LINKING TO CCS NETWORK INVENTORY

LINKING TO CCS NETWORK INVENTORY

CCS Network Inventory tool is a powerful hardware and software inventory and asset tracking program that scans your LAN to get detailed software and hardware inventory and configuration information. CCS HelpDesk 4.x includes an option to link to CCS Network Inventory from the Assigned Tickets. This allows quick and easy access to important data about the asset and can lead to faster problem resolution times.

CCS Network Inventory is a separate purchase. For CCS HelpDesk, the use of CCS Network Inventory is not required and is entirely optional. The data boxes on the Assigned Ticket data tab can be filled in manually as needed.

Requirements for the “Data Link”:

CCS Network Inventory can be purchased (from us) and installed. The inventory database must be on a network share that is accessible to staff members who will use the link while troubleshooting tickets. For more information on CCS Network Inventory, see http://www.crowcanyon.com/network_inventory/network_inventory.asp
A DSN (data source name) needs to be on clients that will use the link. Since the link is in the Assigned tickets only, and the Assigned are used by the Help Desk staff, usually only the Help Desk staff members need to set this DSN up. The setup of the DSN is described below.
CCS HelpDesk 4.x includes a Data Link utility in the General Utilities folder. This utility turns the link between the help desk and the inventory tool on and off. See “Data Link Utility” section below for details.

How to access CCS Network Inventory data from an Assigned Ticket

The Data tab of the Assigned Ticket includes a “Device Type” drop-list, other boxes, and four buttons. “Device Type’ has four choices, Computer, Network device, Printer, and Other. When “Computer” is chosen, and CCS HelpDesk is set to link to CCS Network Inventory (in the Data Link utility), then the four buttons become active.

If a Computer name is entered, the buttons can be pressed to retrieve data about that computer. The code will go out and try to make a connection to the Inventory database using the DSN that is setup on the local PC. If it cannot connect, or if the name is not found in the database, a dialog box is returned informing about this. If it connects successfully, the following information is retrieved:

Basic: fills in IP address, OS, Model, and puts other information in the details box.

Disk: puts disk information (drive letter, free space, total space, etc.) in the details box.

Apps: puts list of installed apps in the details box.

Hotfixes: puts list of hotfixes in the details box.

At anytime, the boxes can be filled in or modified manually. For instance, Asset No. is not retrieved from the database, and can only be filled in manually. The other boxes can be changed at any time. One caution is that changing “Computer” will clear the other boxes.

Data Link Utility

The Data Link utility determines whether the Data tab on the Assigned Ticket shows or not. This would usually be set to “Show” in the Help Desk program because you would probably want to use the fields on the Data tab even if not connected to an asset database.

“Data tab is linked to a Data Source” is set to “Yes” if the Help Desk program will connect with CCS Network Inventory or another asset database. The CCS Network Inventory connection is built-in and simply has to be chosen from the Data Source Type list to activate. (CCS Network Inventory is a separate purchase. It can be used alone or it can connect with the Help Desk program through the configuration on this Data Link utility).

Linkage to other asset databases requires custom programming from us, in which case we would add the database to the Data Source Type list.

Adding a DSN (Data Source Name) to the local PC

(Used only for the CCS HelpDesk link to CCS Network Inventory)

Each PC that will access the CCS Network Inventory database from the Assigned Ticket needs to have a DSN set up. Note that this is only required if the CCS Network Inventory link is active, and only on PCs that will be using the link from Assigned tickets to the database,

Follow these steps to add the DBISAM Connector (DSN) to a PC. The DBISAM Connector comes with CCS Network Inventory. First, install CCS Network Inventory. After installing, go to Start, All Programs, CCS Network Inventory, then ODBC, then “ODBC Driver for 5.x Database”. This will install the driver on the PC.