Creating an Inventory Connection

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.

To enable correct interpretation of the inventory data being imported from a source database, the inventory beacon needs to know:

The type of database in which the data is stored, as well as the type of data itself
The name of the database
The location of the database
The security permissions required to access the database
When (if ever) the data from this database should be considered stale.

All connections to third-party (non-Flexera One) inventory sources are made through the FlexNet Beacon interface, on the inventory beacon that is best positioned for high-speed network connection to the source database. The following process uses Microsoft SCCM as the inventory source in this example. For a list of supported inventory sources, see Inventory Data Sources Supported for IT Visibility.

To create a connection for importing inventory from Microsoft SCCM:

1. Select the Inventory systems page in the FlexNet Beacon interface (in the Data collection group in the left navigation bar).
2. Click New... (toward the bottom right of this page).

The Create SQL Source Connection dialog opens.

3. Complete the values in this dialog, according to the following notes:

Control

Comments

Connection Name

A descriptive name for this connection that you will recognize later in lists. The name may contain alphanumeric characters, underscores or spaces, but must start with either a letter or a number.

Source Type

Choose SCCM (which includes imports from Microsoft SCCM, or from legacy Microsoft SMS, databases).

Important:To collect data saved by Microsoft SCCM, the account on the inventory beacon that is running the connection to the SQL Server database requires membership in the SQL Server db_datareader role. For more information, refer to the Microsoft Database-level roles topic.

Server

Type the server name or IP address. Use the special value (localhost) if the database is installed on this same inventory beacon server. If the database instance you need is not the default one on the server you identify, add the instance name, separated with a backslash character. Example:

(localhost)\myInstance

Authentication

Select one of:

Windows Authentication—Select this option to use standard Windows authentication to access the database server. The credentials of the account (on the inventory beacon) running the FlexNet Beacon Engine service are used to access the SQL Server database. This account must be included in an Active Directory security group that has access to the database.
Windows (specific account)—Use the following two fields (enabled when you make this choice) to specify an account on the inventory beacon that can make a connection to the SQL database.
SQL Authentication—Use the following two fields (enabled when you make this choice) to specify an account and password registered as a user with database access on SQL Server. This account is used to access the database, regardless of the local account running the FlexNet Beacon Engine service on the inventory beacon server.

Tip:The account used needs read-only privileges on the database.

Username

The account name used for SQL authentication, or Windows (specific account). (Not required for Windows Authentication.)

Password

The password for the account name required for SQL authentication, or Windows (specific account). (Not required for Windows Authentication.)

Database

Enter the name of the database, or use the pull-down list to select from database names automatically detected on your specified server.

4. Click Test Connection.
If the inventory beacon can successfully connect to the nominated database using the details supplied, a Database connection succeeded message displays. Click OK to close the message. Click Save to complete the addition. The connection is added to (or updated in) the list.
If the inventory beacon cannot connect, a Database connection failed message is displayed, with information about why that connection could not be made. Click OK to close the message. Edit the connection details and retest the connection.

You cannot save the connection details if the connection test fails. If you cannot get the connection test to succeed, click Cancel to cancel the addition of these connection details.

When your database connection is successfully tested, you have one set-up task remaining – to schedule when this connection is used to import data (see Scheduling Inventory Imports).