Discrepancy between Created date and Last inventory data

[baherne]

Hi,

I have an FNMS cloud customer who has identified approx 1700 where the created date is > than the last inventory date.

The following link has been shared with the customer:

https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Forum/Issue-with-Last-Inventory-Date/m-p/116133#M2760

“If your FlexNet system is configured to import inventory from multiple sources and a single computer is represented in more than 1 source then the software details will be effectively merged from all the sources while the hardware properties (including "Last inventory date") will be taken from one source - this can result in changes in software being recorded which appear somewhat independently from changes in hardware properties.”

However, the customer has raised additional questions around the accuracy of the above statement:

How about cases where the agent is installed on the device?

What if the SCCM agent is broken on a machine, but FNMS agent works.

How does this impact the ‘Last Inventory Date’?

If below is true, then ‘Last Inventory Date’ is not a good measure to ignore inventory devices based upon which has been the standard practice until now. What else can we use then?

"We found that the last inventory date is linked to the "Hardware" scan from SCCM. We have had issues where the Hardware scan is not working so the inventory date is in the past but that software changes are updating in the present"

[dcollins]

Hi @baherne 

First of all, I think it's AWESOME your using the community for customer questions like this, the more non-confidential content we get on this forum and away from internal sources the better, I want all our customers to benefit from our technical discussions and this is a great way of doing it.

in response to the queries:

How about cases where the agent is installed on the device?

The agent inserts into the inventory ndi the time the scan took place (last inventory), the created date is generated when the record enters the DB, so in they are sperate values

What if the SCCM agent is broken on a machine, but FNMS agent works.

No merging will occur on separate inventory sources, simply it will update the old record if it exists or if it does not merge due to something like a VM being cloned it will create a new record entry

How does this impact the ‘Last Inventory Date’?

The last inventory date is updated from the content within the NDI itself, so it will update this record once it gets into the DB

If below is true, then ‘Last Inventory Date’ is not a good measure to ignore inventory devices based upon which has been the standard practice until now. What else can we use then?

"We found that the last inventory date is linked to the "Hardware" scan from SCCM. We have had issues where the Hardware scan is not working so the inventory date is in the past but that software changes are updating in the present"

In SCCM is the hardware scan the term for gathering software? if it is and the inventory date is in the past but the software changes are updating in present are there additional data sources being used?