Pro Tip Lansweeper: Aggregated Asset Insights
Pro Tips #65
While Lansweeper is more known to end-users, there are some that use it in an MSP context. It is why we developed some MSP features like the Multi-Site Management Portal, special Pay-As-You-Go pricing and more. Don’t click away just yet if you’re not an MSP, the reports and other parts of this pro tip will likely also be of use for personal use.
Some of those MSPs have been asking for a bit of a deep dive into options on how to manage the IT of customers better, and I’m happy to oblige.
The Lansweeper MSP Multi-Site View Portal currently allows you to use two unique features.
- Aggregated Reports
This allows you to run any default or Lansweeper created report across all sites under your management and automatically adds a column with the Site ID that data came from. The results are exported to CSV or XLSX format. - Aggregated Custom Views
This allows you to run a custom from from any of your manages sites across all of your sites and shows the results immediately.
As you can tell the main difference is between the option to get a quick view into some data with custom views and running a more extensive (default) report.
Managing Asset Limits
As an MSP and with the option of a flexible Pay-As-You-Go license, you’ll likely want to ensure that your customers stick to the contractually agreed upon asset limit. When they go over, you’ll start paying more and you should reach out to your customer to see what caused it and whether new contract negotiations are required. While the MSP portal provides an overview of the assets per site by date, its not available on demand.
Following below I’ll outline some reports I’ve added that people can use to have more visibility on the number of assets and changes. Since these reports are focused on billable devices, all the reports below will not contain monitors without extended monitor data, since these do not count towards your license.
Total Billable Asset Count
To get an overview of the current total number of assets for each site, this report shows the total number of billable assets.
Total Billable Asset Count Audit
Billable Asset Type Count
To get a more granular view on which types of devices make up the total number, this report shows the number of devices per type.
Billable Asset Type Count Audit
Billable Asset Type Per Installation Count
If you want to dive into the details, this report shows you all devices per type, but also per installation. In situations where a customer has multiple installations linked to a site, you’ll be able to see from which installation, which type of assets are coming.
The only downside here is that only Installation ID is available. To find the user friendly name if this installation you’ll have to visit the Configuration > Installations page and compare the Installation ID there (or do some Excel magic to map them).
Asset Changes
Staying up-to-date on what is changing in your customer’s environments is key to quickly assess potential security risks and ensure compliance with policies. This visibility also allows you to maintain accurate asset inventories and proactively manage onboarding or configuration tasks.
Aside from the built-in reports like New Assets Found in the Last 30 Days I have created a report that simplifies it a little bit using similar tactics as before.
New Assets Found in the Last 7 Days
This report shows the number of newly discovered in the last 7 days, by type and also by installation. Meaning you’ll see per installation of a site, which news device types have been discovered in the last 7 days.
New Assets Found in the Last 7 Days Audit
If you want to see more details you can always create a custom view for newly created assets by simply filtering your assets list by filtering the “Created at” field.
Software Found in the Last 7 Days
For software we can show you a count of which software has been detected in the last week. It is important to note this that is simply software installed, not necessarily completely new software. Some software will have the first-install date, but since that data isn’t always available, I stuck to just providing software added in the last 7 days.
Notifications
Last but not least this week a bit about notifications. I know this is something you’re probably eagerly waiting for. Having to run these items manually isn’t really ideal but change is coming on that front.
Notifications will be possible once you get your hands on FlowBuilder. At the end of last year, I did a pro tip on the early internal version of FlowBuilder that was available for some: Automations in Lansweeper – Lansweeper
Here is a quick example of what a basic flow would look like to check whether a site is above its allowed 4000 asset limit. The “Evaluate Expression” is option in the flow and is used to calculate the number of assets that are over 4000 so that it can be displayed in the Slack message.
You can always request access through the beta signup page or contact your Lansweeper account manager.
In case you’re looking for something for Lansweeper Classic. One of my first pro tips covers how you can create email notifications.
Hopefully these reports help a bit with managing the your sites better, or if you’re not an MSP, it might be useful to use to ensure you don’t go over your own license limits or as inspiration on how you can create some reports that can help you identify changes within your environment quicker. If you’d like us to cover MSP related topics more, definitely let us know and we can dive a bit deeper or look at more specific scenarios in the future!
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