Resolving the Application’s Overlapping Evidence Alerts

Sometimes a single evidence record might be assigned to several software applications. If so, a red alert symbol displays next to the name of each affected application.

Important:Overlapping applications associated with the same evidence may lead to conflicting results during application recognition. It is best practice to review and resolve these alerts as soon as possible.

To resolve the application's overlapping evidence alerts:

1.

Click Applications & Evidence > Applications > All Applications.

2.

Click Add filter, and select Alert from the list.

3.

From the second drop-down list, select Overlapping applications, and click the checkmark icon:

This drop-down list shows only those alerts that currently exist in your application listing (on any page of the listing). If the only option is Empty, there are no alerts. Other possible alerts include:

•

This application is not linked to any evidence

•

A member of this suite is not linked to any evidence

•

This application is unauthorized, but installations exist in your inventory. A list of applications that contain overlapping evidence displays

4.

Select an application, and click Resolve overlap.

The Overlapping Applications page appears, showing a separate listing of evidence for the application you selected, and each of the applications that has evidence overlapping that one. The evidence properties available in each of these listings are shown below.

5.

Identify one (or more) row(s) of evidence that have both the Added evidence and Overlapping evidence columns displaying Yes. In the application listing for which these rows of evidence appear least appropriate, select them, and click Remove.

You cannot remove an evidence record if No is displayed in its Added evidence column and Flexera in its Source column. Both these values show that the link between the evidence and the application comes from the Application Recognition Library. You can only remove evidence that has been added locally (within your enterprise), and in this case you only want to remove added evidence that is also overlapping (or attached to more than one application). In the case where the evidence is attached to one application in the Application Recognition Library (Added evidence shows No for this application) and has been attached to another application by someone in your enterprise (Added evidence shows Yes for this application), you can only remove the locally-added link.

A confirmation dialog appears, asking Are you sure you want to delete selected evidenceType evidence? This Remove action does not delete the evidence record from your system, but only deletes the link between that evidence record and the chosen application, thereby removing the overlap.

6.

Click OK to confirm your decision.

If there are further pieces of evidence causing some of these same applications to overlap, you are returned to the Overlapping Applications page. and can repeat this process. Otherwise, a message confirms that The applications do not overlap, and you can click OK again to clear the confirmation. Otherwise, after a moment, you are automatically directed back to the All Applications listing. The same filter is still applied, but the overlapping applications you just corrected are no longer included in the list.

The following evidence properties are shown for each application in the Overlapping Applications page (listed alphabetically):

Overlapping Applications Page Properties

Column Name	Description
Added evidence	Displays Yes if the evidence was added to this application within your enterprise. Displays No if the linkage between this application and the evidence is recorded in the Application Recognition Library.
Assigned	Displays Yes when the evidence is matched to at least one application, and otherwise displays No. This assignment may have been done automatically through the Application Recognition Library rules, or manually by the operator.
Ignored	Displays Yes when the evidence is not used for application recognition, and No (the default) when the evidence is used to recognize an installation of the assigned application.
Matches	Specifies the number of times that a particular evidence rule is matched in software inventory. Note:A figure displayed in the Matches column is often higher than the number of installations of the software applications (the installation count is displayed in the Installed column on the Applications tab of the evidence properties). These figures may be different for the following reasons: • Multiple items within the same inventory can match one evidence rule. For example, if the version in a rule is generalized as "1.%", then the evidence for releases 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 all count as separate evidence matches; but they may all resolve to the same installed application (where they are found on a single computer). • Some inventory tools may count duplicate computer records as having separate instances of evidence. However, when calculating the installation count, IT Asset Management automatically merges duplicate device records, and does not double-count application installations.
Name	The installer evidence name is derived from native packaging tools on each device. For example, on Windows® devices, the sources include MSI information and Add/ Remove Programs data. Clicking on the hyperlinked Name value opens the property sheet for this installer evidence, and in those properties the Devices tab identifies all the inventory devices where this installer evidence has been located.
Overlapping evidence	Displays Yes for evidence that is linked to multiple applications, and No for evidence that does not overlap multiple applications.
Publisher	The publisher name listed in the evidence.
Source	The source of this evidence rule: • Flexera—The evidence is identified in the Application Recognition Library, and is linked only to the identified application. • Flexera (Extended)—The evidence is identified in the Application Recognition Library, and an operator also linked this evidence to another application record. • Local—The imported evidence was unmatched in the Application Recognition Library; or the evidence record was created manually (or imported from a spreadsheet), in which case you can safely edit or delete this record.
Type	The kind of software installer that generated this evidence, or where the installer evidence is found. Examples include MSI, Add/Remove Programs, and so on. For manually-created records, editable in the General tab of the installer evidence properties. Not editable for records published through the Application Recognition Library.
Version	The version of the installed application, as reported by the evidence. For locally-created records, the Version is editable in the General tab of the installer evidence properties.