Inventory Insights features
The Inventory Insights app captures data from different sources, then consolidates, normalizes, and stores it in repositories. The Inventory Insights app is also used to view and export inventory, and manage associations.
Inventory Insights uses connectors to capture software, hardware, and other data from sources such as 1E, Configuration Manager, Big Fix, and vCenter where it is consolidated, de-duplicated, and normalized. Normalization uses software and hardware entries in The 1E Catalog.
An empty repository called Default Inventory is provided out of the box. You can optionally create additional inventory repositories to partition data by source, time period, or other purposes. To populate a repository, you must use one or more inventory connectors, and either manually sync the data or schedule a sync. For more detail, please refer to Repositories page and Schedules page in Settings.
Inventory repositories are used by the following applications:
Introducing Patch Success - reports on and ensures successful patching of your enterprise
Introducing Application Migration (unavailable for SaaS) - automates the migration of applications during a Configuration Manager OS deployment
Introducing AppClarity - manages entitlements, compliance and reclaiming unused software.
Any application - if you need it to use Management Groups.
You will need to decide which of the following connectors you will use to populate Inventory repositories.
Connectors are used to connect to other 1E and third party systems, retrieve their data and populate repositories. The following inventory connectors are provided to populate the Repositories page:
BigFix connector — Connects to a BigFix Inventory database server.
BigFixInv connector — Connects to a BigFix Inventory database.
File Upload connectorr — Uploads inventory data from a folder containing tab (TSV) and comma (CSV) separated value file(s).
Intune connector — Connects to an Intune application and collects inventory and usage data.
Microsoft Office 365 connector — Connects to an Office 365 application in Intune and pulls in inventory and usage data.
OpenLM connector — Connects to an OpenLM database server.
Oracle LMS connector — Connects to Oracle LMS and queries it for inventory information.
ServiceNow connector — Connects to a ServiceNow instance to import basic inventory data.
System Center Configuration Manager connector — Connects to a Configuration Manager database and pulls in inventory and usage data.
1E connector — Connects the Inventory Insights and SLA components to support the Management group and Inventory Insights Powered Inventory features. The Inventory Insights Powered Inventory feature uses instructions to fetch inventory data from clients, and is a prerequisite for Patch Insights.
vCenter connector — Connects to a vCenter server and pulls in inventory data.
Windows Server Update Services connector — Connects to a WSUS database and pulls in patch data.
Use the links above to find more information about each type of connector. Please refer to Introducing Inventory Insights for more information about viewing and exporting inventory repositories.
Additional connectors may exist for add-on Consumer applications that have been installed. For example, Connectors page has the following connectors to populate its entitlement repository:
AppClarity v5.2 connector — Exports entitlements from an AppClarity 5.2 database into a TSV file, which can then be reviewed and imported into.
Entitlement .tsv connector — Uploads entitlements from a folder containing one or more tab or comma separated value file(s).
Note
AppClarity and some other Consumer applications add additional connectors to populate their repositories.