Do you have users connecting to your domain from remote locations whose activity you want to exclude from your software usage reporting? If so, this technical tip is for you.

As we all know, Express Software Manager asset management software is designed to collect application usage statistics from users, computers, remote devices, and even thin clients connecting and running applications on Microsoft Windows Terminal Servers (WTS) and Citrix XenApp servers.

There may be occasions, however, when you don’t want to collect software usage data. This may be the case, for example, if a worker is using a machine that’s not part of your domain (i.e. a home computer or machine at an internet cafe) to access applications via WTS or Citrix.

Express Software Manager has a feature that lets you specify not to collect usage data from remote client machines that are not part of your domain and are accessing applications on WTS and Citrix servers.

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From time-to-time, you may wish to perform an “agent-less” inventory of your machines. Maybe you don’t want to install a client on specific computers (such as servers or test machines), but you still want to collect inventory data. Or perhaps some of your computers have limited network access and therefore can’t report directly to the Express Database. You can collect hardware and software inventory data on such machines by running the inventory from a network share. When you perform an inventory using this approach, you’ll need to set up a network share location that your client machine can access.

To do so, simply follow these instructions:

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Happy holidays to all!  As we wrap up 2011, we have a final Report of the Month to highlight within Express Software Manager:  Software Installation by Version.  This report, while simple in conception, has a whole host of uses, from ensuring your users have successfully upgraded to the latest version of Application X to verifying the install path of your end users’ software. 

The Software Installation by Version report, depicted in the screenshot below, shows which versions of any given application title are installed across your organization, along with the specific machines upon which those versions reside.  The second screenshot zeroes in on Microsoft Office Professional 2007, revealing which of its components are installed on a particular user’s muchine, along with associated service packs. 

Screenshot #1)

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October’s report of the month makes for an abbreviated blog post, as it requires very little in the way of explanation.  But beneath all the simplicity lies a very powerful tool.  The “Machine Search” report, found under All Reports, Hardware Reports and Software Reports in the Express Reports Console, is a quick ‘n dirty way to search for computers based on machine name, user name (based on Active Directory), last name or serial number.  Customers frequently use this to figure out which employee was issued a specific computer and/or to locate and view the configuration of a machine when a user calls in with a problem. 

What’s not to love?

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As most of you are probably aware, with the 9.5 version of Express Software Manager we introduced a purchasing system and interface that allows for easy reconciliation of purchasing details with deployed hardware and software assets. One of the most basic and useful purchasing reports found within the product is the “License Unit Purchase History.” This report allows you to view both summary and detailed purchasing information for any given license unit group, manufacturer, or UPNSC category. Not only can you quickly determine how many licenses you’ve purchased for any given application, but you can also see how many purchase orders were executed, per unit (and summary) costs, and license type.

In the below example, grouped by manufacturer, you can drill in on the individual license unit to see, for any given order, the machines/users to which purchased items have been assigned. Additionally, this data can be exported to Excel for budgeting, planning, and executive reporting purposes. (more…)