Client Management Suite

I'm having a problem with manually added (non-Altiris managed) computer resources. I'm manually adding them to Resources\Configuration Items\Asset Types\IT\Computer. When I open the resource from this location, nothing but the computer name displays. No system number, Serial, Manufacturer, etc. However, this was manually entered about a week ago. It's almost like it was overwritten. Almost.

However, if I go to the Incidents tab, click assets from the left pane, then find asset, two appear. One is blank, and the other has the Serial number & asset number, etc. However the status is marked as Inactive. But when I run the report that shows all inactive computers, this is shown as active.

I checked the properties of the resource and it shows a creation date of 2:12am. modified by my service account. This tells me something ran and overwrote what was manually entered. I can't find anything that is set to do this. Can someone point me in the right direction? The Audit log shows a new action and then a modify actaion at 2:12am the same day and that's it. The data for this was enetered a couple weeks prior to this.

All I need is this. Items can be manually added as a resource that dont have the Altiris agent on it. If/when the altiris agent is installed on it, it merges and updates the information, leaving the existing inforation such as PO, cost, etc. in tact. This used to work, but something has gone bad. 

Any thoughts, suggestions, or a point in the right direction?

You aren't using any kind of Inventory Forwarding to this Notification Server are you?
I know that tripped me up more than once in the past.

No, I'm not using any kind of inventory forwarding. It's almost like there is a process running at 2:15am on Sunday that is doing it. But I can't find anything wrong. Very strange.

If you look under the Scheduled tasks section on your Notification Server you might look to see what last executed around that time on Sunday. 

That'll often give you a good idea of what might be causing it.

Thanks. Just checked there. Not seeing anything obvious. Maybe it was just a glitch?? I've updated a few again, I'll see if they are wiped again this Sunday. If so, I'll pursue it further, if not...maybe it's just a nasty troll or something. Thanks!

Hi  pstage,

I think that the article I wrote (on spResourceMerge) could help you understand what the issue is (with the computer merge process).

In all cases I'll try to answer you now: computer merge is not doing a full merge (where data and resource associations are merged because this would be too complex and possibly error prone) but rather a shallow merge (only the reosurce names are merged into a single guid).

I think a solution would be to do a resource association handover form one record to the other before doing the reosurce merge. In this manner you would associate all the asset data with the managed machine to ensure that the records are kept according to your needs.

Now I am not an Asset specialist so I wouldn't know if there are built-in features to do this in the product. So that's an open question.