How to get rid of file inventory

[TomStarke]

Hi Folks,

at a customer site I have the problem of duplicate license consumption regarding MS Office and MS Office components.

Here an example:

Machine 1 has MS Office 2019 Standard on and machine 2 has only MS Excel 2019 on (with MS Excel an proper license).
Heat inventory collector is configured for Software and File.
In Spider I see following on machine 1:
MS Office 2019 Std (installed Programs) consuming 1 MS Office License
MS Excel 2019 (files) consuming 1 MS Excel License (which should not happen)
MS Word 2019 (files) consuming 1 MS Word License (which should not happen either)
...

On machine 2 I see following:
MS Excel 2019 (installed Programs) consuming 1 MS Excel License
MS Excel 2019 (files) consuming 0 MS Excel License.

There are plenty on Machine 1 and some Machine 2, where only MS Excel is needed.

Of course I could go to all Machine 1 devices and change SW allocation of MS Office components to MS Office (or ignore Excel at all), but that would be an ongoing process and quite time consuming.

Instead I want to turn off (f="false") file inventory to report on Add Remove Programs only to get rid of that problem for good.

Now to my questions:
1. Would existing records in Spider (like MS Office (file)) vanish or do I have to clean it out? If clean, how?

2. Are there any other Implications I have to think of, if I switch of file collection?

3. Is there a smarter way on how to deal with that? <- always welcome!

Thanks for your Help,
Tom 

[james_ellis]

Hi Tom,

Could you let me know the following:

1. Spider Version
2. Spider Recognition Version
3. Have you checked the LMP, does it report any problems?
4. Could you checke the Asset Located files, does the Excel show in the "installed location"?

Note: Turning off the inventory could have a knock-on effect for LMP. It is not recommended to turn off, then you will never have the true license metrics.

[TomStarke]

Hi @james_ellis ,

my contact is on vacation now, but I'll come back with the details as soon as I have it.

I can already say, that MS Excel is displayed in "Gefundene Dateien" - found files, if I translate it correctly.

Cordially,
Tom

[TomStarke]

Hi James,

finally I have all required info:

1. Spider Version:
   6.4.2.861
2. Spider Recognition Version:
   The .exe has version 1.1909.3 (568)
3. Have you checked the LMP, does it report any problems?:
   no problems regarding those Programs or affected Devices
4. Could you checke the Asset Located files, does the Excel show in the "installed location"?:
   Yes, it does, but Excel is in another directory as well. The other install shall go into SW recognition, because this is actually used.

Usually you get a pre-installed click-to-run Office package, but the customer is not using it.

So, maybe there is a simple way on how to exclude the file path for the Office-Demo from recognition. I dont want to exclude it from inventory, because it is still important information, but not for managing Licenses.

Thanks for your help,
Tom

[jborchers · Accepted solution]

Hello Tom,

You can exclude directories from the recognition process.

Please go to the excluded directories page, to add user-defined filter:

• Menu: Software Services  |  Info & Settings
• Change to ribbon-tab: Filter

Please mention that the settings take into effect after recalculation of recognition results.

Let me ask some questions to your initial question:

You mentioned that on device 1 Office 2019 Std, Excel and Word get a license. Please verify this under the Recognized Products section of that asset (see screenshot below).
Keep in mind that installed programs (Add&Remove programs) appear under the Installed Programs section and files appear the Located Files section. The recognized products are the results and only for these results Software Assignments are taken into account.

The following screenshot shows recognized Microsoft Office single apps, all found in programs.

Please let us know if recognized products contain Office and single apps. In this case, we will open a bug. Please open a support case and add the Asset Information file for this device.

You find the Asset Information function as following:

• Menu: System | System Information
• Asset Information is on the right-hand side
• please enter the hostname or assetno and download the file:

[TomStarke]

Thank you Jan,
I'll test it out and keep you updated.
Cordially,
Tom

[TomStarke]

Hi @jborchers 

just finished a remote session on the system. We added the program path to the OEM click-to-run version of office as custom filter, ran LMP and re-calculated compliance - but no change in license consumption at all.

Would it be possible that we together could take a look at the system, because currently the customer is not amused about the MS Office compliance being so far off.

Cordially,
Tom

[james_ellis]

Hi Tom,

If not already done so.

Could you please open a new support case with the details of the problem and either myself or my colleague can assist.

Please include details such as version of Spider and Recognition and anything else that will help.

Kind regards,

James Ellis

[jborchers]

In addition to my earlier post, I add the following enhancement request for Spider:

Recognized products that only result from the file area should be ignored for the Spider synchronization in the software assignments. This should be adjustable via a tenant setting.

[TomStarke]

Hi Jan,
thank you for this enhancement request!
What will be the impact, if this would be a general tenant setting? My first thought was that this need to be set by product and tenant, because different products will be installed differently and some will be present in add remove programs and some only in the file system, but will still create license demand.
Cordially,
Tom