Duplicate Properties - Preventing

Usage and Config
1

Using console as MO, under Edit Computer Settings, I added a custom property to a number of machines in order to manage automatic group membership and custom content applicability.

Several weeks later, an additional endpoint was specified to be added and when a different MO tried to add the same setting to a client, instead of the system using the existing property it generated a duplicate property with the same name, same relevance.

I have had it happen in the past and it seems if I create content to apply the setting, it will use the existing property and this will not happen. In the future I will try to ensure I provide appropriate content for other admins to manage settings like this but in the interest of understanding the application behavior I would like to understand how to prevent this from happening.

2299683174-1213496-1	TNSQLADS	Globally	Master Action Site		Every Report		
2299683174-1236060-1	TNSQLADS	Globally	Master Action Site		Every Report

Both have the same auto generated relevance:

if exist values of settings “TNSQLADS” of client then value of setting “TNSQLADS” of client else error “not set”

Is there a best practice for the creation of custom properties we are missing?

2

Can you show us the actionscript which created the settings?

3

The actions have since been deleted so I can’t provide the actual actionscript, but the settings were created applied with the GUI Settings “Add” button (eg: https://help.hcltechsw.com/bigfix/9.5/platform/Platform/Console/Dialogs/edit_settings_for_computer.html) so I assume it would be the same for every action generated with the setting name and times changing:

Relevance:
((not exists setting "DeleteMe" of client) OR ((not exists effective date of it) OR ((effective date of it <= universal time "Wed, 01 Dec 2021 17:02:28 +0000") AND ((not exists value of it) OR (value of it does not equal (("1") as string))))) of setting "DeleteMe" of client)

Action script:
setting "DeleteMe"="1" on "Wed, 01 Dec 2021 17:02:28 +0000" for client

4

Did you ever find a solution to this problem as we are getting the same issue?

5

Retrieved Property Names are allowed to be duplicated, but it can be very confusing when they are.
Only MO accounts can create these, so training your MO team to not do this is your best practice. I don’t think these are prevented in today’s BigFix.

You can find duplicate Retrieved Property Names later with session relevance of

 q: (name of it, id of it) of bes properties whose (not analysis flag of it and name of it is contained by set of (Unique values whose (multiplicity of it > 1) of names of bes properties whose (not analysis flag of it)))

-------- Update
I misunderstood, but on re-reading I think I get it now. Creating a new Setting on an endpoint automatically creates a Retrieved Property. If a second MO creates the same setting on a second endpoint, the automatically generated Retrieved Property is duplicated.

I just tried to reproduce on BigFix 10.0.5 but the second MO creates the setting and it uses the existing Retrieved Property without duplicating.

Please open a support case if you can reproduce the issue.