SCCM and Tanium Integration into FlexeraOne

[mdh33955]

Hello - I am looking for recent information on software imports into FlexeraOne. Currently we have 2 imports occurring.  One from Tanium and the other from SCCM. The challenge we currently face is that due to resources, SCCM only scans software on a weekly basis, if the device is actually left on. Hardware scans are done daily. The hardware scan includes installed applications and Installed software. Since that update occurs daily, it may not show an application still being installed. However, Flexera seems to be updating from the SCCM Product details under software. Since that scan is weekly, Flexera retains the details from the SCCM Product details under software. For example:

• A VM shows snagit installed in Flexera. 
• Checking Tanium  - Snagit is not installed
• Checking SCCM -Installed applications under Hardware does not show Snagit Installed - Scanned 10/24
• Checking SCCM - Installed software (under hardware) does not show Snagit Installed - Scanned 10/24
• Checking SCCM  - Product details under software shows Snagit is installed - Scanned 10/20

The obvious solution is to have SCCM scan software on a daily basis, but alas, that is not an option. Open to any suggestions. Thanks!

[tjohnson1]

Changing the overlapping inventory setting for the SCCM connection on your beacon may help cause the SCCM inventory to be ignored in favor of newer data: https://docs.flexera.com/fnms/EN/WebHelp/index.html#tasks/ManagingSQLSvrConnections2.html

[tblock10]

@tjohnson1, Flexnet Manager Suite is selected as our Primary source. I assume this is chosen as the merge point for all our inventory collection.

With regard to SCCM and Tanium, I can see this working for a broken or non-reporting client on an active inventory:  "Ignore this device’s inventory if older than nn days".  Where, for example, the SCCM client on a device is broken but Tanium is still reporting. So a reasonable number of days could be determined as a setting. But in this case, we are talking about 7 days, maybe stretching to 14 days if SCCM software scans are missed, and in some cases, SCCM hardware scans are successful in the interim. What do we lose in this example if we put that "older than nn days" down to a low number, say 8 days? In our environment SCCM brings in so much data, including devices, users, domains, etc., and is also our only source of software usage. Does the term "ignore" mean some of that will be lost?

[tjohnson1]

The "Ignore this device’s inventory if older than nn days" setting will cause data for a device from that source to be ignored for merging. This only applies if there is another source for the device, if the inventory is older than you want but the only source for the device, it will still be used (it would need to instead be removed from the source).

What happens is if multiple sources exist for a device, hardware data from the Primary source is taken first, then any blank fields will be populated based on data from the other sources. We then use the application data from all sources. With this setting, if the inventory is older than the days selected, the data for the device from that source will not be considered.

It shouldn't really add much extra time to the reconcile but it would make sense to ensure that the number of days is higher than the number of days between imports for that source and how often that source receives new data from the clients

[tblock10]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I don't think this will help with our specific problem related to file evidence not updating after removal of an application. Since SCCM is our only source for file evidence, it will not update (remove) if ignored by this rule. It will only update that file evidence with a fresh SCCM software scan and import.

When it comes to Flexera fields that are updated by multiple inventory sources, how does Flexera merge the data? For instance, if SCCM and Tanium are both set up to update a field.

[tjohnson1]

Software data is a union of the evidence from all sources. For Hardware data, we take the data from the Primary source. If the primary source does not provide data for a certain field then we take the data from the other sources based on Inventory date (newer is takes precedence over older).

[mdh33955]

Thank you. We will give that a try!