Configuring Update Settings for Individual Inventory Beacons

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

Within your global strategy for updating inventory beacons, you can manage exceptions; or you can individually control each beacon.

Your inventory beacons can self-update automatically, or you can control releases manually. First, you set a baseline behavior with the global settings; then you can manage each beacon individually (documented here).You make these settings in the compliance browser, using the web interface to IT Asset Management (and not on the individual inventory beacon servers).

To manage updates for individual inventory beacons:

1. Go to the Beacons page.
   The list of your current inventory beacons displays. In the Actions column on the right-hand end of each entry, there is an edit icon (pen).
2. For the desired inventory beacon, click its edit icon.
   The properties page for this inventory beacon displays. Ensure that the General tab is selected.
3. In the Overview section of the General tab, make a selection from the Upgrade mode drop-down list.
   • Always use the approved version (currently release-number) — This setting makes this inventory beacon respond to the global settings for all your inventory beacons ( Go to the Inventory Settings page). This is a recommended setting.
   • Always use the latest version (currently release-number) — This inventory beacon ignores your global settings, and always automatically updates itself as soon as a new version of the FlexNet Beacon software is available.
   • Do not upgrade automatically — IT Asset Management does not manage the version upgrades for this inventory beacon, and you undertake to maintain this software using your preferred deployment process.
     Tip: Monitor the IT Asset Management Features by Release information, available at https://docs.flexera.com/, for functionality changes that rely on an update to the FlexNet Beacon software.
   • Choose a specific version — Another control appears where you can choose the Specific version. This inventory beacon then ignores your global settings, and stays set at the selected version until you return to change this value.
     Note: If you select a release number earlier than the version currently deployed to your inventory beacon, you will trigger a downgrade. Since this is not recommended (especially in a production environment), you see a confirmation alert:

     This setting forces inventory beacons to downgrade to an earlier version of the inventory beacon software. Best practice is to keep inventory beacons up to date.

     Are you sure you want to roll back inventory beacons to this earlier version?

     Either Cancel the alert, and choose a later release of the FlexNet Beacon software; or, if you really intend to force a downgrade, click OK.
   If the Upgrade mode instead displays this message:

   This version of the beacon does not support automatic upgrades. A manual
   installation is required to upgrade this beacon.

   see Installing an Inventory Beacon for further information.
4. Make sure that you click Save to store your changes in the database. These are then automatically communicated to the inventory beacon.

Remember: Flexera strongly recommends that you keep your inventory beacons as up-to-date as is possible within your corporate policies, in order to keep them functionally synchronized with the central application server.