Bundling Assistant

Bundling assistant assigns instances of discovered components to products based on five bundling rules: bundling tags, part numbers, partition collocation, infrastructure collocation, and stand-alone product discovery. Results of this assignment are shown on the Software Classification panel.

Bundling assistance process

After a component is discovered, it undergoes the process of bundling assistance. During the process, bundling rules are applied to discover possible component-product relations. Each relation is evaluated and assigned an internal score. The component is assigned to the product with the highest score.

If the discovered component belongs to the product and license metric assigned during bundling assistance, you can confirm the assignment. Otherwise, assign the component to a different product or license metric so that the relation reflects your entitlement, and confirm it. If the assignment is not confirmed, it might be automatically changed. It might happen when a new software catalog is uploaded or when a different product is suggested as the best bundling option based on the new results of bundling assistance.

Important: Instances that are a part of an excluded product cannot be bundled again automatically. Instances can be bundled with excluded products only if they are associated with the excluded products based on the software catalog or the stand-alone product discovery. Any new instance that is assigned to the excluded product is also excluded.

Bundling rules

The following table lists rules that are used during the process of bundling assistance.

Table 1. Bundling rules
Rule	Description
Custom bundling	This rule assigns a component to the product and license metric based on the custom bundling that was defined manually.
Bundling tags	This rule assigns a component to the product and license metric that are represented by the part number listed in the bundling tag. The tag is placed on the computer where the component is installed which allows for assigning the specific instance of the component to the right product and license metric.
Part numbers/Setting entitlements	This rule uses part numbers that you upload to BigFix Inventory to narrow down the list of products and license metrics to which a component can be assigned to the ones that you purchased. The rule instructs bundling algorithm to prefer products selected manually by end user through Set Entitlement function or by Upload of Part numbers that is uploaded when suggesting bundling option.
Partition collocation	This rule discovers components that are installed on the same partition and are related to the same product in the software catalog.
Infrastructure collocation	This rule discovers components that are installed in the same infrastructure and are related to the same product in the software catalog. The search does not include the computer on which the component is installed.
Stand-alone product discovery	This rule identifies components that have more than one default component to product relation and chooses the closest one using string-based distance metric.