Release Notes. Asset Control and Contract Management Solution 6.1. March 30, 2005

Transcription

1 Release Notes Asset Control and Contract Management Solution 6.1 March 30, 2005

2 Contents SECTION 1 OVERVIEW Document Purpose Background Documentation... 4 SECTION 2 UPGRADING FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS The Network Resource Details Accounting period information Restart services Additional resource associations upgrade Permission on pre-existing user defined assets Software Licensing Authorization Groups... 5 SECTION 3 WHAT S NEW IN THIS RELEASE Resource Association diagram Resource Summary pages now include a print option Organization types resource pages support filtering Organization types scoping New Software License, Mac License, and UNIX License resource types Hierarchal resource type collection creation and updating User configurable resource selection mechanism for resource associations License usage status Resource Data Entry page tab order is user configurable Search for software license by filename Retired or Disposed computer names can be changed Merge resources Computer merge feature includes an exclude list Software License Data Normalization... 6 SECTION 4 KNOWN ISSUES Contract Management data classes that relate to money use a decimal instead of the currency symbol on Swedish computers... 7

3 4.2 Numeric values do not parse correctly when you use Swedish language settings... 7

4 Section 1 Overview 1.1 Document Purpose This document provides the What s New and Known Issues information for the 6.1 release of Altiris Asset Control and Contract Management Solution. 1.2 Background Altiris Asset Control Solution and Contract Management Solution can help organizations maximize existing IT investments through active asset management by eliminating unnecessary software and hardware costs, managing contracts and entitlements, and aligning service resources with IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) standards. 1.3 Documentation Product documentation is available in the Altiris Asset Control and Contract Management Solution 6.1 Product Guide. Section 2 Upgrading from Previous Versions 2.1 The Network Resource Details The Network Resource Details is hidden from all of the Asset Control and Contract Management roles. However, if you are logged in as the Altiris Admin, you can see and edit every data class. You can also use security to remove certain data classes from showing up in the Altiris Console. 2.2 Accounting period information Accounting period information is upgraded as part of the installation, however the "Asset Accounting Settings" will not display this upgraded information. This will not affect the system, and the accounting periods can be modified at any time using this page. 2.3 Restart services We recommend that you restart of the IIS service after installation. 2.4 Additional resource associations upgrade Asset Control and Contract Management now creates additional resource associations on the upgrade of items in the 5.7 associated resources. RELEASE NOTES ASSET CONTROL AND CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SOL. 6.1 PAGE 4 OF 7

5 2.5 Permission on pre-existing user defined assets Pre-existing user defined assets will not be visible to the asset administrator after an upgrade. (They will not have the correct permissions on the item folder and on the items default folder.) This can be corrected by the Altiris administrator by adding the necessary permissions. 2.6 Software Licensing Authorization Groups Contract Management has always assisted in the provisioning of software by way of the Software License Authorization data class. Contract Management 6.1 gives you better control over this data class by letting you group your authorized collections by Computers, Owners, and Primary Users. This means that when you specify a collection with a specific authorization, it only matches resources from that group. For example, when you specify that a collection has Owner authorization, the solution ignores any other resources that might be in the collection and only authorizes Owners. When upgrading Software Licenses from previous versions, the installation routine will set the Authorization Group to Computer, where there are only computers in the specified collection. With collections that contain resources other than computers, the Authorization Group is left blank. In this state, the selected collection will have no effect on the authorization for the Software License. Therefore, after the installation of this new version, it is essential that you review authorization for all Software Licenses and the Authorization Group is updated where appropriate. Section 3 What s New in this Release 3.1 Resource Association diagram A resource association diagram has been added, which lets you graphically see all of the resources associated with another resource. You can also select associated resources through the diagram and see resources associated with that resource. 3.2 Resource Summary pages now include a print option Summary page information can now be printed more easily with the addition of the Print option 3.3 Organization types resource pages support filtering Each page that displays a list of resources can now be filtered based on Cost Center, Location, or Department. 3.4 Organization types scoping In previous versions of Asset Control and Contract Management, you could only display the resources that were directly assigned to the organizational type. For example, if you have a Location of Corporate that has 3 locations (First, Second and Third Floors) as children, you could not see all of the resources at corporate, just the ones directly assigned to corporate. All the organizational types can now show Resources Directly Assigned or All Resources (Including All Children). RELEASE NOTES ASSET CONTROL AND CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SOL. 6.1 PAGE 5 OF 7

6 3.5 New Software License, Mac License, and UNIX License resource types Added the Software License, Mac License, and UNIX License resource types to provide greater support for applications on different operating systems. 3.6 Hierarchal resource type collection creation and updating Collections based on the hierarchal resource types (Location, Department, and Cost Center) can be created and updated automatically, so you do not have to manually create collections to group resources by these resource types. 3.7 User configurable resource selection mechanism for resource associations The user interface mechanism used to select an associated resource can be specified by the administrator. 3.8 License usage status You can view the number of licenses of Asset Control and Contract Management you have purchased and are currently being used. 3.9 Resource Data Entry page tab order is user configurable The order of the tabs displayed on the Data Entry pages can be specified by the administrator Search for software license by filename Software licenses can now be searched for by filename Retired or Disposed computer names can be changed When you dispose or retire a computer, you can now change the name of the computer. This lets you name a new computer using the name of the old computer Merge resources Two assets or two contracts can now be merged into a single resource Computer merge feature includes an exclude list The automatic computer merge feature now allows you to add a list of values for a field that are excluded from a merge. For example a manufacturer might assign the same serial number to all computers of a certain model. Previously, the merge feature would merge all the computer entries into a single entry. Now, you can specify that you do not want computers with this predefined serial number merged together Software License Data Normalization Previously, Application Metering Solution data was stored in one table of the Notification Database. The table included all application data for each usage instance for every computer reporting inventory or application metering details. Searching this table was inefficient because every record had to be checked for specific data. RELEASE NOTES ASSET CONTROL AND CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SOL. 6.1 PAGE 6 OF 7

7 Now, there is a new system for indexing and storing application metering data that divides the data into two tables. By splitting the data (one for general application data and one for usage data), the process of locating specific details is much more efficient. If you are using Application Metering along with Contract Management, the software license data normalization feature lets you convert your metering data tables into the new format. By default, the conversion automatically occurs once the first night after Contract Management is installed. Section 4 Known Issues 4.1 Contract Management data classes that relate to money use a decimal instead of the currency symbol on Swedish computers On Swedish computers, all Contract Management data classes that relate to money are incorrectly defined as decimal instead of currency. This means that when a number such as 1111 is entered and applied, the number will be formatted as 1 111,00. This is correct for a number but not for currency; it should look like 1.111, Numeric values do not parse correctly when you use Swedish language settings This is a known Microsoft issue and is only applicable when the Altiris Console is used on the computer running Notification Server. This problem is not exhibited when running the console remotely. For details, see: RELEASE NOTES ASSET CONTROL AND CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SOL. 6.1 PAGE 7 OF 7