Software Licencing Entry Enhancements

Hello Joe,

Thank you for the detailed request. I think there are a lot of interesting ideas there. We will discuss these internally and see what we can add to our future roadmaps.

Regards,

Hello,

Checking back on this one. Seems there has been some progress.

• RDM v2023.3.25 enables linking IT Asset entries to a Software/Licence entry which is nice. Unfortunately this requires creating new IT asset entries. Would it be possible to create a way to easily convert existing Folder/Server type entries to an IT Asset?
• The option to load data from 'system information' appears present on Folder type entries, however it doesnt work when a privileged account is used. Could this capability also be added to the IT Assett type entry too

Thanks
Joe

Hello,

First of all, thanks for the feedback. I'll go over your two points.

We could see what we can do for converting entries to IT Assets, but it would come with a few downsides. The first is that folders can have any amount of depth stored within them (so for example, FolderA -> FolderB -> FolderC, etc), but for other types of entries, the maximum depth is one. This means an IT Asset entry can only have one sub-entry. The folder structure would need to be reorganised and we would have to put the orphan entries elsewhere. This might have annoying consequences for your structure.
The second downside I can see is that some fields are supported on folders that aren't supported in IT Assets. For example, the credentials can be configured on the folder entry, but not on the IT Asset. This might also cause loss of data.
For now, I would suggest doing this manually if at all possible, or through the use of a powershell script to automate some of it.

For your second point, I will open a ticket. Usually the "load from system inventory" feature takes the credentials configured in the Tools section of the entry, which is not available for folder entries or IT Assets, from my quick testing. I'm surprised it works for folder entries, but maybe it takes the general section's credentials. We will investigate and see how we can improve this.

Regards,

Hi Hubert,

Thanks for pointing out those important differences between the folder and asset type entries.

Currently we are using a structure similar to the following:
Folder (defines device host name / IP, hardware/software inventory, credential)
Sub entries for actual connections such as RDP, web, SSH, SFTP etc that reference $PARENT$ variables

Basically we want to use RDM to manage software assets with the capability of tracking which server/device entries have the respective products installed. But not being able to add the folder entry as a linked resource on the software/licence entry inhibits this management capability. Conversly, changing the folders to IT Assets affects the propogation of the credential property to sub entries.

With the considerations you highlighted, the only way I can see to do it, is use a folder entry to manage the bulk of properties, then an IT Asset type sub entry which uses $PARENT$ variables for populating fields. Its a bit clunky and results in some duplication. Do you have any other ideas?

Thanks
Joe

So you’re using a folder entry as a reference to a server asset
isn’t a Host entry better in this case ?
I have the impression the host type of entries was made for that

https://forum.devolutions.net/topics/36166/meaning-of-host-entry

regards, Ben

Hello,

Thanks for chiming in, Ben. I think the Host entry would be a good suggestion indeed. At the moment, it's not possible to link Host entries in the Software entry's "assign to" window, but we will open a ticket to improve it to link to any entry, as we can see this being useful for a lot of different cases. For example, you could store your VMWare license and link it to the VMWare Dashboard entry that uses this license.

Hopefully switching to the Host entry is possible for you, Joe. It comes with the same "structural" downside as an IT Asset for example (can't have more than one level of entries under it as sub-entries), but it works well with the $PARENT_XXX$ variables, and allows storing a host and credentials.

Regards,

Thanks Hubert and Ben. Yes I think the host type entry will work great, if it can also be assigned on the software/licence entry.

Hello,
This will in the next minor update.

Regards

Perfect, thanks David.

Joe