Inventory Device Assigned User

[RWG2022]

Hello,

According to the online guide, it advises that it is best practice to leave the assigned user field of an inventory device empty. For some reason all of our machines have the assigned user field populated. I don't why or how this is being populated, but this appears to create some confusion when looking at the consumption tab of a license which is user-based, and I'd appreciate some guidance please. Here is my scenario looking at the consumption tab of a particular user-based license. Please bear with me in the hope I'm explaining this as clearly as possible.

Inventory device "123456" shows a username of "A.N. Other", which appears to be populated from the assigned user field. User status is active. Consumed is 1, but used is no. Looking further into this inventory device, it actually belongs to user "Joe Bloggs", which I can see as the calculated and last logged on user. Joe Bloggs has used said application on inventory device 123456 but A.N Other hasn't. As a result, both users are showing as consuming a license against this inventory device, when in reality only Joe Bloggs has used the application, so the consumption should only be for Joe Bloggs. I can see that A.N. Other did logon to inventory device 123456 in 2023 but didn't use the application in question. A.N. Other has their own inventory device "789123" which does not have this application in question installed.

I hope that makes some sense. I guess my question is how do we clear out the assigned user field from all inventory devices and prevent this from re-populating again?

Thanks 

[JohnSorensenDK]

@RWG2022 

If I understand the use case correctly, I would say that both users will consume the (user based) license because they both had access to use it from device: 123456.

The assigned user field may be populated using a business adapter based on another data source, e.g., a CMDB, did you investigate which user updates this attribute on some of your devices as that may give you a hint on which process updates it?

Thanks,

[RWG2022]

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply. How can I find out where you mention...

did you investigate which user updates this attribute on some of your devices as that may give you a hint on which process updates it?

Thanks

[Nico_Erasmus]

Hi @RWG2022 

Do check your ITAM general settings for assets and inventory:  It sounds like it was either an adapter (as per @JohnSorensenDK ) or a synch from your Assets - if it was a synch from your assets then you should try understand why Assigned user was used on the Asset - typically it would indicate who the asset was purchased for.

You can then override this with the inventory setting "Synchronize assigned user with calculated user" .

Regards

[RWG2022]

Thank you for your response. We found that synchronise assigned user with calculated user was enabled. We don't know who enabled this, but it wasn't working for us as we could see Assigned and Calculated had different names. We have now disabled this and want to clear out the assigned user on all inventory devices. Problem is we don't know where the data is coming from. We have a business adapter pulling data from AD for users, but there's no details of machines captured. It is a mystery. 

[Nico_Erasmus]

Hi @RWG2022 , try looking in the history tab for changes to the assigned field.  Also check the asset history to understand what has updated the asset and when it was done

[RWG2022]

Thanks. The assigned user was set to (user's name) via the Flexera service account according to the inventory device history. We have no assets in Flexera as such, so an inventory device is not linked to an asset. We have an inventory adapter into SCCM and a business adapter into AD for users. I can only assume it has come from one of those. I have disabled the synchronization of assigned user with calculated user. If I can determine how the assigned user is being populated and I can disable that, will that automatically clear out the assigned user from all inventory devices, or will I need to use the business adapter to do that?

Thanks

[Nico_Erasmus]

Hi @RWG2022 .  Your adapter settings do allow you to set the assigned user ID of a computer to a blank.  Be sure your update rule is set to "always update the property"