Application usage metering using the FlexNet inventory agent

ChrisG · ‎May 11, 2020

Being able to meter the usage of applications is very helpful to understand where applications are deployed but not used, where applications may be able to be uninstalled to reclaim licenses, where applications are being used heavily, and more. Recently our team has spent some time reviewing and confirming a range of details about application usage metering using the FlexNet inventory agent. I thought I'd share some of the learnings and insights here.

With that in mind, this post covers the following questions:

What processes can the FlexNet inventory agent meter usage for?
What are key recommendations for deploying and configuring FlexNet Manager Suite to get best usage metering results?
What configuration settings are available to enable usage metering?
How can the values of configuration settings be changed?
What are "manual mapper" configuration settings?
Where can I see usage information in the FlexNet Manager Suite UI?
When will a recognized application installation be marked as "used" based on metering data?
Why are "Last used date" values on recognized installations always the start of the week?
Why are "Software name" & "Version" details on the "Raw Software Usage" page empty?
Why is the "Total active time" in raw software usage appearing as 0?
What diagnostic information is available to understand usage metering behavior?
What limitations are there related to usage metering?
Where can I find more information about usage metering?

If you have further questions that are not answered here, post a comment on this post or in the FlexNet Manager forum!

What processes can the FlexNet inventory agent meter usage for?

On Windows, usage can be metered for processes running executables that meet one or more the following conditions:

Process can be metered if its executable…	Notes
…is identified as the "key" file of a "component" in a Windows Installer (MSI) package that has been installed for all users.	Usage is not tracked for executables that are installed by a Windows Installer package but that are not identified as a "key" file of a "component" in that package. Usage is also not tracked for files in Windows Installer packages that are not installed for all users.
…is located under a directory identified by any of the following entries in the "local machine" 32-bit Add/Remove Programs registry settings: InstallLocation, DisplayIcon, UninstallString ...except that if the WindowsInstaller registry entry for the package is set to 1 and an agent version before 17.0 (release 2021 R1) is being used, then usage is not tracked.	These registry settings appear in child keys under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall key.
…is located under a directory identified by any of the following entries in the "local machine" 64-bit Add/Remove Programs registry settings: InstallLocation, DisplayIcon, UninstallString ...except that if the WindowsInstaller registry entry for the package is set to 1 and an agent version before 17.0 (release 2021 R1) is being used, then usage is not tracked.	This requires the FlexNet inventory agent version 14.2 (from release 2019 R2.2) or later. These registry settings appear in child keys under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall key.
…is explicitly configured for metering in the application usage component's "manual mapper" configuration settings	See the question "What are "manual mapper" configuration settings?" for more details.

On Unix-like operating systems, usage can be metered for any process that is running an executable included in the list of files installed by the native packaging technology for the operating system (RPM for Linux, llp for AIX, etc.)

What are key recommendations for deploying and configuring FlexNet Manager Suite to get best usage metering results?

General recommendations are:

Use a recent FlexNet inventory agent version to benefit from the most recent improvements in usage metering capabilities, as changes are made from time to time. In particular, agent versions prior to 14.2 (from release 2019 R2.2) have a range of restrictions on what applications are metered by default that newer releases do not have.

For FlexNet Manager Suite On-premises deployments, use release 2020 R1 or later on your servers. This release contains an improvement to be able to import additional usage data based on file evidence compared to earlier releases (see item IOJ-2114072 under "What limitations are there related to usage metering?" below).

Set the following application usage component configuration settings (as described under "How can the value of configuration settings be changed?" below):
- Disabled=FALSE
- UseAddRemove=TRUE

What configuration settings are available to enable usage metering?

The following configuration settings can be set to control which processes are metered by the application usage component:

Setting	Description
Disabled	Set to "TRUE" (the default) to turn off all usage metering. Set to "FALSE" to turn on usage metering. Other configuration settings further control which processes are metered.
UseMSI	Set to "TRUE" (the default) to meter usage of processes running executables installed by a Windows Installer (MSI) package that is installed for all users. Set to "FALSE" to turn off this metering. This setting applies only to Windows.
UseAddRemove	Set to "TRUE" to meter usage of processes running executables that are under installation directories identified in the "local machine" Add/Remove Programs registry settings. Set to "FALSE" (the default) to turn off this metering. This setting applies only to Windows. FlexNet inventory agent version 14.2 (from release 2019 R2.2) or later must be used to include 64-bit Add/Remove Programs entries. All versions of the agent include 32-bit entries.
UserProcessesOnly	Set to "TRUE" (the default) to only meter processes running as users other than SYSTEM (on Windows devices) or root (on UNIX-like devices). When set to "FALSE", processes running as any user are metered.
UseManualMapper	Set to "TRUE" to enable the use of "manual mapper" configuration settings. Set to "FALSE" (the default) to ignore any manual mapper settings that may be configured. See the question "What are "manual mapper" configuration settings?" for more details.

A typical set of configuration setting values used for tracking metering is as follows:

Setting	Value	Is this the default value?
Disabled	FALSE	No
UseMSI	TRUE	Yes
UseAddRemove	TRUE	No
UserProcessesOnly	TRUE	Yes
UseManualMapper	FALSE	Yes

How can the values of configuration settings be changed?

For the FlexNet inventory agent running on Windows operating systems, configuration settings appear under the HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Usage Agent\CurrentVersion registry key. For example:

For the FlexNet inventory agent running on UNIX-like operating systems, configuration settings are stored in the file /var/opt/managesoft/etc/config.ini which can be modified by running the mgsconfig command as described on the following page: Agent third-party deployment: Updating config.ini on a UNIX Device.

You may have tools available in your organization that can be used to set registry entries on Windows computers, or run the mgsconfig command to configure settings on UNIX-like operating systems. If so, using those tools to set these values may be an effective approach for you.

Alternatively, FlexNet Manager Suite provides a few options for setting these registry entries:

Usage gathering can be enabled or disabled via policy settings managed in the FlexNet Manager Suite UI by creating a target under Discovery & Inventory > Discovery and Inventory Rules. Configure the target to cover the devices you want the setting to apply on, and select one of the following Application usage options according to your need:
1. Allow application usage tracking on these targets: Sets Disabled to "FALSE" (so that usage is metered). With FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R2 or later on your application server, this also sets UseAddRemove to "TRUE" on Windows computers. (The UseAddRemove setting cannot be set through this mechanism using a FlexNet Manager Suite release prior to 2020 R2.)
2. Do not allow application usage tracking on these targets: Sets Disabled to "TRUE" (so that usage is not metered).
On Windows, registry values can be set at the time the FlexNet inventory agent is installed by specifying values in the mgssetup.ini file used with the agent installer. Here is an example of settings specified in the mgssetup.ini file in this way:
```
[Usage Agent]
desc0 = Disabled
val0 = False

desc1 = UseAddRemove
val1 = True
```

Configuration setting values can be managed centrally in the FlexNet Manager Suite database and deployed to computers through FlexNet inventory agent policy. If you are using FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud, you will need to log a case with Flexera Support to request the configuration be applied to your tenant (refer to this description in your case). If you are using FlexNet Manager Suite On-premises, this can be achieved by running SQL statements such as the following against your compliance database:

-- The value of @TargetName should be set to one 'Target__windows',
-- 'Target__osx' or 'Target__unix' to set policy settings for computers
-- running the identified type of operating system.
--
-- To target multiple types of operating systems, change the value and
-- re-run this script multiple times.

DECLARE @TargetName NVARCHAR(100)
SET @TargetName = 'Target__windows' -- or 'Target__osx' or 'Target__unix'

EXEC dbo.BeaconTargetPutByNameInternal
    @Name = @TargetName,
    @Internal = 1,
    @Description = NULL,
    @Visible = 0

-- Get the ID of the target to have settings applied
DECLARE @btid INT

SELECT @btid = BeaconTargetID
FROM dbo.BeaconTarget
WHERE Name = @TargetName

-- Add Disabled=false setting to agent policy for computers
-- covered by the above target 
EXEC dbo.BeaconTargetPropertyValuePutByKeyNameBeaconTargetID
    @KeyName = 'CUsageAgentDisabled',
    @BeaconTargetID = @btid,
    @Value = 'false'

-- Add UseAddRemove=true setting to agent policy for computers
-- covered by the above target 
EXEC dbo.BeaconTargetPropertyValuePutByKeyNameBeaconTargetID
    @KeyName = 'CUsageAgentUseAddRemove',
    @BeaconTargetID = @btid,
    @Value = 'true'

-- Force beacons to update to get latest settings containing the above changes
EXEC dbo.BeaconPolicyUpdateRevision

The value of the @KeyName parameter used when calling the BeaconTargetPropertyValuePutByKeyNameBeaconTargetID stored procedure should be the name of the setting to be configured appended to "CUsageAgent" (for example, "CUsageAgentUseAddRemove", "CUsageUserProcessesOnly", etc).

What are "manual mapper" configuration settings?

"Manual mapper" configuration settings can be set for situations where use of an executable you are interested in is not otherwise being metered. This technique primarily applies to Windows computers.

To use manual mapper configuration settings, you must first arrange to set the UseManualMapper configuration setting to "TRUE" on each computer running the FlexNet inventory agent. (See the question "How can the values of configuration settings be changed?" for suggestions on how to do this.)

Executable files to meter usage for can then be configured by creating registry entries similar to the following (this example is to meter usage of javaw.exe processes):

For each executable to be metered, create a registry key with a name of your choice under HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Usage Agent\CurrentVersion\Manual Mapper. Then configure the following REG_SZ registry entries in the key you have created:

ExecutablePath: Specify the path and filename of the executable to be metered. This is specified either as an exact value or a regular expression, depending on the value of the Regex entry.
Regex: Set to "TRUE" if the ExecutablePath value is a regular expression, or "FALSE" if ExecutablePath is an exact value.
Application: Specify an application name for the executable. This will be used as installer evidence when usage data is imported into FlexNet Manager Suite.
Version: Specify a version number for the executable. This will also be used as installer evidence.

Registry settings are discussed here must be configured using tools and processes available within your organization to deploy the relevant setting values to your client computers. Agent policy or the FlexNet Manager Suite UI cannot be used to configure these settings.

Where can I see usage information in the FlexNet Manager Suite UI?

Low level details of metering data gathered by the FlexNet inventory agent can be found on the Discovery & Inventory > Raw Software Usage page. For example:

Recognized installations have "Used" and "Last used date" fields which are populated according to imported metering data. These fields are available in many parts of the UI where details of an installation are shown. For example, when viewing installation details on the Devices tab of an installation record:

When will a recognized application installation be marked as "used" based on metering data?

A recognized installation of an application on an inventory device in FlexNet Manager Suite is flagged as "used" when:

Usage metering data has been uploaded from the inventory device that meets minimum thresholds specified on the application; AND
Appropriate installer or file evidence is linked to the application to recognize application name/version/publisher (aka "installer evidence") or file details that match the usage metering data.

Minimum thresholds for identifying an installation of an application as used are shown on the Usage tab when viewing the application record in the FlexNet Manager Suite UI (the settings shown in this screenshot are the defaults for all applications unless changed):

Why are "Last used date" values on recognized installations always the start of the week?

Metered usage data from the FlexNet inventory agent is aggregated by week (starting on Mondays) to optimize storage and data processing resource consumption. Hence last used dates of usage should be interpreted to referring to the week when usage occurred, not a specific day.

Why are "Software name" & "Version" details on the "Raw Software Usage" page empty?

This indicates that the FlexNet inventory agent did meter some usage of the identified executable, but it was unable to definitively associate the executable with a specific installed software package. An example of why this may be the case is because the executable exists under a directory that is identified as the installation directory for multiple packages (which is not uncommon with some Microsoft Office and Adobe products).

In this situation, a file evidence recognition rule (rather than an installer evidence recognition rule) will be required on the appropriate application in the Application Recognition Library in order to identify installations of the software as used.

Why is the "Total active time" in raw software usage appearing as 0?

For UNIX-like platforms, is not possible or meaningful to effectively identify when an application is "active". For Windows platforms, security improvements after Windows XP removed the capability to identify when a window is active. Therefore the "Total active type" column on the "Raw Software Usage" page only displays a non-zero value when you are tracking usage for applications running on Windows XP or earlier versions of the operating system.

What diagnostic information is available to understand usage metering behavior?

Logging from the FlexNet inventory agent's application usage component can be found in the following files:

On Windows operating systems: %TEMP%\ManageSoft\usageagent.log (where "%TEMP%" is the system temporary directory, which is commonly C:\Windows\Temp)
On UNIX-like operating systems: /var/opt/managesoft/log/usageagent.log

These logs contain details of executables where usage will be metered, processes where usage has been metered. Here is an example of logging as it may appear:

[1/15/2020 1:01:26 PM (G, 0)] {8724} Adding product 'Self-service Plug-in' (priority 10) to product cache
[1/15/2020 1:01:26 PM (G, 0)] {8724} Adding file 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\Online Plugin\SelfServicePlugin\SelfServicePlugin.exe' to product 'Self-service Plug-in' 
[...]
[1/17/2020 2:06:55 PM (G, 0)] {8724} Session logging: KNOWN PRODUCT Session start (Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\Online Plugin\SelfServicePlugin\SelfService.exe, Product: Self-service Plug-in, Product version: 4.9.6000.5) Session will be added to cache on completion
[...]
[1/17/2020 2:08:56 PM (G, 0)] {8724} Session logging: KNOWN PRODUCT Session end (Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\Online Plugin\SelfServicePlugin\SelfService.exe, Product: Self-service Plug-in, Product version: 4.9.6000.5, Run time: 120.341248400 seconds) Session was added to cache.

What limitations are there related to usage metering?

Here are some known limitations and issues related to usage metering to be aware of:

Description	Affected versions
Processes from executables that don't meet the conditions described in the section "What processes can the FlexNet inventory agent meter usage for?" are not metered. As one example, metering will typically not be done for applications that are installed on a "per-user" basis on Windows computers (unless manual mapper configuration settings are explicitly used to identify such executables).	All
Usage data for .exe files metered by the FlexNet agent with a file version value longer than 32 characters may be ignored by import process (IOJ-1890554)	All
User's domain may be reported as the computer's domain in usage metered by the FlexNet agent (IOJ-1899773)	All
Usage .mmi files may fail to import if any software names end with a digit or special character and contain a "\" after the last space (IOJ-2181551)	All
Usage MMI files containing "?" characters in application details may fail to import (IOJ-2240193)	All
Usage agent preference settings are reverted to default values when the FlexNet inventory agent is upgraded on Windows (IOJ-2239172)	All
Usage that occurs after the last MMI file is generated in a week is reported in the following week (IOK-1059439)	All
Usage installer evidence may not be imported when the installer evidence name includes the version number (IOK-1007093)	FlexNet Manager Suite on-premises server versions prior to 2023 R1 This problem does not affect FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud
Usage files may not be generated and uploaded from Windows computers which are not turned on for at least 24 hours (IOJ-1902994)	Agent versions before 2023 R1 (release 20.1)
Usage agent on Linux generates excessive logging related to the Docker monitor daemon (IOJ-2249304)	Agent versions before 2022 R1 (release 18.0)
usageagent.log does not rotate until usage agent is restarted, potentially leading to log files growing very large over time (IOJ-2243344)	Agent versions before 2022 R1 (release 18.0)
AgentID may be obtained from agent history instead of AgentUniqueID causing usage data to fail to be associated with the expected computer record (IOJ-2233432)	Agent versions before 2021 R1.4 (release 17.4)
Used application details may be represented as "????" in usage MMI files if application details contains multi-byte Unicode characters (IOJ-2227649)	Agent versions before 2021 R1.3 (release 17.3)
Usage is not tracked for executable files in the installation directory of a Windows Installer package that are not identified as an MSI component key file, even if UseAddRemove preference is set to true (IOJ-2203434)	Agent versions before 2021 R1 (release 17.0)
Massive usage active time values may be reported by the FlexNet inventory agent from computers that are in a suspended state at 12am on Monday mornings (IOJ-1719198)</>	Agent versions before 2020 R2.5 (release 16.5)
Usage agent on Windows generates excessive logging related to the Docker monitor service (IOJ-2181680)	Agent versions before 2020 R2.1 (release 16.1)
FlexNet inventory agent may return an blank AgentID value in usage data, leading to data associated with unrelated computers being merged (IOJ-2158685)	Agent versions before 2020 R2.1 (release 16.1)
Software usage data from different devices are merged to a single computer record usage files have a blank AgentID value (IOJ-2158680)	FlexNet Manager Suite on-premises server versions from 2019 R2 to 2020 R2 This problem does not affect FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud
Usage may not be metered for executables under installation directories identified in 64-bit Add/Remove Programs registry settings (IOJ-2111789)	Agent versions before 2019 R2.2 (release 14.2)
Usage may be reported against the wrong application if multiple applications have the same install directory identified in Add/Remove Programs registry settings (IOJ-2111792)	Agent versions before 2019 R2.2 (release 14.2)
Usage of 64-bit applications and applications with a non-unique install path may not be tracked when agent UseAddRemove preference is "true" (IOJ-1664037)	Agent versions before 2019 R2.2 (release 14.2)
An installation may not be shown as used based on metering by the FlexNet agent if usage recognition depends on a file evidence recognition rule (IOJ-2114072)	FlexNet Manager Suite on-premises server versions from 2015 to 2019 R2 This problem does not affect FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud
Installations of suite applications may not be reported as used when component applications have been used (IOJ-1771160)	FlexNet Manager Suite on-premises server versions prior to 2021 R1 This problem does not affect FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud

Where can I find more information about usage metering?

The following resources may be useful for more information:

FlexNet Manager Suite product documentation: Gathering FlexNet inventory
FlexNet Manager Suite online help topics:
Helpful forum threads discussing topics related to usage:
- Application usage metering with FlexNet agent on Windows for non-MSI applications
- Application Usage - only reporting 30% usage on commerical applications

mfranz · ‎May 11, 2020

Hi Chris,

Great compilation. I have some questions:

I think in an earlier discussion regarding the limitations of pre 2019 R2.2 agents, it was mentioned that an updated agent might be available for on prem customers. Did the fixes/changes only affect the agent or has the server application/db schema chnaged as well? If not, will there be an updated agent release before 2020 R1 on prem?
The mentioned "Version = All" value for the manual mapper, does it result in the actual file version value being reported? Because when trying to use a wildcard (*), that character got reported as a result and made it impossble to distinguish between different versions.
When looking at the ManageSoft Reader, there's some "crosstalk" between Usage and FileEvidence sections (#RelevantSoftwareFile). At this point, I don't think discovering the executables via file scan is necessary for usage metering to work, but maybe you can share your thoughts on this?

Best regards,

Markward

ChrisG · ‎May 11, 2020

Hi @mfranz,

A few thoughts:

The latest agent available at this point in time for download with FlexNet Manager Suite on-premises is the 14.0 version from FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R2. For Flexera partners who work with both FlexNet Manager Suite Cloud and On-premises, the 14.2 agent version from the Cloud environment could strictly be downloaded and used with an On-premises deployment. The next on-premises release which will include the agent latest improvements is in the process of cooking. Stay patient!
When using manual mapper configuration, version details from the WinPE header details on Windows can't be used for the application version. The exact version value that you specify in the "Version" registry entry is what gets returned and imported as installer evidence. In order to have different versions identified, you would need to be able to have different manual mapper entries that have different "ExecutablePath" values which somehow match to different versions (maybe based on path, or based on filename). However in practice I expect it would be difficult to manage this. If different versions of the software install an executable with the same name and same path then the best you will be able to do will be to identify something like "All" or "*" as the version.
I'm a little vague on the crosstalk you mention in the ManageSoft reader, but my starting guess is similar to your thinking here: I believe it is generally not necessary to gather file details as part of inventory for usage metering to work.

savin_shetty1 · ‎Jun 02, 2020

Hi @ChrisG ,

I have question here. There is also an option through Discovery and Inventory Rules( while specifying targets use option application usage option to allow tracking).

Does that also work that same way in terms of usage collection or it is a workaround to be able collect usage on specific subnets/ranges only?

ChrisG · ‎Jun 04, 2020

@savin_shetty1 - I think you are referring to the "Application usage options" setting detailed at item #3 under the question "How can the values of configuration settings be changed?" in this post.

This setting can be used to enable/disable usage metering on agents running on computers covered by target(s) you configure.

If you want to enable usage metering on all computers, you could use this approach and configure a target to cover all IP address. An approach I've used for this is to configure a target covering 2 IP address ranges: "0.0.0.0/1" and "128.0.0.0/1". (Don't try to configure the range "0.0.0.0/0" as the UI won't allow a suffix of "/0".) Alternatively, if you just want metering enabled on a subset of devices, configure the target appropriately to cover those devices.

savin_shetty1 · ‎Jul 02, 2020

Hi @ChrisG , Do we have flag to check if application metering is enabled based on device from UI side? I know we could check that by application name, but i would like to know if metering is enabled on device level. From what i know we can check this from usageagent.log from the device, but considering i have couple of devices to be checked over, is there a simple method or flag available in UI which identifies the same?

ChrisG · ‎Jul 03, 2020

@savin_shetty1 - I can't think of any way in the UI to directly check whether gathering of usage metering data is enabled in the configuration on a specific device, but you could get an indication of whether any metering data has been reported by a device by filtering/searching for that device in the Discovery & Inventory > Raw Software Usage page.

josecaronski · ‎Jul 14, 2020

Any thoughts about software running in a Windows 10 environment where the programs are built to run as background processes? (My example is Techsmith SnagIt 2020) Finding that the agent will not record session starts and ends until the program is fully exited and/or re-opened. Unless there is a way to configure the agent to register background processes as ended sessions, I'd imagine we'd have to force the software not to run in the background. A bit of a sticky situation balancing usage/reclamation with end-user convenience.

ChrisG · ‎Jul 15, 2020

@josecaronski - by "background process", do you mean a process that does not display a window? As far as I know, whether or not a process displays a window is not a consideration when determining which processes to meter. However I think your observation that a session won't be recorded until a process has exited may be correct - I suspect you will not see usage reported for processes which have not [yet] terminated.

josecaronski · ‎Jul 15, 2020

That's basically the situation. When active (open) it is seen as an 'App' in the Windows task manager, when inactive (closed) it drops to the tray and is changed to a 'Background process'. Looks like that's a tricky one. Something I'm still a bit confused about, is if raw usage contributes to 'Last used date' as a backup in this kind of situation, or if the agent must detect a proper start and termination of the process in order to record a used date? My take thus far is that Raw Usage does not generate Last Used Dates.

One more question regarding Manual Mapper. We have successfully enabled and created a manual mapping rule on a test system, and now see the executable as KNOWN and associated with an application in the usageagent.log file, but still do not see a Last Used Date being recorded in FNMS for this device after ensure we meet the parameters for recording usage (launch, open for a few minutes, terminated). The info above says the MM rules are logged as Installer evidence. Is this something we should be able to see in the evidence properties of the application in FNMS? Wondering if we're missing something that associates the MM rule with the actual application in FNMS.

By the way @ChrisG really appreciate this article and thread. Combined with some other knowledge, it's really given me a better understanding of how AppPortal/Agent/FNMS interact and helped improve the care with which we approach software reclamation. Let me know if I should take these questions to a support ticket.

ChrisG · ‎Jul 15, 2020

@josecaronski - for your Manual Mapper settings, first check that some usage for the manually mapped application appears in the Discovery & Inventory > Raw Software Usage grid.

If you don't see anything there, that suggests the usage still isn't getting picked up OK and uploaded from the agent.
If you do see something there, next check that you have configured an installer evidence recognition rule for the software name & version details you configured in the Manual Mapper settings and linked the evidence recognition rule to an appropriate application. (Or alternatively I think you could configure a file evidence recognition rule - but whatever the case is, the key point here is to verify that you've configured the ARL to recognize the manually mapped application details.) See the "When will a recognized application installation be marked as "used" based on metering data?" question in this article for a little more context.

afilla · ‎Oct 22, 2020

Can you deploy the 2020 R1 agent when the FNM system is at 2019R1 or do we need to upgrade the server side as well? This is on-prem.

Thanks!

-Andy

ChrisG · ‎Oct 22, 2020

Agents are generally compatible with older server versions, so deploying the 2020 R1 agent to devices that connect back in to a 2019 R1 server is fine.

Be careful about installing a different agent version on the FlexNet application server(s) themselves though - it is possible that won't work for some version combinations: if you do want the agent installed on the FlexNet application server(s) then the safest option is to make sure the version of the agent installed there matches the application server version. That constraint doesn't apply to agent installations on all the other computers in the organization.

msmith4 · ‎Nov 02, 2020

We are using the 2020 R1 agent with our install of 2019 R2 (on-premise). What we are finding is that the usage configuration settings are being created from the out of box 2020 R1 agent and the values that we are defining in the mgssetup.ini file are not updating the registry. Therefore, things like useManualMapper are set to False, where we have it set to True. This is also true for useMSI, UseAddRemove, etc.

Has the process changed with the 2020 R1 agent? Our understanding is that to change these value settings we include them in the [Usage Agent] section on the mgssetup.ini file. For instance, we have UseManualMapper set up as:

desc4=UseManualMapper
val4=True

Post install, the value remains False.

Has anyone been able to get this functionality to successfully work? If so, could you please share the details?

ChrisG · ‎Nov 02, 2020

@msmith - I can't think of any changes between releases here that would explain what you're seeing.

It can be difficult to spot situations where the agent install process is failing to use the mgssetup.ini file you have prepared - there is no warning or indication of that except that settings from the file don't get applied. Are you sure that the mgssetup.ini file is getting picked up? Are you seeing other registry settings from that file getting applied during the installation, but just the usage agent settings not getting applied?

msmith4 · ‎Nov 03, 2020

@ChrisG - yeah we are seeing other changes happening that are indeed embedded in the mgssetup.ini file. It appears the install is creating all the options with default values, just not updating them with the values in the .ini file.

We were able to embed the manual mapper values that we want to include in .ini file and all of those are created as outlined. However, the useManualMapper value (under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ManageSoft Corp\ManageSoft\Usage Agent\CurrentVersion) the is not being updated from the [Usage Agent] section, therefore remains as false.

We have also opened a ticket with support to hopefully seek resolution but wanted to see if anyone from the community had a similar experience.

+@rclark0

fstewart2 · ‎Apr 01, 2021

@ChrisG - can you describe how the population of the "last used date" with software metering differs from this same field using out of the box application usage turned on (via INI file or discovery rules)?

ChrisG · ‎Apr 23, 2021

@fstewart2 - apologies I didn't see this earlier to respond. I may not be fully following your question, but the metering data (including date information) that is gathered isn't impacted by the mechanism that is used to enable metering. It doesn't make a difference whether you enable metering through the INI file, a target setting, or some other mechanism.

sdbash · ‎Nov 07, 2023

Hi @ChrisG,

Would this be something that can be applied to a specific tenant within a multi-tenant environment?

Thanks,

Shawn

ChrisG · ‎Nov 09, 2023

@sdbash - I'm not sure what you are referring to here sorry. What are you looking to apply?

sdbash · ‎Nov 14, 2023

Hey @ChrisG, sorry for the vagueness.

One of our consultants is wanting to enable application metering on Windows, Unix, and MacOS X endpoints and enable the usage of the Add/Remove Programs data on Windows for a couple of tenants in our multi-tenant environment. Since FNMS is already deployed and running for the tenants, we are looking to apply the configuration setting values centrally via FNMS database and then deployed to computers through agent policy, but they are not wanting it to be applied to every tenant.

Hope that helps!

Thanks,

Shawn

ChrisG · ‎Nov 16, 2023

@sdbash - it sounds like you may be talking about configuring settings to be deployed through agent policy in the database using a SQL script like shown in this post using the dbo.BeaconTargetPropertyValuePutByKeyNameBeaconTargetID stored procedure.

That can be done in a multi-tenant environment. Before running tenant-specific queries in a multi-tenant environment database, you must set the tenant context that you want to update using a SQL statement such as:

EXEC dbo.SetTenant 'your-tenant-name'

sdbash · ‎Nov 27, 2023

@ChrisG nailed it. Thanks heaps!

ouladbrahima · ‎Mar 21, 2024

Hi @ChrisG

How long are we able to retain the usage data for - is it possible to capture 1 or 2 years worth of usage data or does flexera overwrite usage data after a certain period of time? Really appreciate your support

ChrisG · ‎Mar 27, 2024

@ouladbrahima - raw usage data is retained in the inventory database for 26 weeks by default.

If you are using FlexNet Manager Suite, this retention period can be changed by executing a query like the following against the inventory database:

UPDATE dbo.DatabaseConfiguration
SET Value = '52' -- weeks
WHERE Property = 'UsageDataObsoletePeriod'

If you are using Flexera One ITAM then the retention period cannot be changed.

ouladbrahima · ‎Mar 27, 2024

@ChrisG Thanks a million!!! Okay, in our case the customer uses Flexera One. So we cannot open a case so that Flexera can set this for our explicit customer?

ChrisG · ‎Mar 27, 2024

@ouladbrahima - correct, the UsageDataObsoletePeriod value cannot be changed in Flexera One for an individual organisation.

ouladbrahima · ‎Mar 27, 2024

@ChrisG You cant imagine,how you helped me with this! Thanks again!

JensAltner · ‎Jul 01, 2024

@ChrisG

Is it possible that you can now set the usage period (at least per application) in Flexera One? Or what is the point (under the application properties => Usage tab)?
"Usage: These settings determine whether an application was in use in the period before the last software inventory.
Usage period: 3 months"? If I understand correctly, you can set the period here? Or not?

JohnSorensenDK · ‎Jul 05, 2024

@JensAltner

It's not clear to me exactly what you're asking here but your reference to the Application Properties / Usage Tab and configuring an application's usage monitoring period controls whether it will be considered "Used" in the All Licenses view. Please refer to the Used section of Licenses Listings Property Reference: