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Looking for companies that work with Kace


Hi, at the company I work for, we use Kace for about a year. I am the administrator of the tool, and we use the inventory and scripts, with installations and fixes of problems in the computers of the inventory. However, we would like to be able to use the Smart Labels much more in our favor. But we do not know which Custom Inventory Rules to create, we do not know which Smart Labels we all create. Could you help us in this case?

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Answers (2)

Posted by: chucksteel 6 years ago
Red Belt
1
What kinds of needs do you have that you aren't currently able to meet? I wouldn't recommend using CIRs and smart labels "just because". Rather, what are you trying to accomplish that using a CIR would facilitate? 

For instance, we had some computers that had an Adobe license key that was going to expire soon and we wanted to find these machines before users started to call in a panic. Luckily, Adobe released a tool that can check for expiring licenses. I used a CIR to run this tool on campus computers. I then created a smart label to find machines where the output of the tool (contained in the CIR) indicated an expiring license. A script was associated with that smart label that installed the new license code.

Again, what kinds of problems are you trying to solve? What kinds of processes are you trying to automate?

Another example came from our BitLocker rollout. As part of our phased layout we needed to identify laptop computers that were ready to have the MDOP MBAM client installed, so we used a combination of a CIR and smart label to find computers that had the necessary group policies applied, did not already have the client installed, and are laptops. That gives us an up to date list of computers that we can schedule for encryption. Once machines get the MDOP MBAM client installed, they fall out of the label and the related reports. No more need to keep a spreadsheet up to date on the status of the project.

Posted by: Nico_K 6 years ago
Red Belt
0
Regarding the Custom Inventory Rules:
These are simple additions to the software catalog (means: you create a new software item with the rule to get anything in the Inventory or count something)
This is a primer:
https://support.quest.com/kace-systems-management-appliance/kb/131488/custom-inventory-rule-applications

Smart Labels are a SQL-Query to automaticly group items.
You can create machine smart labels to group all machines after a special setting (for instance IP range or installed software or whatever you can think of)
Similar for patching smart labels etc.
The only thing you need to keep in mind, that smart labels are updated always if the special DB has been updated.
Machine smart labels are updated during the check in of the machines. The same time when also CIR are running.
A nice description (in addition to the admin guide on avaiable in your appliance under Settings |Support ) can be found here:
https://support.quest.com/kace-systems-management-appliance/kb/157338/adding-a-smart-label-for-critical-os-patches

If you ask for examples:
I have 20 CIR collecting all admin users, external IP, SMART status of the hdd, grepping for special and big files etc
My smart labels check for new systems, LAN systems, physical and virtual devices and also some for agentless devices to exclude them from some labels to have the real numbers etc.

Comments:
  • Nico,
    I believe my need is more to find out what people are using smart labels and also the CIR. Today I already use here in my company, but I believe I can use more. - lpansarini 6 years ago

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