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1E 9.x (on-premises)

Software Inventory

Software Inventory shows data captured from sources such as Configuration Manager, Big Fix and vCenter if you have them configured.

The dashboard is refreshed (recalculated) when the page is opened or the page is refreshed in the browser.

Dashboard

The dashboard page displays eight panels, reflecting the current Inventory.

The Software Inventory dashboard presents a number of panels:

Installations by OS

This panel presents installations grouped by the operating system.

The user has the ability to drill down into each installation for each group by clicking on each color bar. This updates the other fields on the dashboard with data related to your choice. Our example shows details for Windows Server 2016-1607 Standard.

Installations by OS
Installations by OS drill down
Installations by Vendors

This panel presents installations grouped by vendors.

The user has the ability to drill down into each installation for each group by clicking on each color bar. This updates the other fields on the dashboard with data related to your choice. Our example shows details for Microsoft Corporation.

Installations by Vendors
Installations by Vendors drill down
Top Software Title

This panel presents installations grouped by Top Software Title.

The user has the ability to drill down into each installation for each group by clicking on each color bar. This updates the other fields on the dashboard with data related to your choice. Our example shows details for Configuration Manager Client.

Top Software Title
Top Software Title drill down
Software Editions

This panel presents installations grouped by Software Edition.

The user has the ability to drill down into each installation for each group by clicking on each color bar. This updates the other fields on the dashboard with data related to your choice. Our example shows details for Standard editions.

Software Editions
Software Editions drill down
End-of-Support Date

This panel presents installations grouped by End-of-Support Date.

The user has the ability to drill down into each installation for each group by clicking on each color bar. This updates the other fields on the dashboard with data related to your choice. Our example shows details for Past EoS.

End-of-Support Date
End-of-Support Date drill down
Stay Current

This panel presents installations grouped by Stay Current.

The user has the ability to drill down into each installation for each group by clicking on each color segment. This updates the other fields on the dashboard with data related to your choice. Our example shows details for Latest Version, Not Latest Revision.

Stay Current
Stay Current drill down
Software Category Proliferation

This panel presents installations grouped by Software Category Proliferation.

The user has the ability to drill down into each installation for each group by clicking on each color bar. This updates the other fields on the dashboard with data related to your choice. Our example shows details for Development Environment Software.

Software Category Proliferation
Software Category Proliferation drill down
Software Usage

This panel presents installations grouped by Software Usage.

The user has the ability to drill down into each installation for each group by clicking on each color bar. This updates the other fields on the dashboard with data related to your choice. Our example shows details for Used.

Software Usage
Software Usage drill down
Aggregate

The Aggregated Software Inventory page shows a list of all software gathered using Configuration Manager software inventory.

In the top right of the page in line with the screen title are two dropdown lists, Global and Default Inventory. If you select the Global dropdown list and look at the available options, you'll see listed any additional Management groups you have configured.

If you have multiple Management Groups, choose each option and see how the display changes to show the software installed on each Management group, you may need to scroll to see all the groups. To find out more about Management Groups refer to the Management Groups page. If you have configured more than one Inventory, they will be available to choose from the Default Inventory dropdown list.

Note

You can choose which columns are displayed in some detail tables to increase readability. On pages where you can pick the displayed columns you'll see a new control like the one below:

Column choose control

To find out more about this feature refer to Choosing the columns displayed in reports.

The following table shows the available Aggregated Software Inventory columns, not all columns are displayed by default. You can add other columns or remove them using the column chooser control.

Column

Description

Displayed by default

Vendor

The software vendor.

Yes

Title

The software title.

Yes

Version

The version of the software installed.

Yes

Colloquial Version

If known or exists, the Colloquial version is installed.

Yes

Edition

The edition installed.

Yes

Total Installs

The number of times the software has been installed on the estate.

Yes

Latest Known Version

The latest version was discovered using AI matching.

No

Category

Category information is set in Configuration Manager.

No

End Date

If provided, the end date for the License.

No

Licensable

Yes or No if the software is Licensed.

No

Aggregated Software Inventory
Aggregated Software Inventory - choose columns
Export

You can use the Export button to export currently displayed data in a downloadable report.

When you click on the Export button you'll see the Export popup. You can choose which columns to export in the same way you can choose columns to display in the main report panel.

The report is exported in a .TSV format, for example, AggregatedSoftwareInventory_20200813095415.tsv. The file is exported and downloaded to the default location for the browser you are using.

Export data
Assign Tags

Using Software Tags allows you to create custom labels and associate them with the software titles you have deployed in your estate. An administrator with either the Full Administrator or Group Administrator role can set Software Tags in their environment, they can also create Management Groups based on the tag name and value. For details about configuring Users, Roles, and Management Groups refer to the Permissions Menu pages.

In short, you can work with Software tags by:

  1. Creating your Software Tag.

  2. Associating the new tag with a software title.

  3. Creating a Management Group based on the Software Tag name and Tag value rules (This step can be run anytime before an evaluation).

  4. Evaluating the new Management Group by running a Basic Inventory Consolidation.

If an administrator adds or modifies Software Tags or associations, they will have to run the Management Group evaluation report again to see the updated devices reflected in the Inventory.

To find out more about using Software Tags, refer to the Software Tags page.

Assign Tags
Notes

An important feature of software management is to provide additional information for each software title.

From Inventory Insights 8.0 you can add notes which allow you to add additional information for each software title. Software notes are a simple text field that can be added to any software title as required.

Software Notes

You can add a note to each title, and it will be added to every version of that software edition. In our example, we applied a note to Google Chrome v95.0.4638.69.

But as the note applies to all versions of Google Chrome when we filter Aggregated Software Inventory by Vendor contains google, we can see that our note was also applied to Google Chrome v95.0.4664.45.

Software note added
Notes added to every version
Product Usage

The Product Usage page shows the distribution of software installs, the top five categories by install and top saving opportunities across your software estate.

In the top right of the page in line with the screen title are two dropdown lists, Global and Default Inventory. If you select the Global dropdown list and look at the available options, you'll see any Management groups you have configured listed there.

If you have multiple Management Groups, choose each option and see how the display changes to show the software installed on each Management group, you may need to scroll to see all the groups. To find out more about Management Groups refer to the Management Groups page. If you have configured more than one Inventory they will be available to choose from the Default Inventory dropdown list.

By clicking each colored bar and segment in the three top panels you can narrow the view to only those related products. The table below the top panels is then dynamically updated with these results which are exportable to a downloadable .TSV format. For both the displayed table and the exported file you can choose which columns are shown and exported.

Note

You can choose which columns are displayed in some detail tables to increase readability. On pages where you can pick the displayed columns you'll see a new control like the one below:

Column choose control

To find out more about this feature refer to Choosing the columns displayed in reports.

Available Product Inventory columns:

Column

Description

Vendor

The software vendor.

Title

The software title.

Canonical Version (Colloquial Version or Major Version)

If known or exists the Colloquial version is installed.

Edition

The edition installed.

Total Count

Total count per software title.

Used

Total count of used instances of a title.

Rarely Used

Installs are categorized as rarely used.

Unused

Installs are categorized as unused.

Unreported

Total count of titles where usage information is unavailable.

Price per Unit (USD)

The price per title is shown in the default currency.

Licensable

Yes or No if the software is Licensed.

Software Category

Category information is set in Configuration Manager.

Product Usage

You can use the Export button to export currently displayed data in a downloadable report.

When you click on the Export button you'll see the Export popup. You can choose which columns to export in the same way you can choose columns to display in the main report panel.

The report is exported in a .TSV format, for example, InventoryProductUsage_20200813102621.tsv and is downloaded to the browser's download folder.

Export data
Usage Category

The pie chart shows the distribution of installs Used, Rarely used, and Unused as a percentage of total installs that report usage (i.e. Total Reported Installs). The bar at the bottom shows the distribution of installs as Reported and Unreported as a percentage of Total Installs.

Usage Category
Top 5 Software Category by installation

The bar chart shows the top five categories by installs. The chart ignores operating systems and internet browser categories for calculating the top five categories.

Top 5 Software Category by installation
Top 10 Saving Opportunities ($)

The bar chart shows the top ten products offering maximum saving opportunities in USD. The calculation is based on multiplying a product's unit price and the sum of Unused and Rarely Used installs. The bar at the bottom shows the total opportunity in USD, segregated from Unused and Rarely Used installs.

SI_-_Opportunity_cost.png
Choosing the columns displayed in reports

To increase readability, you can choose the columns displayed in detail tables. On the pages where you can pick the displayed columns you'll see the control highlighted in the opposite example.

Column chooser

When you click on the Choose columns control it opens a popup displaying every column on the current screen, the controls are:

Control

Explanation

Available Columns

Columns which are hidden by default from being displayed on screen. You can still include any of them to display on screen.

Visible Columns

Displays the list of columns displayed on screen.

Mandatory Columns cannot be excluded, the selection controls for these items are disabled. They can still be moved up or down.

Tip

Some pages have mandatory columns and a set of default hidden columns.

Arrow buttons

To move up or move down, exclude or include any column, clicking on the ellipsis displays these additional controls:

Arrow buttons

Drag and drop

You can drag and drop columns to change how they are displayed.

Exclude columns

Exclude column button allows you to select columns to exclude from the current display.

For example, inInventory→Aggregated Software Inventory we use the Choose columns control to pick which columns are displayed.

On this page the default columns are:

  • Total Installs

  • Vendor

  • Title

  • Version

  • Colloquial Version

  • Edition.

Some pages also have mandatory columns which cannot be excluded from the display. The excluded columns are greyed out and cannot be removed.

The Aggregated Software Inventory page has the following mandatory columns which you cannot remove:

  • Total Installs

  • Vendor

  • Title

  • Version

  • Edition.

Mandatory columns

From this screen we chose to exclude Colloquial Version and move Vendor to the top of the list.

To apply this view to the current report, we click Save.

You can also choose Restore to reset the column chooser or Cancel to cancel your changes and exit the Choose columns control.

Note

When you refresh reports on a page where you have amended the displayed columns, the report view will reset back to its default view once the refresh completes and the page reloads.

Amended columns
Amended report