Inventory Group Settings

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

To assist in reducing infrastructure overheads, you may wish to restrict which FlexNet Inventory Agents can contact which inventory beacons. This may provide better control for load balancing of communications, uploads, and network traffic. You manage these restrictions using inventory groups.

An inventory group combines the following:

• A target set of one or more installed FlexNet Inventory Agents
• One or more inventory beacons.

When implemented, the specified FlexNet Inventory Agents may only communicate with the selected inventory beacons in that inventory group, whether for downloads of device policy and update packages, or for uploads of collected inventory. If a FlexNet Inventory Agent falls into multiple inventory groups, it is then able to communicate to any inventory beacon in those inventory groups. If an inventory device is not covered by any target in any inventory group, that inventory device remains able to communicate with all inventory beacons.

Important: To use this feature, you must upgrade your FlexNet Beacons to the version shipped with 2019 R1.3 (FlexNet Beacon version 13.5.x or later) .

The Inventory group settings section lets you create, edit, or remove inventory groups. The targets identifying inventory devices where FlexNet Inventory Agent may be installed must be predefined, ready for use in managing inventory groups.

Tip: Targets are created and managed on the Targets tab of the Inventory Settings page.

Within the Inventory group settings section, creating an inventory group involves:

• Naming and providing a description of the inventory group
• Selecting one or more inventory beacons for the group
• Choosing one or more predefined targets where FlexNet Inventory Agent may be installed
• Saving the configuration.

The Inventory group settings section utilizes fly-down lists for adding or removing inventory beacons, and for adding or removing targets. For more information about using fly-down lists, refer to To Use a Fly-Down.

To create or manage inventory groups:

1. Go to the Inventory Settings page.
   The Inventory Settings page displays.
2. Go to (and if necessary expand) the Inventory group settings section.
3. To create a new inventory group, click the Create inventory group button; or to edit an existing inventory group, click the edit (pencil) icon on the appropriate inventory group row to edit that group's settings.
   The Inventory group settings section refreshes to show the inventory group configuration fields.
4. Complete (or modify) the values for the following required fields:
   • Name: Enter a name of the inventory group, using a name that is meaningful within a list of inventory groups.
   • Description: Enter a descriptive explanation of the inventory group in a way that will help uniquely identify this group in a list with other inventory groups.
5. To add or edit existing inventory beacons in the inventory group, do either of the following:
   • If you are creating a new inventory group: In the Beacons fly-down search, search for and select one or more inventory beacons to include in the inventory group, and then click the Add beacons button.
   • If you are editing an existing inventory group: In the Beacon(s) fly-down search, search for and select one or more inventory beacons to include in the inventory group and then click the Add beacons button. To remove an inventory beacon from the current inventory group, click the check box of that inventory beacon in the list showing the currently selected inventory beacons, and then click the Remove button.

   Note: An inventory beacon can be a member of at most one inventory group.
6. To add or edit existing targets in the inventory group, do either of the following:
   • If you are creating a new inventory group: In the Targets fly-down search, search for and select one or more targets to include in the inventory group, and click Add targets.
   • If you are editing an existing inventory group: In the Targets fly-down search, search for and select one or more targets to include in the inventory group, and click Add targets. To remove a target from the current inventory group, click the check box of that target in the list showing the currently selected targets, and click Remove button.

   Tip: Targets are created and managed on the Targets tab of the Inventory Settings page.
7. Within this Inventory group settings section, click Create if this is a new inventory group, or click Save to save the changes if this is an existing inventory group.
   The Inventory group settings section refreshes to display the list of currently defined inventory groups.

   Tip: There is no need to also click the Save button at the bottom of the Inventory Settings page.
8. To delete an inventory group, click the delete (trash can) icon on the appropriate inventory group row and then click OK to confirm deletion.
   The Inventory group settings section refreshes with the deleted inventory group removed from the list.

The inventory group settings are saved in the compliance database, over-writing previous settings. At the next request for any updated beacon policy (inventory beacons check for updates by default every 15 minutes), the latest settings are deployed. Thereafter, when an inventory device checks for updated policy (which happens daily at a random time between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. local time for operational agents), affected platforms receive the changed policy. Once FlexNet Inventory Agent has the new policy update, it communicates with the inventory beacons in accordance with the policy file.