KACE Systems Management Appliance 14.0 Common Documents - KACE Service Desk Administrator Guide

Log in to the appliance System Administration Console, http://appliance_hostname/system, or select System from the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page.

On the left navigation bar, click Settings, then click Control Panel.

On the ControlPanel, click Customize General Configurations link under the General Settings section, to display the General Settings page.

In the General Settings tab, provide the following information:

Option	Description
Company Name	Enter the name of your company.
Default Locale	Select the language to use in the Command Line Console, which uses the konfig user account.
Company Email Suffix	Enter the domain from which your users send email. For example: quest.com.
Appliance Administrator Email	Enter the email address of the appliance administrator. System-related messages, including critical alerts, are sent to this address.
Session Timeout	Set the number of inactive hours to allow before closing user sessions and requiring users to log in again. The default is 1. The User Console and Administrator Console have Timeout Session counters to alert users of this time limit. Only periods of inactivity are counted. The counter restarts when the user performs any action that causes the console to interact with the appliance server, such as refreshing a window, saving changes, and changing windows. When the counter reaches the limit, the user is logged out, unsaved changes are lost, and the login screen appears. The Timeout Session counter appears in the upper right of each console.
Enable mobile device access	Enable or disable Mobile Device Access to the appliance. Mobile device access enables you to interact with the appliance using the KACE GO app on iOS and Android smart phones and tablets. Administrators can use the app to access Service Desk, inventory, and application deployment features. See Configuring Mobile Device Access.
Require organization selection at login	Display the Organization drop-down list on the Administrator Console login page, http://appliance_hostname/admin, where appliance_hostname is the hostname of your appliance. This enables you to choose an organization when you log in. If this option is disabled, the Organization drop-down list is not displayed on the login page, and you can only log in to the Default organization from http://appliance_hostname/admin. If organization fast switching is enabled, however, you can switch between organizations after you log in to the Default organization.
Show organization menu in admin header	Display the fast-switching drop-down list in the top-right corner of the Administrator Console next to the login information. This drop-down list makes it possible to bypass the login page when you switch from one organization to another. To appear in the drop-down list, organizations must have the same admin account password; only those organizations whose admin account passwords match appear in the list. Changes to the drop-down list are displayed only after you log out and then log in again.

Optional. In the Beta Notifications section, indicate if you want to participate in the Beta program.

Beta program participants receive notifications when a Beta version of the appliance becomes available. These notifications appear as alerts on the on the Home dashboard.

These notifications may target specific configurations. Enabling them does not trigger automated upgrades to Beta versions, or automatically register this appliance for the Beta program. Beta enrollment is still required to participate, and details are provided in the notifications.

For more information about the Home dashboard, see Using the Home component.

Select Enable beta notifications from KACE.

If you want these notifications to appear only in the System Administration Console, select Restrict beta notifications to System UI.

Leaving this option cleared causes the Beta notifications to appear in both the Administrator Console and System Administration Console.

In the Agent Tasks section under the Device Settings tab , view or configure KACE Agent task throughput:

Option

Description

Last Task Throughput Update

This value indicates the date and time when the appliance task throughput was last updated.

Current Load Average

The value in this field depicts the load on an appliance at any given point of time. For the appliance to run normally, the value in this field must be between 0.0 and 10.0.

Task Throughput

The value that controls how scheduled tasks, such as inventory collection, scripting, and patching updates, are balanced by the appliance.

NOTE: This value can be increased only if the value in the Current Load Average is not more than 10.0, and the Last Task Throughput Update time is more than 15 minutes.

In the Duplicate Machine Detection Settings (Advanced) section, configure the following options to prevent duplicate device records

When the appliance receives inventory from a device without an existing inventory record (which is determined by the use of a new/unknown KUID), it scans the device's properties that you select in this section to determine whether this is a new device or an existing one. If it determines that the device belongs to an existing inventory record, it merges the new device record with the existing one.

Option

Description

Required to match an existing machine record

Select one or more of the following check boxes to indicate which device properties you want the appliance to use to identify potentially duplicated devices.

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Machine Name

•

BIOS Serial Number

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Manufacturer

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Operating System Family

MAC Addresses

Specify the number of MAC addresses that are associated with the machine record that you to match with the existing device records.

In the User Console section, modify the text as needed:

Option	Description
Title	The heading that appears on the User Console login page.
Welcome Message	A welcome note or description of the User Console. This text appears below the title on the User Console login page.

In the Acceptable Use Policy section, select policy settings:

Option	Description
Enabled	Enable the appliance to display your policy, and require users to accept the terms of your policy, when they access the Administrator Console, User Console, or Command Line Console, or log in using SSH or FTP.
Title	The heading of the policy to be displayed on the login page of the User Console.
Message	Details of the policy, which are displayed below the Title on the login page. Users must agree to the terms of the policy before they can log in to the User Console.

In the Reporting User Account tab, specify the password for the reporting system:

Option	Description
Reporting Username	(Read-only) The username used to generate reports. The report username provides access to the database (for additional reporting tools), but does not give write access to anyone.
Reporting Password	The report user password. This password is used only by the reporting system and MySQL™.

In the Data Retention tab, select the number of days to retain log information. Log entries that are older than the selected number of days are automatically deleted from the log. See View appliance logs.

10.

In the User Notification Retention section, select the number of days to retain user notification. Any user notifications that are older than the selected number of days are automatically deleted from the Notifications pane. See Configure user notifications.

11.

In the Share with Us tab, select data sharing options:

To validate the your product license, Quest collects minimal license-related information, such as the MAC Address of the appliance, the version of the appliance software, the license key, and the number of managed devices, regardless of the data sharing options selected in this section.

Option	Description
Share summary usage data...	(Recommended) Share summary information with Quest. This information includes appliance status, uptime, and load averages, as well as the number of devices, Managed Installations, and applications being managed by the appliance. This option is recommended because it provides additional information to Quest Support if you need assistance. In addition, data shared with Quest is used when planning product enhancements.
Share detailed usage data...	(Recommended) Share detailed information with Quest and share anonymous information with ITNinja.com. This information includes Agent and appliance crash reports, user interface usage statistics, and inventory information, such as application titles. Quest uses this information to help improve the Software Catalog, and ITNinja uses anonymous data to identify relevant content on http://www.itninja.com for dynamic feeds to the appliance Administrator Console. ITNinja.com is a community website where IT professionals can share information and research on a wide variety of systems management and deployment topics. The ITNinja feed is a feature that dynamically displays software deployment tips and other contextual information on relevant pages in the appliance Administrator Console. To enable the ITNinja feed, you need to select Share detailed Usage data.... This setting shares information anonymously with ITNinja. The ITNinja feed is available only if Share Summary Usage Data... is selected, and it is available only on pages related to software or deployment, such as the software, Managed Installation, and File Synchronization detail pages. The feed is not available on the Software Catalog detail page. Clear this option to prevent the appliance from sharing inventory data with the ITNinja community. However, clearing this option does not remove any information that has already been shared. For more information, contact Quest Support.
Share extended patch diagnostics	(Recommended) Share detailed patch diagnostics with Quest.

12.

To use custom Administrator Console, User Console, or report logos and background colors, in the Login Screen Options sections, provide the following information.

Option

Description

System Console Login Background Color

Admin Console Login Background Color

User Console Login Background Color

You can access the appliance from the following levels:

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Administrator Console shows organization-related features.

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System Administration Console provides access to appliance-related features.

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User Console makes applications available to users on a self-service basis. It also enables users to file Service Desk support tickets to request help or report issues. To access the User Console, go to http://<appliance_hostname>/user where <appliance_hostname> is the host name of your appliance.

For each of these web-based interfaces you can specify a different background color of the login screen. Any colors specified on the organization level override system-level settings.

Click and use the color chooser to specify the color that you want to appear in the background of the login screen. You can select the color using the mouse, or specify the RGB values, as needed. When you close the color chooser, the HTML Color Code field on the right displays the HTML code of the selected color. To undo your selection, click Reset and start over.

NOTE: The color chooser is not supported in Internet Explorer 11.

In each applicable section, click Choose File, and specify the graphic file that you want to use as the custom logo in the available web interfaces and in system-generated reports.

The supported graphic file formats are .bmp, .gif, .jpg, and .png. Any logos configured on the organization level override system-level settings.

To see default logos and sample customized versions, refer to the following illustrations.

Figure 1. Default User Console logo

Figure 2. Custom User Console logo

Figure 3. Default report logo

Figure 4. Custom report logo

13.

If you manage Lenovo devices, you can retrieve their warranty information. To do that, in the Manufacturer Warranty API Keys section, provide the Lenovo API keys to obtain the warranty data. Lenovo requires only a key. These values are stored encrypted in the database.

Important:

IMPORTANT: To obtain warranty information, you must configure the manufacturer's warranty API keys. For complete instructions, visit https://go.kace.com/to/k1000-help-warranty.

When configured, the device warranty information appears on the Device Details page in the Inventory Information group when you select an Lenovo device. For more information, see Groups and sections of items in device details.

Option	Description
Lenovo	Select this option if you want to obtain warranty information for your managed Lenovo devices. If this option is selected and you clear it, the Lenovo key is removed from the database.
Key	The API key for obtaining warranty information for managed Lenovo devices.

14.

Click Save and Restart Services.

Configure Admin-level or organization-specific General Settings

If the Organization component is enabled on your appliance, configure organization-specific General Settings at the Admin level. You configure the General Settings for each organization separately.

See Adding, editing, and deleting organizations.

If the Organization component is not enabled on your appliance, see Configure appliance General Settings without the Organization component.

Go to the Admin-level General Settings page:

Log in to the appliance Administrator Console, https://appliance_hostname/admin. Or, if the Show organization menu in admin header option is enabled in the appliance General Settings, select an organization in the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page next to the login information.

On the left navigation bar, click Settings. On the Control Panel, under the General Settings section, click Customize General Configurations link to display the General Settings page.

In the General Options section, view or enter the following information.

Option	Description
Last Updated and Organization Name	(Read-only) The date the information was changed and the name of the organization. Organization Name can be edited at the System level. See Add or edit organizations.
Company Name	Enter the name of your company.
Administrator Email	Enter the email address of the appliance administrator. System-related messages, including critical alerts, are sent to this address.
Company Email Suffix	Enter the domain from which your users send email. For example: example.com.

Optional: In the Locale Settings section, specify locale settings. See Configuring locale settings.

Option

Description

Organization Locale

Select the locale to use for the selected organization’s Administrator Console and User Console. If you have multiple organizations, you can select different locales for each one. See:

•

Adding, editing, and deleting organizations

•

Configuring locale settings

Optional: In the Samba Share Settings section, select file sharing options then click Save Samba Settings. If File Shares are disabled, you need to enable them at the System level before you can enable them for the organization. See Configure security settings for the appliance.

Option

Description

Enable File Sharing

Use the appliance's client share to store files, such as files used to install applications on managed devices.

The appliance’s client share is a built-in Windows file server that can be used by the provisioning service to assist in distributing the Samba client on your network. Quest recommends that this file server only be enabled when you perform application installations on managed devices.

File Share User ‘admin’ Password

Enter the password to use for admin account access to the file share directory.

In the Ignore Client IP Address Settings section, enter the IP address or addresses to ignore. Separate each address with a comma. Ignoring IP addresses is useful when multiple devices could report themselves with the same IP address, such as a proxy address.

In the License Usage Warning Configurations section, select the percentage to use for the warning threshold and critical threshold for software license usage. If you have configured software License assets, threshold information is displayed on the license-related widgets on the Dashboard

In the Data Retention section, select the options for retaining data in the appliance database.

Option

Description

Retain Device Uptime Data

The number of months that device uptime information is retained in the appliance database.

Device uptime refers to the number of hours of each day that managed devices are running. You can retain this data for a specified number of months, Forever, or never save it (Disabled).

Retain Metering Data

The number of months that metering data is retained in the appliance database.

Metering data is information about how applications are installed and used on the Windows and Mac devices that you manage. Metering data that is older than the selected number of months is deleted on the first day of every month. See About metering information.

Retain Uncataloged data in the Software Catalog

Whether to retain information about Uncataloged applications in the appliance database.

Uncataloged applications are executables that are in the appliance inventory but that do not appear in the Software Catalog, and the appliance retains information about those applications by default. For organizations with a large number of managed devices, however, retaining this data might greatly increase the size of the database. This size increase could increase the time it takes to load pages in the Administrator Console and the time it takes to perform database backups.

Select this check box to retain data for Uncataloged software in the appliance database. Clear the check box to disable data retention.

If data retention for Uncataloged software is disabled:

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Agents on managed devices continue to upload full inventory information, and raw data related to applications is fingerprinted. If data sharing is enabled, data is also uploaded to the Quest KACE Software Catalog. See Configure data sharing preferences.

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The appliance continues to store information related to Cataloged applications and Locally Cataloged applications in the organization database.

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Reports for Cataloged applications continue to work as expected. However, reports related to Uncataloged applications show only those applications that are part of Cataloged software titles.

Retain Microsoft Defender Threat Data

The number of months that Microsoft Defender threat data is retained in the appliance database.

In the Asset Archive section, type the number of days that you want to keep the assets marked for archiving, before actually archiving them. The default value is 3 days.

In the User Archive section, indicate if you want to enable user archival, as needed.

To have the ability to archive user accounts, select the Enable User Archival check box.

NOTE: When user archival is enabled, user accounts can only be deleted only if they are marked as archived.

In the Archive Tag field, type a label that you want to associate with the state of archived users. For example, Archived or Inactive.

Indicate if you want to maintain Service Desk ticket and asset associations with archived users. Set each of the Ticket Associations and Asset Associations fields to one of the following options:

▪

Maintain Users: Select this option if you want to continue to associate tickets or assets with archived users. If you select this option, the configured Archive Tag appears next to the archived user name, to indicate that the user is no longer active.

▪

Remove Users: Select this option if you want to remove all ticket or asset associations with archived users.

For more information on how to archive user accounts, see Archive user accounts.

10.

In the Device Assignment section, indicate how you want to match users with devices: One-time sync, Continuous sync, or Disabled.

11.

In the Device Actions section, click Add New Action, the select the scripted actions to enable.

Device Actions are scripted actions that can be performed on managed devices. There are several pre-programmed actions available. To add your own action, select Custom Action in the Action menu, then enter the command in the Command Line text box.

The following variables are available for device actions:

KACE_HOST_IP

KACE_HOST_NAME

KACE_CUSTOM_INVENTORY_*

When device actions run, the appliance replaces variables with their appropriate values.

For KACE_CUSTOM_INVENTORY_ * replace the asterisk (*) with the name of a software application associated with a custom inventory rule. When the device action runs, the name is replaced with the custom inventory rule value for the device. Enter the software application name in uppercase characters. The allowed characters are: [A-Z0-9.-]."

NOTE: Most actions in the Action drop-down list require you to install additional applications for them to function. For example, using DameWare requires you to install TightVNC on your device as well as on the device you want to access.

This feature is only supported on Windows devices. The Windows device you are running the device action from must have the KACE Agent version 9.0 or later agent installed and connected.

When you initiate device through the agent, the action executable must be placed in your %PATH%. The agent is 32-bit, so on 64-bit Windows devices, use %windir%/System32 as an alias to the %windir%/Wow64 directory. If you need to run a program that's located in the %windir%/System32 directory on a 64-bit Windows system, you must use the %windir%/SysNative virtual directory. You can either add %windir%/SysNative to your %PATH% environment variable or provide a fully-qualified path by prepending %windir%/SysNative to your executable when defining your machine action.

12.

In the Patch Schedule section, if you want disable administrators to apply patches to all devices, select the Hide All Devices check box.

NOTE: You can only apply this setting if you do not have any patch schedules set up to run against all devices. Otherwise, a warning appears.

13.

In the Allowed Bulk Actions section, indicate if you want to enable bulk actions against KACE Cloud Mobile Device Manager (MDM) and VMware virtual machine devices. When bulk actions are enabled, the associated KACE Cloud MDM and VMware virtual machine commands become available from the Choose Action menu on the Devices list page.

Option	Description
Enable Bulk KACE Cloud MDM Actions	Select this check box to enable commands against multiple KACE Cloud MDM devices on the Devices list page.
Enable Bulk Virtual Machine Actions	Select this check box to enable commands against multiple VMware or Hyper-V virtual machine devices on the Devices list page.
Enable Bulk Chrome OS Actions	Select this check box to enable commands against multiple Chrome OS devices on the Devices list page.
Enable Bulk Restart Device Command	Select this check box to enable the restart command against multiple devices on the Devices list page.
Enable Bulk Microsoft Defender Actions	Select this check box to enable Microsoft Defender commands against multiple devices on the Devices list page.

14.

To use custom Administrator Console, User Console, report, and KACE Agent alert logos and background colors, in the Login Screen Options sections, provide the following information.

Option

Description

Admin Console Login Background Color

User Console Login Background Color

You can access the appliance from the following levels:

•

Administrator Console shows organization-related features.

•

System Administration Console provides access to appliance-related features.

•

When you select an organization in the Administrator Console, you can specify a different background color of the Administrator Console and User Console login screens. Any colors specified on the organization level override system-level settings. For information on how to configure system-level settings, see Configure appliance General Settings with the Organization component enabled.

NOTE: The color chooser is not supported in Internet Explorer 11.

In each applicable section, click Choose File, and specify the graphic file that you want to use as the custom logo in the Administrator Console, User Console, system-generated reports, and in KACE Agent alert that appear on managed devices.

The supported graphic file formats are .bmp, .gif, .jpg, and .png with the exception of KACE Agent alerts that only support .bmp files. Any logos configured on the organization level override system-level settings.

To see default KACE Agent alerts and sample customized versions, refer to the following illustrations. For examples of default and custom logos in the Administrator Console, User Console, and system-level reports, see Configure appliance General Settings with the Organization component enabled.

Figure 5. Default Alert logo