Available reports

Reports are the primary source of information about computers in your infrastructure and software that is installed on these computers.

The inventory data is collected from all computers in your infrastructure. When you decommission a computer it continues to report to BigFix Inventory. For report accuracy, ensure that all infrastructure changes are reflected in BigFix Inventory. For more information, see: Removing inactive computers.
Note: The data that is displayed on the reports is limited to the computer group to which the user belongs.

General

Report Description
Saved Reports The report provides information about saved reports, for example:
  • The base report from which the saved report was created.
  • The user who created it. Some of the reports are delivered with BigFix Inventory. They are marked as created by the SYSTEM. Other reports are created by individual users.
  • Date and time when the saved report will be sent to the recipients that you specified in the schedule.

For more information, see: Creating saved report views.

Software Inventory

Report Description
Software Summary (Preview)

Permission Required permission: View Endpoints

9.2.15 The report provides an overview of software inventory in your environment. Each row in the report represents a set of software instances that are grouped by the selected columns. You can limit the instances in the groups by using the report filters. By default, you can see only the instances that are currently installed and not suppressed. To change the way how the data is displayed, select different report columns.

For example, you can filter the group by selecting a publisher. In the column Count you get the number of software instances only from the selected publisher.

Note: You cannot filter the report by selecting columns that aggregate the values, for example: Count, Used and Unused.

Drill down

You can drill down the Software Summary report to view the Software Classification panel with the detailed information about all software instances from the related group, including component name, component version, and installation path.

9.2.16 Starting from application update 9.2.16, you can additionally use drill down to see the detailed information about the software instances that contribute to software usage through the related columns, for example, Used, Unused, Used in the Last Month and other summary columns.

Summary of the usage statistics

This report also provides software usage statistics that contain details about the usage of specific software on the listed instances. You can check how many instances of a product within the group were used and how many were not. You can see an overview of software usage statistics from the last month, the last quarter, and the last year. You can track the number of software instances within the group where software usage is monitored and where it is not.

Limitations

  • Software Summary (Preview) report does not work on MS SQL 2008 and 2008 R2. The required MS SQL Server version is MS SQL 2012 and higher.
  • You might experience performance issues on SQL Server, especially when you select Product Name column or usage related columns, for example Used, for grouping.

In case of problems with opening links in Internet Explorer, see: User interface problems.

Inventory Exploration

Permission Required permission: View Endpoints

The report provides information about software items that are installed in your infrastructure. The items are structured into hierarchies that consist of the publisher, software titles, their versions, releases, and components. You can drill down through the hierarchy to gather detailed information about software usage including its time and frequency.

For each product, its version and release, you can also view information about contracts to which this product is assigned. The report shows the number of software instances that are covered by contracts and the cost of acquisition and maintenance of the licenses for that product. You can use the report to efficiently manage your software inventory by monitoring the cost of software licenses and the use of the particular software products.

Software Installations

Permission Required permission: View Endpoints

9.2.15 The Software Installations report has been changed. The old report is based on the old data model that does not take shared disks and multiple component instances into account. Now, it is deprecated, moved to the bottom of the Reports menu and will be entirely removed in the future. The old report is substituted with a new report view that is based on the new data model and consistent with other reports. Thanks to the new data model, the report criteria are extended to cover additional component instances and the reported number of installed software might be affected. The new report is based on the Software Classification panel. For more information, see: Software Classification.

The report provides information about computers in your infrastructure and software items that are installed on these computers. You can see a detailed report for a single software item, when you click the link in the Details column.

The detailed view shows information about software signatures that were tried to detect the software or software identification tags that were discovered. The information is accompanied by the following icons:
  • Green tick - The signature matched the software item, or the software ID tag was discovered on the computer and caused software detection.
  • Red cross - The signature did not match the software item.

If you believe that software was erroneously detected, you can use this information to examine how the signature or the software ID tag was evaluated. You can also view the installation path of software that was discovered by a file-based signature. If software was discovered by a complex signature, you can view the hierarchical structure of the signature.

In this view, you can also see information about software usage. When a usage signature exists and matches a process listed on the Metering Data report, statistics about usage time and frequency are shown. If the information cannot be gathered for the particular software, one of the following messages is displayed:
  • Usage data is not supported - Usage data cannot be gathered because the usage signature for this software item does not exist.
  • Usage data was not found - At least one usage signature exists for the particular software but the usage data was not gathered. Thus, report columns with statistics about usage time and frequency show 0. Usage data might not be found because the software was never used and thus has no usage information. It might also happen because the option to run the Application Usage Statistics scan was cleared in the Initiate Software Scan fixlet.
Software Classification

Permission Required permission: View Endpoints or Manage Software Classification

The report provides an overview of your software inventory and the relations between the discovered software components and licensable products. It provides a flat structure with software installations broken into single components, which makes it easier to view your software assets and manage relations between them. The Software Classification panel allows streamline management of your software inventory. To make your 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 classify all your components, and confirm all actions, software classification is complete.

9.2.15 Starting from application update 9.2.15, BigFix Inventory collects detailed information about the usage of Java processes on each instance separately. The usage statistics for each instance is available on Software Classification report.

The report provides the following predefined views:
  • BigFix Software Only that shows only BigFix software that is currently installed.
  • First Detected Last Week - BigFix Software Only shows the BigFix software that was detected within the last week and is currently installed. It helps you to review the recently installed software and make an appropriate action, such as changing the component assignment.
  • Software Installations shows all components that are installed in your environment.
  • Current Installations shows software that is currently installed in your environment and its classification.
  • Out of Support Software shows installations for which support already ended. Starting from application 9.2.14, the report additionally shows the installations of old software components that do not have the end of support date set but were created more than 6 years ago.
  • 9.2.13 Vulnerable Software (Preview) shows software installations for which at least one CVE was matched.
  • 9.2.13 Software Approaching End of Support shows software installations for which support ends within the next three months. Starting from application update 9.2.14, the report additionally shows installations of the components that do not have the end of support set but were created between 5 years 9 months and 6 years ago. These installations will be reported as out of support within the next three months.
  • 9.2.13 Vulnerable Software - Recent (Preview) shows software installations that were discovered within the last two weeks and for which at least one CVE was matched.
  • 9.2.14 Software Installations - Recent shows new software installations that were discovered within the last two weeks.
  • 9.2.14 IBM Software - Pending Classification shows the IBM software components that are not yet classified.
  • 9.2.14 Blacklist Software shows the discovered software components that are marked with a blacklist tag that represents unwanted software. For more information, see: Adding and removing tags.
9.2.11 Package Summary

Permission Required permission: View Raw Data

The report lists and counts the packages that are installed on the computers in your infrastructure. The report is calculated on demand only. You can find out what is the name of every package, its version, vendor, description, and type. You can use this information to create custom software signatures. For more information, see: Creating signatures from package data.

To refresh the report, open it, and click Calculate. The data is calculated immediately, unless the import is in progress. In this case, the report is calculated after the import completes. If new data arrives, information that the report is not up-to-date is displayed.

The report might not be up-to-date it in the following situations:
  • The import of data was completed and the new package data might be available.
  • A new package signature was created and it might influence the Package Data report.
  • Package signatures were changed or deleted on the Catalog Customizations panel.
Package Data

Permission Required permission: View Raw Data

The report provides information about packages that are installed on each computer in your infrastructure. The information is retrieved from the Windows registry and UNIX RPM database. You can find out what is the name of every package, its version, vendor, description, and type. You can use this information to create custom software signatures. For more information, see: Creating signatures from package data.

Scanned File Data

Permission Required permission: View Raw Data

The report provides information about files that were found on the computers in your infrastructure. You can find out what is the location, size, and version of each file. The files that are displayed on the report are detected basing on the discovery of particular file extensions, or the processes that run on the computers in your environment. You can use this information to create custom software signatures. For more information, see: Creating signatures from scanned file data.

The report provides the following predefined views:
  • 9.2.14 Malware Threats (Preview) lists files that are found in the environment by BigFix Inventory and classified as malware threats.
  • 9.2.14 Malware Threats - Recent (Preview) lists files that are found in the environment BigFix Inventory within the last two weeks and classified as malware threats.

The tool and the fixlets related to getting file reputation are not available anymore as this preview feature has been withdrawn. However, the historical data is still displayed, and the predefined views are still available.

Unrecognized Files

Permission Required permission: View Raw Data

The report provides a ranking of 1000 files that are most commonly encountered in your computer infrastructure but do not produce matches for any signature. The ranking is separate for each computer group. It is based on the number of computers on which the files were detected, the number of copies of a particular file, and the alphabetical order. The files are listed by name with no regard to their size or version. You can use this report to investigate unrecognized files that can be used to create custom signatures.

Because aggregation of unrecognized scan data slows down imports, particularly in large deployments, it is disabled by default. To enable it, perform the following steps:
  • For versions up to 9.2.8, go to Management > Scanned File Data, and choose the frequency of the aggregation.
  • Starting from version 9.2.9, go to Management > Advanced Server Settings, and change the value of the recompute_unrecognized_scan_data parameter to specify frequency of the aggregation.
Metering Data

Permission Required permission: View Raw Data

The report provides information about processes that run on the computers in your infrastructure. You can track when the process was used for the first and the last time as well as what is the frequency and the total time of its usage. You can also see what is the average run time of each process and the average number of its runs per day. This report provides aggregated usage statistics from all instances that are discovered on each endpoint based on given binary file. In this report you cannot track individual installations on one endpoint.

9.2.15 Starting from application update 9.2.15, BigFix Inventory collects detailed information about the usage of Java processes and provides the aggregated usage statistics on Metering Data report.

9.2.10 Usage per Computer

Permission Required permission: View License Metrics

The report provides information about the frequency and time of using software products that are installed on the computers in your infrastructure. For every product you can see what was the frequency and the total time of its use per computer as well as when it was used for the first and last time. You can also see what is the average run time of each product and the average number of its runs per day.

By default, the report is calculated after every import. To change this behavior so that the report is calculated on demand, go to Management > Advanced Server Settings, and change the value of the calculate_during_import/product_usage parameter.

After you change the parameter, the report must be refreshed on demand. To refresh the report, open it, and click Calculate. The data is calculated immediately, unless the import is in progress. In this case, the report is calculated after the import completes. If new data arrives, information about the need of recalculating the data is displayed on the report.

9.2.15 Starting from application update 9.2.15, BigFix Inventory collects detailed information about the usage of Java processes on each instance separately. The aggregated usage for all instances of the same product is available on Usage per Computer report.

Business Applications

Report Description
Oracle Databases

Permission Required permission: View Endpoints

The report provides information about the edition (Standard or Enterprise), options, and Management Packs (including Oracle Real Application Cluster, RAC) of Oracle Databases that are deployed in your environment. When you combine this information with the collected hardware inventory data, you can use it to calculate the demand for Oracle Database licenses. For more information, see: Extended discovery of Oracle Database.

License Metrics

Report Description
All Metrics

Permission Required permission: View License Metrics

The report provides information about the utilization of license metrics for products that are installed on the computers in your infrastructure. For every product, you can see the maximum metric utilization and its history over the specified period. You can also specify a metric threshold to verify whether metric utilization is above or below your expectations. You can create a snapshot of the report, and store it for audit purposes. For more information, see: License metric utilization.

Important: If the report does not show products with a particular license metric, calculation of this metric might be disabled for the computer group to which you are assigned. For information about enabling the calculations, see: Setting up computer groups.

9.2.16 Starting from application update 9.2.16, the report provides information about the top level of metric utilization, which means that stand-alone products and flexpoint bundles are displayed. You can also see products that contribute to a FlexPoint bundle by applying the appropriate report filter.

9.2.4 The report provides the following predefined views:
  • IBM PVU Subcapacity that shows only products that are licensed for PVU subcapacity.
  • 9.2.13 IBM FlexPoints that shows FlexPoint bundles.
  • All IBM Metrics that shows only BigFix products.
  • 9.2.5 Install Seats Metric that shows only products that are licensed based on the number of computers on which the product is installed.
  • Metric Thresholds that includes a column in which you can specify a metric threshold. The threshold indicates the maximum number of metric units that a product can use within a computer group. It is then used to calculate whether metric utilization is above or below your expectations. For more information, see: Setting license metric threshold.
  • Exceeded Thresholds that shows only products for which metric utilization is above the specified threshold.
  • 9.2.7 Microsoft Metrics (previously Microsoft Core Metric) that shows Microsoft products for which metrics are calculated in BigFix Inventory.
  • 9.2.8 Oracle Metrics that shows Oracle products for which metrics are calculated in BigFix Inventory.
Audit Trail

Permission Required permission: View Audit Trail

The report provides information about actions that have influence on the information that is displayed on other reports. You can view details of each action, its type, date, and the user who performed it.
Important: Audit trail shows actions that are performed only within the computer group to which the user who views the report has access.
The actions that are shown on the report include:
  • Modifications to the IBM software classification: confirming and changing the default classification, sharing an instance between products, including an instance in and excluding it from pricing calculations
    Note: Audit trail does not contain information about software classification when either component, product or both are non-IBM.
  • Uploads: successful or failed upload of the software catalog, charge unit data, and PVU table
  • Imports: successful or failed import of the software catalog, charge unit data, and PVU table
  • VM managers: adding, modifying, and deleting VM managers
  • Updates to the scan configuration on the Scan Configurations panel
  • Changes of server parameters and advanced server settings
  • Changes of the PVU per core value
9.2.1 Resource Utilization

Permission Required permission: View License Metrics

The report provides information about the utilization of license metrics for products that deliver .slmtags. The report shows the maximum metric utilization and its trend value over the last 30 days. For every product, you can see the type and subtype of license metrics that a product uses as well as the first and last time when each metric was reported. You can also see the path to the .slmtag file from which the data was retrieved.

The report shows only products that deliver resource utilization data. It does not show products for which metric utilization is calculated and shown on the All Metrics report. For more information, see: Raw utilization of license metrics.

Users

Report Description
9.2.13 Software Users

Permission Required permission: View User Details

Scope of the report
  • 9.2.13 Microsoft Office 365
  • 9.2.14 Windows The following Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) applications that are installed on Windows computers.
    • Adobe Illustrator CC
    • Adobe Photoshop CC
    • Adobe InDesign CC
    • Adobe Premiere Pro CC
    • Adobe After Effects CC
    • Adobe Dreamweaver CC
    • Adobe Muse CC

Overview

The report provides information about the current users of software and their details. Users are matched with the instance of the product to which they are registered with the given ID. By clicking the product name, you are redirected to the Software Classification panel.

The report shows a list of users who use or registered Microsoft Office 365 and a set of Adobe CC components on the computers in your environment. They have a unique user ID, that might be an e-mail address, or an alternative user ID, which is an identifier that is specific to the particular software.

User details

The user information that is collected might include the personal data. By default, the user personal data, such as an e-mail address, is obfuscated with SHA-1 and is not shown on the report or stored in the database. If you would like to collect and display it, select the Store and show user names on reports when initiating software scans. For more information, see: Initiating software scans.

If you no longer need to view information about software users on the Software Users report, go to Management > Advanced Server Settings, and change the value of the remove_user_information parameter to True. After the next import of data, the user information is removed and the report is emptied. To repopulate the report, run the Initiate Software Scan fixlet. Removing user information also removes all historical data related to the Registered User metric on the All Metrics report.
Important: BigFix Inventory is GDPR compliant. By default, BigFix Inventory does not collect any personal data about the users. Gathering personal data is optional and should be enabled consciously. Personal data is stored and used by BigFix Inventory only. It is not passed or used outside BigFix Inventory.

Infrastructure

Report Description
Computers

Permission Required permission: View Endpoints

The report provides information about computers in your infrastructure, such as their operating systems, IP addresses, and other information that can be used to identify them. Additionally, you can display information about the computer health, for example:
  • When the computer last connected to BigFix
  • What version of the client is installed on the computer
  • What version of the catalog is available on the computer
  • When was the last attempt to run the scan
  • Whether each type of the software scan was successful
  • Whether the computer misses scan results
  • Whether it is running out of disk space
  • Whether it misses some prerequisites

When you click a link in the Name column, detailed information about a particular computer is displayed. You can now view reports narrowed down to this computer. To do this, select the report from the upper left corner.

9.2.5 IBM i You can decommission computers that are imported from the disconnected data source to remove them from the report. For more information, see: Decommissioning computers with disconnected scanners.

The report provides the following predefined views:
  • 9.2.4 Outdated Agents shows computers on which the BigFix client is not updated to the latest available version.
    Important: For some operating systems, support is withdrawn with newer versions of the BigFix client and only earlier versions are supported. Such a computer is reported as having an outdated version of the client even though a newer version is not available.
  • 9.2.4 Computers lists all computers in your infrastructure.
  • 9.2.4 Computers - Recent shows the computers that were added to BigFix Inventory within the last two weeks.
  • 9.2.4 Computers without Scan (Preview) shows computers that are visible in BigFix Inventory for more than a week, and on which the scan was not initiated.
  • 9.2.4 Computers without Recent Scan (Preview) shows computers with scan that is older than two weeks.
Computer Groups

Permission Required permission: Manage Computer Groups

The report provides information about computer groups that are defined in your infrastructure. The information includes the ID of the computer group, its name, and description. You can find out how many computers and subgroups are in the computer group, and what software items are installed in that group. The report also provides information about the contracts that are assigned to a computer group, with the acquisition and maintenance cost for each contract.

When you click a link in the Name column, detailed information about a particular computer group is displayed. You can now view the reports narrowed down to the computers that belong to the group. To do this, from the upper left corner, select the report that you want to view for this computer group.

9.2.8 The report shows two types of computer groups: reporting and software template. Both types are visible to all entitled users. However, only an Administrator can create software template groups and modify software templates of existing groups of this type. For more information, see: Setting up computer groups.

9.2.12 Shared Disks

Permission Required permission: View Shared Disks

The report provides information about shared disks that are used in your infrastructure. For each shared disk, you can view information about its type, the exported directory, and the number of computers on which the disk is mounted. You can drill down the report to view detailed information about the shared directory or the computers on which the disk is mounted. If you use automatic scanning of shared disks, the report also shows the status of the scan and the computer that is designated to scan the shared disk.

To view information on the report, discover shared disks in your infrastructure. For more information, see: Discovering software on shared disks.

Hardware Inventory

Permission Required permission: View Hardware Inventory

The report provides information about the state of BigFix clients in your infrastructure. For every computer on which a client is installed, you can view processor details, and the number of PVUs assigned to each core.

If the PVU per core value that is assigned to a processor in your environment is incorrect, you can manually change it on the Hardware Inventory report to ensure that subcapacity licenses are properly calculated. For more information, see: Changing the PVU per core value.

9.2.3 Current State Values

9.2.12 Starting from application update 9.2.12, the report is deprecated.

Permission Required permission: Edit Server Configuration

The report provides information that is intended to help the IBM Support team troubleshoot problems with BigFix Inventory. When you open a support case, generate a CSV or PDF version of this report and provide it to the HCL Support team.

Catalog

Report Description
9.2.14 Products & Metrics previously Software Catalog

Permission Required permission: View Software Catalog and Signatures

The report provides information about the content of the software catalog including software products and their publishers, part numbers that represent the products, and license metrics that the product uses.

9.2.11 When you drill down to the component level, you can also view the date when the software component reaches end of support.

Signatures

Permission Required permission: View Software Catalog and Signatures

The report provides information about signatures that are available in the software catalog. You can find out what signature is used to detect each software item that exists in the catalog.

Catalog Audit

Permission Required permission: View Catalog Audit

The report provides information about modifications that were made to the content of your custom software catalog. For each modification, you can see detailed information about the current status of the software entity, as well as its status before and after modification.

Contracts

Report Description
Contract Usage Data

Permission Required permission: View Contracts

The report provides information about contracts that you created for the software items. You can see the relationship between the number of software products that you are entitled to use and the actual number of software instances that are used. You can use the report to eliminate unused licenses and track computers that use unlicensed instances of a software product.