Creating an Inventory Beacon to Upload Inventory to Flexera One

After you have downloaded and installed the FlexNet Beacon software on your beacon server by following the instructions in Downloading and Installing the FlexNet Beacon Software, you can now create an inventory beacon on this beacon server and configure the “upstream” connection which allows it to upload collected inventory to Flexera One.

Once configured, the same connection also provides for the download of necessary content to each inventory beacon. Downloaded items may include:

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Beacon policy—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

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Self-update packages—These may include updates for the FlexNet Beacon software; and an inventory beacon may also transfer update packages for FlexNet inventory agent to inventory devices.

To create an inventory beacon to upload inventory to Flexera One:

Log in as administrator to the computer where you have installed the FlexNet Beacon software, and open a supported web browser there. The supported web browsers are listed in Prerequisites for IT Visibility Inventory Beacons and Agents.

Make sure that the security settings allow access to the Flexera One server. You can perform the following steps:

In the Search box on the Windows taskbar, type Internet Options, and then click Internet Options. The Internet Properties window appears.

Click the Security tab.

Click the Trusted sites zone, and click Sites.

In the Add this website to the zone field, add the following URLs, and then click Add:

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https://app.flexera.com

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https://app.flexera.eu

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https://app.flexera.au

Click Close.

Click OK.

You can choose to create an inventory beacon either from Flexera One or from the FlexNet Beacon software.

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To create an inventory beacon from Flexera One:

Access one of the following URLs and log in with your Flexera credentials: https://app.flexera.com, https://app.flexera.eu, or https://app.flexera.au.

In the Flexera One UI, go to one of the following pages, depending on your customer type:

Customer Type

Navigation

IT Visibility only

Go to Data Collection > Common Inventory Tasks > Common Beacons.

IT Visibility and IT Asset Management

Choose either one from the following options:

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Go to Data Collection > IT Assets Inventory Tasks > Beacons.

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Go to Data Collection > Common Inventory Tasks > Common Beacons.

IT Asset Management only

Go to Data Collection > IT Assets Inventory Tasks > Beacons.

Click Create Beacon.

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To create an inventory beacon from the FlexNet Beacon software:

Run the FlexNet Beacon software as administrator. For example, in the Windows start menu, search for FlexNet Beacon, right-click the product name and select Run as administrator.

In the navigation bar on the left, select Beacon configuration > Parent connection.

Select Enable parent connection.

Select Download and import configuration file.

Click Download configuration.

On the Flexera One Log In screen, log in with your credential. If you have already logged in, this screen might not display.

On the Organization Chooser screen, choose the Flexera One organization for the beacon, and click Configure Beacon. A beacon should only be configured to transmit to one organization.

On the Create Beacon page, the following information is displayed. Some fields require you input.

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Name—You need to input a name for the beacon. This name will be used to identify this new inventory beacon in future listings.

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Unique ID—A unique ID for the beacon.

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If you started creating the beacon from the Flexera One UI, run the FlexNet Beacon software on the beacon server, find the Beacon UID field, click Copy, and paste the value here.

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If you started creating the beacon from the FlexNet Beacon software on the beacon server, this ID is automatically generated and displayed.

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Destination—Displays whether an IT Asset Management beacon or IT Visibility beacon will be created. For customers of both IT Visibility and IT Asset Management, you can choose the beacon destination.

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ITAM—An IT Asset Management beacon will be created.

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ITV—An IT Visibility beacon will be created.

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Upgrade Mode—Select the upgrade mode from the following options:

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Manual—The beacon will never be automatically upgraded. This is the default and recommended option.

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Always upgrade to approved version—The beacon will always be automatically upgraded to the approved version. The version number of the approved version is also displayed for your information.

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Always upgrade to latest version—The beacon will always be automatically upgraded to the latest version.

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Use a specific version chosen for this beacon—If you select this option, a list of all available beacon versions are displayed for you to select a specific version, and the beacon will be automatically upgraded to this version.

Note:If this is a child beacon, you cannot select the parent beacon on this page. Instead, you will need to select the parent beacon and add credentials on the beacon server.

(Optional) If you want the beacon to be enabled right after it is created, select the Enabled checkbox.

Click Save to create the beacon.

Click Download Configuration, and in the confirmation dialog, click YES. A configuration file in the XML format will be downloaded.

Go to the FlexNet Beacon interface, and click Import configuration.

A file Open dialog appears, displaying the contents of your Downloads folder (or browse there if necessary).

Select the most recent download (the file name includes the unique ID for this inventory beacon), and click Open.

The configuration file is imported into FlexNet Beacon.

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When the configuration details are changed, the inventory beacon displays the resulting URLs, automatically runs a background check on the connection, and displays the results on the page. If there are problems listed, you can address these, and (if required) click Test connection to retry (see Troubleshooting for initial troubleshooting steps).

Tip:The URLs for upstream connections must use the HTTPS protocol. HTTP is not supported.

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Click Save (bottom right in the FlexNet Beacon interface).

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If you need to configure a firewall to allow your inventory beacon to access Flexera One, be sure to include all of the following URLs:

Function	URL
Flexera One web page access	North America: https://app.flexera.com (standard port 443) EU: https://app.flexera.eu (standard port 443) APAC: https://app.flexera.au (standard port 443)
FlexNet Beacon endpoint (for uploads)	North America: https://beacon.flexera.com https://us-west-2.beacons.flexeraeng.com/inventorybeacons EU: https://beacon.flexera.eu https://eu-central-1.beacons.flexeraeng.com/inventorybeacons APAC: https://beacon.flexera.au
Performance and reliability monitoring	https://js-agent.newrelic.com https://bam.nr-data.net
Certificate revocation checks (standard port 80)	http://crl.sca1b.amazontrust.com/sca1b.crl

After this registration process, your inventory beacon knows how to “phone home”, and appears in the list on the Beacons page of the Flexera One web interface. Within about 15 minutes, once its status reports have been uploaded (and you have refreshed the page), its Connection Status is shown as Connected.

To make this inventory beacon operational, you must now:

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Add the downstream connection(s) from which data is to be collected, as described in Creating an Inventory Connection.

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Schedule the automated collection of the inventory from your new connection(s). See Scheduling Inventory Imports for details.

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Ensure that it remains enabled. Operation of each inventory beacon can be enabled/disabled both from the inventory beacon itself, and from the web interface for Flexera One. By default it is enabled at both ends.

Troubleshooting

If there are errors in the connection, try the following steps:

Check that your web browser on the inventory beacon server can still access Flexera One (at the URL listed in the Parent connection page of FlexNet Beacon), to validate that the network has not gone down.

If the network connection is still good, repeat the Test connection in the FlexNet Beacon interface. If the error persists, we have established that it was not a momentary intermittent problem.

Validate that the inventory beacon name you created contains only alphanumeric characters (including extended character sets) and spaces. If not, repeat this process from step 5 to create a different configuration file, with new credentials.

Have a system administrator review the inventory beacon log file located in C:\ProgramData\Flexera\Compliance\Logging to look for further information about the failure. Ask the system administrator whether there are any network settings (such as proxies) that prevent a web service accessing a website that a browser is allowed to access.

If the problem is still not resolved, contact Support at Flexera, including full details, and preferably a screen shot of your results on the Parent connection page in FlexNet Beacon.