Last Used field name

manojthathera 2023-05-03 11:04:23 UTC #1

Hi Team,

We are integrating BigFix Inventory with ServiceNow to generate a list of applications which are not being used for long time.
To get this, team needs to know the backend name of “Last Used” column of BFI so that they can use this field to generate required reports.

Thanks in advance.

itsmpro92 2023-05-03 16:13:41 UTC #2

The usage data is in a REST API association, so you would access it via a call to software_instances.

<URL>?columns[]=usage_data.<column>&token=<token>

See the documentation here: https://help.hcltechsw.com/bigfix/10.0/inventory/Inventory/integration/r_api_associantion_usage_data.html

manojthathera 2023-05-09 07:35:17 UTC #3

Hi @itsmpro92,
Thanks alot. Let me check.

ageorgiev 2023-05-09 08:05:10 UTC #4

Just bear in mind that the usage data is not always accurate, specifically on Unix/Linux machines (maybe even on Windows, never dug into). It currently uses the BES Client to track application usage which takes snapshot of running processes at particular frequency (according to HCL, it’s every 2-3 seconds, in my experience/observations it’s closer to 7-10 seconds), so if you have an app that runs very small intervals (in my case, I was looking at /java executables’ usage which were used to very frequently but to run quick scripts with and weren’t being picked up at all), it may or may not detect it…

I did submit a few ideas based on discussions of limitations around the application tracking limitations with Inventory team and how I think they can be overcome. Welcome to review (they may point you where are those limitations) and vote for them if you think they have merit and/or they impact you too.