A question about Inventory/Business adapters

[bleepie]

Hello I have a situation where I don't know if I should use Inventory adapters or Business adapters. A customer is using the templates provided in the FNMS GUI for uploading Inventory Data throug a One-Off Upload. Currently they provide us with the following three templates:

• computer.xlsx
• FileEvidence.xlsx
• InstallerEvidence.xlsx

We would like to automate this process so that the customer transfers the templates, filled with data of their machines, onto a share somewhere on a server of ours. We then would like to import the data automatically into FNMS. Maybe there is already a out of the box way to do is?

Anyways, we were fidling around with Inventory Adapters and Business Adapters and in the Business Adapter Studio there is an option to import data into Computers, but on the docs of the Business Adapter the following is mentioned:

"They deal with business data, and specifically not inventory of software and hardware (those kinds of data are handled by inventory adapters)"

So I would assume I have to work with Inventory Adapters to import the data into FNMS but I don't understand why importing Computers by the Business adapter is also an option. Why is that and in what case are Business adpaters used for importing computer data?

[dhoagland1 · Accepted solution]

I can do you one better 🙂

You can create a folder on a beacon, transfer the files and configure the beacon to upload them from there so you don't have to upload them through the GUI.

Instructions for creating this type of Inventory Connection can be found in the Online help here: IT Asset Management Online Help - Managing Inventory Spreadsheet Connections (flexera.com)

[bleepie]

Thank you! I wasn't aware of this feature and its very convenient. There is one question that I have regarding the templates. The first property of Computer.xlsx is ComputerID and this property also occurs in, for example, FileEvidence.xlsx, so that FNMS knows which computer belongs to which File.

What is a best practice for providing ComputerID's? Currently our customer just makes up their own ComputerID's when providing the template. I know its a small chance but it is possible that someone else will use the same ID sometime later.

One thing I can think of is provided each customer a certain range of ComputerID's it can use. 

[dhoagland1]

That ID is unique to that import. So unless you're merging the data into a single "file set", it won't be an issue. I've seen ComputerName, SerialNumber, ComputerName+SerialNumber, or a GUID all used successfully.

As long as the ID in the Computer file matches the Evidence file, you're good.

You can have as many connections as you want - so you could have a directory and connection per customer with their own files if they're all going into the same destination (single FNMS On Prem Implementation or Flexera One Tenant). That way each customer can do it their preferred way. 

[bleepie]

According to this resource ( https://docs.flexera.com/FlexNetManagerSuite2023R2/EN/Schema/index.html#SysRef/schema/InventorySpreadsheetTemplates/Compliance.InventoryReader.LogicTables/reference/ConsolidatedComputer.html#reference_FNMP_ConsolidatedComputer ) the ComputerID is stored in for example ImportedComputer.ExeternalID. If customer 1 uploads a computer.xlsx with ComputerID 1 and customer 2 uploads a computer.xlsx also with ComputerID 1, would this not cause issues?

[dhoagland1]

Only if you use the One Off Upload through the GUI. The data should not merge when created as a Spreadsheet Adapter which will have a unique connection. The unique key in the actual table is a combination of 2 fields, ExternalID and ComplianceConnectionID. Each folder and unique "connection" created to pull and process will have a different ComplianceConnectionID (otherwise you would have collisions with any source that uses an integer for this value, such as SCCM, BigFix, etc.). The issue would be if you re-used that value in the same file\upload connection.

You should also have a UAT instance in Flexera One where you can test if desired. Something I do recommend.