ConfigMgr & Asset Intelligence

Following on the back of yet another Garth Jones post, some interesting information came out of the recent MVP summit as mentioned by Kim Oppalfens here

While I've often wondered why the Asset Intelligence catalog isn't sometimes a little bit more "up-to-date" the information provided on a the aforementioned blog posts does help shed some more light on why.

1. Microsoft require a software title to be reported 4 times (assumption is from different SCCM sites) before it will be added to the queue for categorization.
2. With the limit of uploading only 100 titles at a time, most admins give up, or can't be bothered.

So along with Kim and Garth, I'll also urge anyone reading this to upload more if you already do, or if you don't upload anything at the moment, start!!!

Kim has even taken the time to write a script that gets around the 100 item limit, making it even easier to upload your titles.  Check his blog post for more details or if you fall into the lazy category (like those that don't upload software titles) the direct link to the script is here

For those that might be new to SCCM, or have simply never looked at the Asset Intelligence part of ConfigMgr then here's a quick screen shot guide of how to upload software titles.

Within the console, click the "Asset Intelligence" node under "Computer Management" to be presented with a summary screen.
The table shows some useful information, including the last column which shows how many items are waiting to be uploaded.  In my case I've been slack in recent months and I've got 921 waiting to be uploaded.  However, you can see I've got 3439 that I have uploaded already, but they're still waiting for Microsoft to identify them or if no-one else has uploaded the same title another 3 times, it hasn't even got into the queue for identification.

Expanding the Asset Intelligence node allows you to navigate into the "Unidentified and Not Pending Online Identification" node.  This is where all the titles waiting upload will be sat, waiting for you to do something.

Highlight the titles you want to upload and then click the "Request Catalog Update" link on the right of the mmc.

I've got the message about uploading of non identifiable data turned off, but if it pops up, read and click ok/accept if you do.

You honestly couldn't get any simpler than that!

Well you could, use Kim's script and do all of your titles in one go!!!!!!!!