Asset Field Configuration Dialog Box

Select Scanner Generator wizard > Asset Data page > Asset Data tab > asset field in the list, and click Edit Field .

Opens the Asset Field Extract Options dialog box, enabling you to set up calculated asset fields so that only part of the string is selected instead of the entire string. They can also be set up, for example, to use the last part rather than the first part of the string. This can be useful for obtaining the last part of a calculated field that is too long.

• Extract Characters From. Enables you to specify whether you want to use the first part or the last part of the string, and the number of characters to skip from the beginning or end of the string respectively.

  For example, if you have the string ABCDEF123, selecting Start and skip 4 characters would result in the string EF123.

• Options. Enables you the configure how to treat the extracted strings:

  • Convert to Upper Case. Converts the alphabetic characters to upper case, if required.

  • Treat Field as a File Name. Treats the string in the asset field as a file name. In the case of characters that are invalid in file names, you can define a character to replace the invalid character, or have the scanner delete the invalid character.

• Default Value. Enables you to define a default value for the string if the extracted field is empty or not found.

  For example, if the text string Not Found is entered in this box, then an empty field or a field that has not been found is assigned the value, Not Found.

Available for: Calculated fields only.

Calculated fields can be automatically populated from data extracted from text files, the Windows registry, environment variables and so on.

• Environment Variable Extract. Accepts data from a specified environment variable set in the operating system.

• Registry Extract. Extracts its value from the Windows registry. The Data field must contain a valid registry key name to extract from, for example:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control
\TimeZoneInformation\StandardName

• Text File Extract. Extracts information from a single line in a named text file.

  This field type is normally used for the Asset Number field. This is used to extract the asset number from the file, Asset.bat, on the line containing the text:

  SET ASSETNO=

  Other useful file extracts include the predefined SMS, which extracts the SMS Unique Machine ID.

• WMI Extract. Extracts and stores pieces of data on Windows available through the WMI interface. The Windows scanner populates this field (if set up) on systems where WMI is enabled.

Derived fields have dependencies on the data of other types of fields. That is, the data they contain is derived from other fields.

• Sequence. Enables you to define a sequence of up to ten asset or hardware fields. Each of these fields returns a value depending on the machine or environment running.

  The value returned as the result of the sequence field is the first of these fields that contains a non-blank value.

• Combination. Uses a substitution string to replace occurrences of %1, %2 and so on. placeholders with the actual values of hardware or asset fields. An example of a Combination field can be found in the Description field of the default Asset Data tab.

  Up to five fields can be combined into one.

• OS/Scan. Allows a single field to collect different information for different operating systems. For example, you may want to extract information from a registry on Windows and from a file on UNIX.

  For each scanner platform a separate asset field could be defined.