IT Visibility Beacons Page

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 Beacons page (Data Collection > IT Visibility Inventory Tasks > IT Visibility Beacons) lists all recorded installations of FlexNet Beacon within your organization, with a summary of the key status values for each.

Tip:At this release, back-end processing limits each organization to a single inventory beacon with a single inventory connection. This restriction will be lifted in the near future.

In addition, if you have administrator privileges for your organization, this page allows two operations to manage your inventory beacon(s):

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You can delete a record of an inventory beacon by clicking the trash icon in its row, and clicking Delete in the confirmation dialog. Notice that this action does not uninstall the FlexNet Beacon software from your inventory beacon server; but because the record of this inventory beacon (including the password it must use for inventory uploads) is removed, it can no longer operate. You should visit the ex-inventory beacon and manually uninstall the FlexNet Beacon software.

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You can click Download Beacon to download a new copy of the FlexNet Beacon software for installation (for details, see Installing an IT Visibility Inventory Beacon and surrounding topics).

If the list of inventory beacons gets cluttered with too many entries, you may add a filter to focus on particulars (for details, see Filtering the IT Visibility Inventory Beacons List).

The following columns are available in your list of inventory beacons:

Inventory Beacon Columns

Column	Notes
Name	The name provided when the inventory beacon was being configured (for process details, see Configuring IT Visibility Beacon to Upload Inventory to Flexera One). Clicking the inventory beacon's name switches to a page of its properties.
Server	The inventory beacon identifies itself in its 'heartbeat' status uploads (by default, every 15 minutes). Therefore the server name may remain blank for the first 15 minutes or so after FlexNet Beacon is installed.
Connection Status	Displays one of: • Connected—Operation is normal. • Check connectivity—Have you downloaded and imported the configuration file for this inventory beacon? (For details, see Configuring IT Visibility Beacon to Upload Inventory to Flexera One.) If so, on your inventory beacon, in the FlexNet Beacon interface, check results in the Beacon configuration > Parent connection page.
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.
Policy Status	Policy Status reports on the delivery of “beacon policy”, an XML file that carries settings, version control (for automatic self-upgrades or downgrades of FlexNet Beacon), and information to hand off to installed copies of FlexNet inventory agent as “device policy”. By default, each inventory beacon “phones home” to check for any updates to beacon policy every 15 minutes. 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.
Delete	With administrator privileges, you may click the trash can icon on a row to remove the record of that inventory beacon. (This column is suppressed for accounts with read only privileges.) Note:Removing the record in this way does not uninstall the FlexNet Beacon software from your inventory beacon, but because its record (including the password it must use to upload inventory) is removed, it can no longer operate. You need to visit the ex-inventory beacon and manually uninstall the FlexNet Beacon software.