change since the last policy download to this inventory beacon.
PowerShell Version	The version of PowerShell installed on this inventory beacon, as self-reported by the inventory beacon in its regular 'heartbeat' uploads. For details of the versions required/ supported, see Prerequisites for IT Visibility Inventory Beacons and Agents.
Server Name	The server name reported by the inventory beacon in its regular 'heartbeat' uploads.
Unique ID	The globally-unique ID automatically generated by Flexera One for download of the configuration file to this inventory beacon. As noted in Configuring IT Visibility Beacon to Upload Inventory to Flexera One, this unique ID (and a hidden password that is also automatically generated) mean that you cannot share configuration files between inventory beacons – each must download and install its own.
Upgrade Mode	Determines how the inventory beacon manages its self-upgrades. You may choose one of the following: • Always upgrade to the latest version—From time to time, new versions of FlexNet Beacon are released through Flexera One. When your inventory beacon “phones home” to check for any updates to beacon policy, it also discovers when a new version of FlexNet Beacon is available. If you select this option, that updated FlexNet Beacon software is automatically deployed to this inventory beacon, and it will automatically update itself at that time. • No automatic upgrades—This inventory beacon sits unchanged at its current installed version until you return to this page and change this option. • Additional choices will be available shortly.
Web Server Status	The Web Server Status is particularly important in parent inventory beacons that have others reporting to them, because this web server defines the download and reporting (upload) locations used by child inventory beacons, as well as the web service used to accept uploads. It is also used when installed copies of FlexNet inventory agent start reporting through this inventory beacon. Until then, the local web server on the inventory beacon may be Disabled.

Upload Status Tab

This page lists two kinds of “heartbeat” reports that each inventory beacon attempts to upload. If there are upload difficulties, these small files are saved on the inventory beacon for subsequent retries. Therefore, when this page shows zeros in the Files to Upload column, everything is working normally; and information from these heartbeat uploads is populating the fields in the Details tab of the inventory beacon properties. On the other hand, if files are backed up, you can see the file count, the sum of file sizes for all backed up files, and start and end dates for the issue. (When there are no issues, the Oldest Pending and Newest Pending columns both show the date/time when the page was populated and displayed.)