Installing an Inventory Beacon

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

Accounts

To complete the following installation process, you must have both:

• An account in IT Asset Management that is a member of the Administrator role (only administrators can see the necessary controls in the web interface)
• An account with local administrator privileges on the computer that is to be your inventory beacon.
  Tip: After installation is completed, you also need an account with administrator privileges to run the FlexNet Beacon software. You can use the same account for installation and operation of FlexNet Beacon.

After installation and configuration, the FlexNet Beacon Engine operates as a long-running service to gather and upload data. During installation, this service is automatically configured to run under the local SYSTEM account (the default and recommended configuration). If you have reason to manually configure different credentials (perhaps to manage access through a proxy server), be aware that these manually-configured credentials for running the service are reset to SYSTEM at each automatic update to an inventory beacon. Therefore manually configured credentials must be manually reconfigured after each automatic upgrade of the FlexNet Beacon software.

Tip: From release 2014 R2, IT Asset Management supports automatic updating of inventory beacons (see Upgrading Inventory Beacons). Keep in mind that you can configure the automatic self-update behavior either:

• For all inventory beacons (Search for the Beacon settings page; or
• For individual inventory beacons where that is more convenient (Search for the Beacons page to edit the properties of your selected inventory beacon.

Other requirements

If this inventory beacon is to gather inventory from Office 365 in the cloud, the prerequisite software is available only for 64-bit architectures, so that this inventory beacon must be a 64-bit device. (Further details included in the process below, or review Prerequisites for Inventory Beacons.)

The installer for the inventory beacon software is downloaded from IT Asset Management. You may need to modify your browser security settings to allow trusted access to that URL.

Use the following process either for first-time installation of a new inventory beacon, or for manually updating an old inventory beacon.

To install an inventory beacon:

1. Take note of the URL where you access IT Asset Management.
2. Move to the computer where you are installing the inventory beacon software, and open a supported web browser there.
   On server-based operating systems, you normally need to modify security settings to allow access using Microsoft Internet Explorer to IT Asset Management, as follows:
   1. In Internet Explorer, under the configuration menu, select Internet Options.
   2. Select the Security tab.
   3. Select the Trusted sites zone, and click the Sites button.
   4. Under Add this website to the zone, add https://*.app.flexera.com, and click Add.
      Tip: If you access the European or APAC cloud instance, use https://*.app.flexera.eu or https://*.app.flexera.au instead.
   5. Press Close, and then OK, to clear the dialog boxes.
   For more information on configuring web browsers, see Configuring Your Web Browser.
3. In your browser, navigate to (North American instance) https://www.app.flexera.com or (European instance) https://www.app.flexera.eu or (APAC instance) https://www.app.flexera.au, logging in as required. (You will be redirected to a login page first. Credentials for logging in were supplied in email from Flexera.)
4. In the Discovery & Inventory menu, under the Network group, select Beacons.
5. Click Deploy a beacon.
   The Deploy a Beacon page appears. Ensure that the default Download a beacon section of the page is open.
6. Click Download a beacon.
   Tip: This button is displayed only to members of the Administrator role.
7. Use the web browser dialog to save the installer to a convenient directory (such as C:\temp).
   Tip: If you have not downloaded directly to your intended inventory beacon, you should now move the downloaded installer to that intended device.
8. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the saved file on your inventory beacon, and double-click it to run the installer.
9. Step through the install wizard to validate the proposed settings.
   Tip: When installing a stand-alone inventory beacon, use the Change Distribution Folder page of the install wizard to relocate the folders used for inventory beacon logs and downloaded configuration files, including files used when the inventory beacon creates device policy in response to a request from a managed device. By default, files for the inventory beacon are downloaded to %CommonAppData%\Flexera Software (and child folders), while for the FlexNet inventory agent installed on managed devices, the default location is %CommonAppData%\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft (and child folders). Both of these default locations are replaced by the path you enter in this Change Distribution Folder page. For example, you could browse to (or enter) a new path on your D: drive to relocate these files. This new set of locations is then honored by all future auto-updates of the inventory beacon, unless you override your setting with a later change.

   Important: If this inventory beacon will import inventory collected by ILMT, or collect data from Oracle servers, follow the links provided in the wizard to ensure that the appropriate drivers are installed on the inventory beacon. In addition, if this inventory beacon is to collect inventory from an Office 365 connection, the following prerequisites must be satisfied (and noting that the order of installation of prerequisite software may be significant):

   • You have licensed the FlexNet Manager for Datacenters product (visible only on the central application server)
   • The inventory beacon that will collect inventory for Office 365 in the cloud has a 64-bit operating system: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or later, or Windows 7 SP1 or later (prerequisite software is not available for 32-bit architectures)
   • Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.7.0 or later
     Tip: If this is not already installed, the Skype for Business Online, Windows PowerShell Module (below) automatically installs it. Installation of this .NET version requires that the server is rebooted afterward.
   • PowerShell 5.1 or later, with the PowerShell execution policy set to RemoteSigned
     Tip: Run PowerShell with administrator rights to execute the following commands:

     To check the currently-installed version of PowerShell:

     $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

     To set PowerShell execution policy:

        Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

   • Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell is installed (Office 365 uses Azure Active Directory to manage user identities behind the scenes):
     1. Install the 64-bit version of the Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant (available from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=286152).
     2. Install the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell with these steps:
        1. Open an administrator-level PowerShell command prompt.
        2. Run the Install-Module MSOnline command.
        3. If prompted to install the NuGet provider, type Y and press ENTER.
        4. If prompted that the installer is not signed, type Y and press ENTER.
        5. If prompted to install the module from PSGallery, type Y and press ENTER.
        6. After installation, close the PowerShell command window.
   • Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable is installed on the inventory beacon
     Tip: This may be automatically installed by the installation of the PowerShell module above.
   • Skype for Business Online, Windows PowerShell Module 64-bit version (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39366)
   • An active Internet connection with JavaScript enabled allowing connection to the Microsoft Office 365 Portal at https://portal.office.com/admin/default.aspx.

   Additional notes:

   • In the Reporting Endpoint page, the Suite Path setting must remain at the default value Suite.
   • On the Configure Scheduled Tasks page (in the standard installation), you are managing tasks for catch-up uploading of inventory and staged data imports. Select a service account that has access to the upload destination (where this is a parent inventory beacon).
10. On the Ready to Install the Program page, click Install.
    When installation is complete, you must configure connections for this inventory beacon. Connections are needed to:

    • IT Asset Management (see Register an Inventory Beacon)
    • Active Directory (see Importing from Active Directory)
    • Other systems on your local network from which information is to be gathered (see Connecting to External Inventory Systems, and perhaps Password Management Tab)
    • Instances of FlexNet inventory agent that may be installed on individual devices, and which contact the inventory beacon using web services (see Configuring Inventory Collection and Assigning Sites and Subnets to a Beacon).