FNMS Inventory Matcher: ObjectType & Method="NotSet"

[mfranz]

Hi,

I am having a little situation around inventories not being matched. I had a look into the "ImportedComputerMatchResult" and "ImportedComputer" tables. I found the inventories to have no serial numbers, but identical names (one is upper case, hence the difference in the blurred area) and the same domain.

When looking at the matcher, I had 2 questions.

1. What exactly does the ObjectType refer to?
   I would like to understand if this is a condition which may lead to the rule being applied to my sample machines, or not. I found nothing relevant in the documentation (Schema & System).
   
   
2. And does the Method="NotSet" apply to empty strings?
   As can be seen in the first screenshot, SerialNo is not NULL, but an empty string. Is "NotSet" = true for empty strings?

Best regards,

Markward

[ChrisG]

A colleague (thanks AlexC!) has provided the following response for me to post:

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1. What exactly does the ObjectType refer to?
I would like to understand if this is a condition which may lead to the rule being applied to my sample machines, or not. I found nothing relevant in the documentation (Schema & System).

A:  ObjectType can be of the following values: Incomplete, Completed or Unmatched.

• Incomplete and Completed: ImportedComputer table contains computers that are sourced from inventory and non-inventory data and can be identified by column IncompleteRecord. When specified in the matcher, the matcher will only consider this group of computers for matching. The intention here is to match all non-inventory records.
• Unmatched: Only include imported computers that are still not matched. Basically all previously matched computers are excluded from this matcher.

2. And does the Method="NotSet" apply to empty strings?
As can be seen in the first screenshot, SerialNo is not NULL, but an empty string. Is "NotSet" = true for empty strings?

A: Yes, it applies to empty strings ie NotSet applies to NULL and empty string.

By looking at these two records only, the matcher “Match Unmatched by Computer Name and Domain” should be applied. However as mentioned by you below, it is not the case, and I think because these computers are being matched to others by matchers prior to this (ObjectType=Unmatched).  You can view the results of matchers via ImportedComputerMatchResult table, using ExternalID in dbo.ImportedComputer table.