Scheduling Hardware Inventory

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By default, hardware inventory runs once every seven days. You change the hardware inventory schedule by setting the time of day or frequency that best suits your requirements. You can change hardware inventory settings at any time. The next inventory cycle after the client picks up the new settings for the site reflects your changes.

You schedule the hardware inventory process by configuring settings in Hardware Inventory Client Agent properties. Begin by navigating to the Hardware Inventory Client Agent Properties dialog box as directed in the "Enabling and Disabling Hardware Inventory" section earlier in this chapter, and select the best schedule for your SMS site. To schedule hardware inventory, you can either select an interval, or you can specify a start date and time and a recurring schedule. For more information about scheduling hardware inventory, see the SMS Help.

Important

  • If an Advanced Client roams to a secondary site and connects to a proxy management point, its inventory is propagated to the primary parent site of the secondary site. If the SMS addresses at the secondary site are configured to forward the inventory data to the parent site after the roaming Advanced Client has returned to its assigned site and reported inventory directly, an inventory resynchronization can be caused for the client. If many clients do this, significant network and server activity could result. To avoid this problem, set the inventory schedule to be less frequent than site-to-site communications.

Forcing Hardware Inventory on an SMS client

To run hardware inventory immediately on a single client, use the Systems Management icon in Control Panel on the client computer.

To force hardware inventory on the Advanced Client

  1. In Control Panel, double-click the Systems Management icon.

  2. On the Actions tab, click Hardware Inventory Cycle.

  3. Click Initiate Action.

To force hardware inventory on the Legacy Client

  1. In Control Panel, double-click the Systems Management icon.

  2. On the Components tab, click Hardware Inventory Agent.

  3. Click Start Component.

Forcing hardware inventory does not disrupt the normal hardware inventory cycle if it is set to run on a full schedule (at a specific time and day, for example). In that case, the regularly scheduled hardware inventory still runs at the time scheduled in the hardware inventory agent. However, if inventory is set to run on a simple schedule of once per day, for example, then the next inventory cycle is run 24 hours from the time the inventory is forced, and every 24 hours thereafter.

For More Information

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