Question
How can I avoid duplicates when adding stock computers?
Answer
To prevent asset duplication when manually entering stock assets into your asset inventory, the manual input needs to match the prospective scanned input.
To provide some more context:
When a network asset is being scanned, Lansweeper needs to determine whether or not the asset is already present in the Lansweeper database. It does this by comparing the "unique key" or "internal ID" of the asset. It's what Lansweeper uses to uniquely identify the asset. This unique key differs from asset type to asset type, so the unique key for a monitor will greatly differ from the unique key for a Windows computer. More information on how Lansweeper uniquely identifies assets can be found here: https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/how-lansweeper-uniquely-identifies-assets/
For Windows computers, the unique key has the following format: workgroup or domain name\NetBIOS computer name\1. When manually adding a Windows asset, ensure that the manually added asset contains both the workgroup or domain name and the NetBIOS computer name.
Alternatively, you can avoid duplicates for Windows computers by enabling Windows Rename Detection under Configuration> Server Options. When enabled, Lansweeper will automatically update a Windows computer’s existing Lansweeper webpage when the machine is renamed and /or moved to a different domain. You can use this functionality to update your manually created asset pages when initially scanning your Windows assets. For Windows Rename Detection to function properly, ensure that the following data is correctly populated on your manually created asset pages.
- Serial Number
- Model
- MAC Address
More detailed information on Windows Rename Detection can be found in this KB article: https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/windows-rename-detection/
