KACE Systems Management Appliance 14.1 Common Documents - KACE Service Desk Administrator Guide

Item	Asset Component	Inventory Component
Where information appears	In the Assets section.	In the Inventory section.
The type of information managed	Asset information includes details about devices, software, licenses, physical assets, logical assets, and the relationships between them.	Inventory information includes details about devices and the software, processes, startup programs, and services on managed devices. The Software Catalog provides additional information about applications that are categorized as Discovered or Not Discovered.
How the information is managed	Asset information is static and changes only when you import data or change it manually. Device assets are exceptions to this rule, because Device assets are updated whenever managed devices report inventory. For License assets, however, the number of installations or seats is updated when managed devices report data to the appliance. Asset history is stored on the appliance and displayed in the Administrator Console; it remains with the asset until the asset is deleted.	Inventory information is automatically generated and overwritten each time managed devices report data to the appliance.
How licenses are tracked	The Asset Management component enables you to manage software License Compliance as well as physical and logical assets.	On the Software page, inventory information includes the number of Software assets, but it does not show the number of licenses. On the Software Catalog page, license information is displayed if License assets are associated with applications.

Identifying the assets to track

One of the first tasks in setting up Asset Management is identifying the assets to track.

Spreadsheets often contain asset details, such as purchasing data, vendor contact information, product keys, license details, and device information. These details are candidates for asset tracking.

You can import asset information into the Asset Management component to create assets that can be managed and tracked by the appliance. In addition, you can set up relationships among the imported assets to make the information more useful. For example, you can create License and Vendor assets, associate them with devices, and quickly identify devices related to a license or vendor. For information on importing asset information, see Importing license data in CSV files.

View assets and search for asset information

You can view assets and search for asset information as needed.

Go to the Assets list:

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 Asset Management, then click Assets.

To search across all Asset Types using the advanced search:

In the View By drop-down list, select All Items.

Click the Filter tab above the list to display the Advanced Search panel.

Specify the search criteria.

For example, to search for all assets whose Vendor is Smith, specify the following criteria:

Vendor | contains | Smith

Click Search.

Assets of any type, including Device, License, Software, or Vendor, that match the criteria appear.

NOTE: You can save the search criteria applied. Click the Save Filter button, and then add filter name in the Save Filter As dialog box.

To search for an asset across all Asset Types using the simple search, in the Search List field, type full or partial contents of the field contained in the asset that you want to search for. For example, if you want to find an asset whose barcode contains zz, type it in the field, and press Enter.

Assets that match the criteria appear.

To search a single Asset Type:

In the View By drop-down list, select Asset Type > Asset Type.

Click the Filter tab above the list on the right to display the Filter panel.

Specify the search criteria.

For example, to search for License assets that are scheduled to expire within the next two months, select the License Asset Type in the View By drop-down list, then specify the following criteria:

Expiration Date | is within next | 2 months

Click Search.

License assets whose expiration date is within the next two months appear.

NOTE: You can save the search criteria applied. Click the Save Filter button, and then add filter name in the Save Filter As dialog box.