Cloud - message "Custom fields from the local web console will no longer be available in the cloud"

[david_moon]

I noticed this message in app.lansweeper.com - it is unclear what Action we are to take. 

Is it saying that we will lose our on-premise Custom Fields in the Cloud? That they will never Sync Again? Only New Custom fields won't Sync? These fields contain critical data that we need both on-premise and in the cloud. 

Custom fields from the local web console will no longer be available in the cloud from the date July 29th. We strongly recommend that you create the relevant custom fields in the cloud to continue to query that data.

It is accompanied by a message (when editing in the cloud) that Custom Fields are different per platform. 

The custom fields created from LS Cloud will not appear in the local web console. Similarly, custom fields added from the local web console cannot be edited from LS Cloud.

How are we expected to maintain custom fields in two platforms for the same data point? 

[rom]

I use custom fields all over the place, especially with integrating feeds from different systems to populate them (on-prem).   Based on what I've seen/used so far, the cloud is good for showing IT Assets to non-technical folks (say like, an ITSM team or service managers).  The cloud platform is MongoDB from what I can tell, so that's why it's hard to just transfer/translate the on-prem stuff to the cloud version, let alone a whole different way of doing permissions... from what I've gathered.  

Just my 2 cents to add:  Nothing matches the on-prem as far as ease of use and powerful features.  The cloud is for ITAM/Lifecycle/ITSM integration...  the on-prem is for all the thousands of posts in this forum.  Please don't neglect the on-prem portion - its super powerful, super easy to get information from.  I have clients I show LS to, and they are blown away with the wealth of information, as well as the ease of getting to it.

If the on-prem were to be nerfed, I would not be able to use Lansweeper as a systems architect, nor as a consultant to get enterprise companies to purchase and use the product.

Personally, I won't be using the cloud just yet as, like the folks above, it doesn't meet the current needs. 

[david_moon]

So that the Lansweeper Team is aware, we have cancelled our rollout of Lansweeper Cloud because of this gap. We can deal with lack of feature parity but having separate data structures is a non-starter. 

[LauraVictori]

Hi David,

I'm sorry to hear that this issue prevents you from continuing to use LS Cloud. Thank you for sharing your feedback.

We will contact you to learn more about how this problem has affected your company.

Kind regards,

Laura

[CCC]

Hi, 
I am stumbling against this very same problem. Our on-prem LS custom fields are not synced to the Cloud LS.
I only discovered this when trying to get the LS Cloud data into PowerBI as per the new article promoting PowerBI with LS.

Maintaining both on-prem and Cloud is not doable for us and will create more issues than intended due to increased chance of human error, e.g. one forgetting to update both platforms.
Bulk updating is also a lot faster in our on-prem than the cloud variant.

The customs fields are just a column data in the database isn't it? So why is it not possible to sync this to the Cloud?

[LauraVictori]

Hi David,

Thank you for sharing your concern. I will try to clarify the doubts:

Lansweeper will stop syncing custom fields created from the local web console with the Cloud from July 29. Both the existing ones (created previously) and the new ones. These fields are available only to consult from the Summary of the asset pages, but it is impossible to manage them from the Cloud, report on them, or consult them collectively. This is not the experience we want to offer.

However, cloud custom fields offer additional benefits; in addition to expanding the limit of custom fields that can be created to 60 (and not 20 as in on-prem), it is possible to add them to the inventory views and work with this data (functionality available for users of the Custom Views Beta program). This is another tremendous advantage because custom fields are not available in the reporting system in LS Cloud; custom views will allow simply reporting on custom fields.

We understand that keeping custom fields on two platforms is not feasible. That is why we encourage our users to transfer the management of these attributes to the Cloud to enjoy the extra benefits. To help you with this task, we will launch a feature to edit in bulk both standard and custom fields from the Cloud next week.

However, we know that this manual action can be a great effort for some users. That is why in the future, we will offer a migration path to move the management of custom fields from all local installations to the Cloud with just a few clicks, migrating the values for all assets and continuing their management from this platform.

I hope this explanation is helpful. At Lansweeper, we always look for clients to help us shape the initiatives we work on. If you are interested, we could contact you to help define the process of migrating data to the Cloud.

[brianlederer]

Hi,

Is there an update on the migration path to move custom fields from local installations to the cloud? Alternatively is there a way to import information into  the cloud custom fields?

Thanks

[LauraVictori]

Hi @brianlederer ,

Although we have been elaborating on the requirements to develop this migration path and talking to some users about the best solution, while refining our H1 2023 roadmap, we have decided to focus on maturing Lansweeper Cloud. This decision means that we will not be able to deliver the migration of custom fields and other content created from the local web console to the Cloud during this period (first half of 2023).

Our wish is to resume this work in the second half of the year. However, given this is a future roadmap item, we must wait to commit to a delivery timeframe for this item at this time. As we refine our plans over the year and gain better visibility of when we can address this item, we will provide you with updates.

We understand that this decision may seem unfortunate for your company. We are sorry for the inconvenience. We hope the improvements planned for the Cloud for this first period add value to your organization.

[david_moon]

Thank you @LauraVictori for the information. I appreciate the enhancement of Custom Field Functionality in Cloud. 

I would like to point out our primary challenge with this approach...  We have years of work (Reports, Queries etc.) in our Local environment that leverage Local Custom Fields. We have tried to create some of our reports in Cloud, but some datapoints are missing or can't be produced. As well, many of the Local SQL queries are quite sophisticated and can't seem to be replicated in Cloud. E.g. How to add 1] Asset User Relation 'Owned By' and 2] Asset AD Manager to a Software Installed report for Audit. Combined with a 30 column limit we couldn't generate the report in Cloud. 

Until recently, we were functionally locked out of Cloud because Edit was missing. Now that that has arrived (yay!), this change on custom fields locks us out of the Cloud until we can reproduce in the Cloud our reporting and workflows that depend on Data stored in Custom Fields.

TLDR; We can't have staff maintaining two systems, but we must continue using two systems because Cloud and Local are not at parity. Having a different system of Custom fields for Cloud vs Local mean Cloud will continue to be sidelined until they have equal capabilities. 

[LauraVictori]

Thank you, @david_moon, for providing more context on your use case. The problem you share makes perfect sense. You are not alone in that situation. That is why at Lansweeper, we are working hard on providing tools that help our users federate and centralize the management of the assets of all the company installations linked to LS Cloud, suitably migrating its content so that you do not lose the effort invested in the local web console.

In due course, I will contact you again to provide feedback on the solution we are working on.
We'll keep in touch!