Usage tracking from Flexera Agent

[HPNZNB]

Hello Experts,

We are running FNMS 2018 R1 on Premise,  and the full agent version is 2018 R1.  I have couple questions about the usage tracking by using full agent.

Can Flexera agent track usage for all applications (all publishers) ?

We found there were lots of application from VM servers' usages =0. Does this mean these applications haven't been used within three months? Or Some of them couldn't be tracked by the agent? Should we trust this usage data from full agent?

The usage feature was enabled.

; If set, allows shortcuts to be installed.
;SHORTCUTSNOINSTALL = 0

; If set, usage agent is disabled
USAGEAGENT_DISABLE = False

; If set, web usage is enabled
;WEB_USAGEAGENT_ENABLE = True

Thanks for your help.

[AamerSharif · Accepted solution]

Inventory agent does not support Web URL tracking anymore. Inventory agent versions up to FNMS 2019 R2.1 (latest) may not track non-msi installed software usage using add/remove installer evidence in some cases and can report inaccurate usage for non-msi installations if more than one non-msi installed products has same common installation location registry also inventory agent does not look at x64 add/remove installer evidence for usage tracking.
Good news is FNMS 2019 R2.2 and later will have changes to track usage for non-msi installed products using add/remove evidence. 
 FNMS 2019 R2.2 will be available to FNMS cloud customer in next few weeks time and these changes are included in next On-Prem releases due to be released in 2020 Q2.
HTH
Aamer

[AamerSharif · Accepted solution]

Inventory agent does not support Web URL tracking anymore. Inventory agent versions up to FNMS 2019 R2.1 (latest) may not track non-msi installed software usage using add/remove installer evidence in some cases and can report inaccurate usage for non-msi installations if more than one non-msi installed products has same common installation location registry also inventory agent does not look at x64 add/remove installer evidence for usage tracking.
Good news is FNMS 2019 R2.2 and later will have changes to track usage for non-msi installed products using add/remove evidence. 
 FNMS 2019 R2.2 will be available to FNMS cloud customer in next few weeks time and these changes are included in next On-Prem releases due to be released in 2020 Q2.
HTH
Aamer

[mfranz]

Hi Aamer,

---

@AamerSharif wrote:

Inventory agent versions up to FNMS 2019 R2.1 (latest) does not track non-msi installed software usage using add/remove installer evidence due to multiple reasons.

---

Does this mean the agent does not collect this data by default? Or does it mean it'll never be able to do this (no matter what settings are used), because of technical reasons?

Best regards,

Markward

[AamerSharif]

Sorry for the confusion, I have updated the description of above the response and highlighted main cases where it would not track usage or tracked usage may not be accurate HTH

[mfranz]

Hi everyone,

I think that has quite an impact on some customers. Will the R2.2 agent be compatible with FNMS 2019 R1/R2 on prem installations? And will there be a notifcation and download option (maybe a KB entry) for non-cloud customers?

Best regards,

Markward

[AamerSharif]

Yes inventory agent will be compatible with FNMS 2019 R1/R2 Server installation.
Regarding standard alone inventory agent release. Yes we are aiming to have inventory agent only available. Will share more details in next couple of weeks.
Thanks
Aamer

[ChrisG · Accepted solution]

Different strategies are required to track usage for different types of software. The FlexNet inventory agent can help with some types of software, but any single approach to tracking usage cannot track "all" software from "all" publishers.

The class of software which the agent will track usage for generally includes software that meets the following conditions:

• Software that runs as an identifiable unique process on an individual device as a non-system process. This does not include, for example, cloud-based software, much Java-based software where the process is simply the generically named "java.exe", software run through technologies like App-V and Citrix, and others.
• On Windows:
  • Executables identified in the Windows Installer database as part of a currently installed package; OR
  • Executables under a package install path identified in the 32-bit "Add/Remove Programs" registry area. A future agent release is expected to extend this to include software in the 64-bit registry area. (See the following thread for information about an agent configuration setting that needs to be enabled to use the Add/Remove Programs registry area to identify software to be tracked: Application usage metering with FlexNet agent on Windows for non-MSI applications); OR
  • Executables explicitly identified in manually configured "manual mapper" agent configuration settings.

If you have some software you are keen to track usage for which does not meet these conditions, perhaps post the scenario here and somebody may be able to provide some thoughts on options for how usage can be identified and monitored.