Welcome
Software inventory and license utilization
You can classify the discovered software so that reports in BigFix Inventory reflect your entitlements and properly show utilization of license metrics by particular products.
Reports
Reports provide detailed information about the computers in your infrastructure and the software items that are installed on these computers. By viewing the reports regularly, you can check whether actual installations reflect the software inventory information and ensure that the capacity values are assigned to products correctly. You can decide what type of information you want to display by choosing the appropriate type of report. You can also customize the type and amount of information that is displayed in a report and save the report settings to reuse them.
Scheduling report notifications
You can configure report notifications to be sent to a list of recipients regularly or when a specific number of items appears on a report. For example, when the number of computers that have not reported to BigFix Inventory within the last seven days exceeds five. Thanks to the automatic notifications, you are always up-to-date with changes in your environment.

BigFix Documentation Homepage
BigFix 11 Inventory Documentation
Welcome to the BigFix Inventory documentation, where you can find information about how to install and configure BigFix Inventory. The application provides you with information about your inventory and license metrics. You can manage your software assets, gather information about your hardware, and ensure license compliance for your enterprise using BigFix Inventory.
BigFix Platform
Overview
Become familiar with key concepts that are necessary to understand how BigFix Inventory works and learn about features and functions that are introduced in every version of the application.
Installing
Learn about the requirements and available installation scenarios to ensure that the deployment of BigFix Inventory goes smoothly in your environment.
Configuring
After you install BigFix Inventory, configure the application. Create accounts for the users who need access to the application and set up scans to collect software and hardware inventory data from your environment.
Upgrading
A new version of BigFix Inventory is released periodically, typically at the end of each calendar quarter. Upgrade to the new version regularly to take full advantage of new features and application fixes.
Catalog Overview
This section provides information about catalog updates available with every release.
Managing the infrastructure
After you complete the initial configuration of BigFix Inventory, learn how to manage components of its infrastructure: VM managers, server, database, and data sources.
Software inventory and license utilization
You can classify the discovered software so that reports in BigFix Inventory reflect your entitlements and properly show utilization of license metrics by particular products.
- Collecting Oracle Measurements Data
  Starting from version 10.0.15, BigFix Inventory extends its capability to collect Oracle Java SE measurements data. Since version 10.0.16, BigFix Inventory also collects Oracle Database options and measurements data.
- Vendor-specific predefined reports available in dashboard Inventory Reports
  Vendor-specific predefined reports available in dashboard Inventory Reports provide software discovery and licensing information for specific software vendors of BigFix Inventory customers. These reports help Software Asset Managers manage software for their vendors and prepare for contract negotiations and license audits. To view the reports, click on a vendor in the vendor-specific dashboard.
- Reported license metrics
  BigFix Inventory reports utilization for a number of license metrics for IBM and non-IBM products. It also shows products that are assigned any BigFix metric even if calculating utilization is not yet supported for this metric. It gives you an overview of all IBM metrics for which you should have licenses.
- Software classification
  After new components are discovered, they are assigned to products based on bundling rules. If the initial assignment does not reflect your entitlements, work with the software inventory until it matches the entitlements. To make metric calculation accurate, assign each component to a product, exclude, or suppress the instances that should not be included in the calculation, and confirm your actions. After you confirm the actions, the classification is complete, and the metric calculation is accurate.
- Server Software Catalog
  To correctly identify components of software products in your infrastructure, ensure that your server software catalog is always up-to-date. Periodically import a new server software catalog that contains the most recent software products. Also, manually add products that are installed in your infrastructure but do not have corresponding entries in the catalog.
- Reports
  Reports provide detailed information about the computers in your infrastructure and the software items that are installed on these computers. By viewing the reports regularly, you can check whether actual installations reflect the software inventory information and ensure that the capacity values are assigned to products correctly. You can decide what type of information you want to display by choosing the appropriate type of report. You can also customize the type and amount of information that is displayed in a report and save the report settings to reuse them.
  - Available reports
    Reports are the primary source of information about computers in your infrastructure and software that is installed on these computers.
  - Report columns
    This glossary provides a brief description of every column that can be found in the reports that are available in BigFix Inventory.
  - Adding and removing tags
    Available from 9.2.14. BigFix Inventory allows you to tag certain elements on the reports. You can tag software components, and whole report rows and thus mark them to meet your individual business needs.
  - Applying report filters
    The type and amount of information that is displayed on the reports is set by default. You can apply filters to narrow down the scope of the report to information that meets specific criteria.
  - Exporting reports to a file
    If you need a hard copy of a report that is generated in BigFix Inventory you can export the report to a CSV or PDF file. You can also use the CSV file to create charts and statistics that are based on the information from the report.
  - Creating saved report views
    Saved report views are derived from base reports and provide quick access to information that you use frequently. Some saved report views are delivered with BigFix Inventory and are available for you immediately. You can also specify filters and parameters of any report and create your own saved report views.
  - Scheduling report notifications
    You can configure report notifications to be sent to a list of recipients regularly or when a specific number of items appears on a report. For example, when the number of computers that have not reported to BigFix Inventory within the last seven days exceeds five. Thanks to the automatic notifications, you are always up-to-date with changes in your environment.
    - Configuring the server to send mail notifications
      To be able to schedule report notifications, you must first configure the BigFix Inventory server to send mail notifications.
    - Scheduling report emails
      You can schedule reports to be emailed to the specified recipients. This option is especially useful if a person does not work with BigFix Inventory, or is not familiar with the application, yet must have access to the reports.
  - Difference between Web Reports and BigFix Inventory software discovery results
    This topic explains the reason behind the difference between Web Reports and BigFix Inventory software discovery results.
- Enterprise applications inventory
  Software components are discovered during software scans. The scans correlate data that is collected from the computers with the content of the software catalog, and thus determine whether a component is installed. However, software scans do not discover details of some enterprise applications, for example licensable options of Oracle Database or editions of Microsoft Exchange. The details are discovered by dedicated fixlets. If you are interested in discovering additional details of enterprise applications, run the dedicated fixlets apart from scheduling software scans. Otherwise, running the fixlets is not required.
- License metrics
  BigFix Inventory provides two types of information about license metrics utilization: aggregated utilization and raw utilization. The former shows utilization of the assigned license metric by all instances of a particular product within the reporting period. However, it is limited to a subset of license metrics. The latter shows data that is collected from .slmtag files. It shows raw utilization of all license metrics that can be used by a particular product. The data is not aggregated and requires further processing.
- Contracts management
  The contracts management group shows all contract-related reports in one place. This allows you to easily manage all your contracts.
- Software discovery in containers
  BigFix Inventory supports discovery of software in container images through standard discovery methods that includes catalog signatures, template signatures, installation registry and ISO SWID tags to cover traditional model of software deployment.
- Software data harvesting tool
Managing security threats
Learn how to use BigFix Inventory to manage security threats in your environment. You can view whether any of the installed components is prone to any Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE).
Tutorials
Tutorials help you understand how to use BigFix Inventory. They consist of modules that focus on broad goals. Modules consist of tasks that show how to configure specific settings step-by-step.
Security
Configure different security features to adequately protect business assets and resources in the data model when using BigFix Inventory.
Troubleshooting and support
Learn about solutions to common problems that might arise when you use BigFix Inventory BigFix Inventory and how to find logs and trace files that help you troubleshoot those problems.
Tuning performance
Learn how to plan the infrastructure of BigFix Inventory and to configure the application server to achieve optimal performance. The following guidelines are applicable in big data environments as well as in smaller environments that are running on low-performance hardware.
Integrating with REST API
External systems integration is one of the key features of BigFix Inventory. Business logic is enabled for integration and interfaces are provided for common integration points.
Glossary
Guide in PDF format
DataFlow ServiceNow Integration

Scheduling report notifications

You can configure report notifications to be sent to a list of recipients regularly or when a specific number of items appears on a report. For example, when the number of computers that have not reported to BigFix Inventory within the last seven days exceeds five. Thanks to the automatic notifications, you are always up-to-date with changes in your environment.