MyApps - Reclamation Review - Further Insight Needed

[elewis]

Currently we use MyApps often for handling automated reclamation processes. I have a few further questions on leveraging the MyApps reclamation functionality in AB 2020 R1 with FNMS data. We set up the following scenario: 

1. We recently set up one MyApps record but the one Flexera ID is mapped to 2 different catalog items. 

2. We enabled the policy. 

3. Two of the devices in the Targeted devices, one device was definitely picked up and processed during our recent job run, but it said there were 0 applications installed for the device that had reclamation campaign configured. Even though the Last Usage Date was BLANK and the discovery date was from Oct 2017. The threshold criteria on the AppBroker record is 60 days so the device met the criteria. 

The ideas I have that could possibly explain why this didn't work - can someone confirm: 

1. Can we have 2 different catalog items in AppBroker mapped to 1 FNMS record? Will AppBroker trigger uninstall requests for both catalog items when filtering by Flexera ID as the parent? 

2. The Flexera ID in FNMA is status = Unmanaged and Classification = Freeware. Does this FNMS record status affect whether AppBroker will process the application or not? 

Any further insight would help us on our proof-of-concept we are working on, thanks! Let me know if you need any further clarity. 

[jdempsey · Accepted solution]

1. You can have multiple catalog items that use the same Flexera ID, but if you do, there is no way to set which one will be used for reclamation.  You should have an uninstall deployment configured for each one if you have a reclamation policy configured for that ID.  When App Broker evaluates the policy conditions and finds a device where the software should be uninstalled, it looks to see if there is a previous request for installation of that software on that device.  If so, it will use the same catalog item to perform the uninstall (assuming it has an uninstall deployment configured).  If it does not find a previous installation request for that software on that device, it will select one of the configured catalog items with that Flexera ID at "random" (I think it will always grab the one with the highest Package ID, but I can't guarantee that).
2. App Broker does not look at the status or classification of the application in FNMS.  This should have no effect.

Have you looked at the device's eligibility status as discussed here?  If the "Is eligible for Alert" column says "No", you can click the link to see why the device is not eligible for reclamation.

[elewis]

@jdempsey  Thanks for the review and the response on this. I did check the Eligible for Alert - we had a collection created for a POC we were doing to have only 2 machines so I had validated that both machines did show Yes for Eligible for Alert status. However I'm noticing now that Is Active status when viewing Target Devices is showing False for these 2 machines. But the Asset status in FNMS for these machines shows Installed and the Inventory status for the machine also shows Active. Could this Is Active = False status in AppBroker be causing the issue? If so, I'm not sure why it's showing False when inventory/devices in FNMS show Installed/Active. 

[jdempsey]

I'm not exactly sure what state you're in or how you got there, but I'm going to suggest that you start by deleting the alerts for those 2 machines out of the WD_MyAppsAlert table.  Then log in from one of those two devices and go to the My Apps tab to see if an alert is generated.  If that still doesn't work, I'd suggest opening a support case and attaching screen shots and logs.

[elewis]

Actually the problem is that the alerts didn't generate for these two machines at all so there's nothing to remove. 

I'll try to see if we create two separate local FNMS app records, one per catalog item, to see if I get better results. Understanding that the FNMS status of an application shouldn't impact My Apps in AppBroker was really helpful, thanks!