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Numara Asset Management Platform

Numara® Asset Management Platform (NAMP) provides PC Lifecycle Management capabilities that includes inventory and discovery across the IP infrastructure, vulnerability management, compliance, configuration management, patch management, remote control and other functions targeted primarily at systems devices. Many of these capabilities are now tightly integrated with Numara® FootPrints® for overall service desk and service management support.

Note

Numara Asset Management Platform is an optional add-on to FootPrints.

Numara Asset Management Platform Integration Setup

In order to use the Numara AMP integration with FootPrints, Numara AMP must be installed separately into a location that can be accessed by the FootPrints server.

A system administrator can enable or disable the integration with Numara AMP at the system level. Numara AMP is disabled by default.

After Numara Asset Management Platform is enabled for the system, it must be configured for each individual workspace in which it is to be used. (The workspace administration page is only available if asset management is enabled for the system.)

There are three steps to configuring the integration with Numara Asset Management Platform:

Install Numara Asset Management Platform and configure options in it to be detailed later. This operation is not part of FootPrints. Refer to the documentation accompanying Numara Asset Management Platform for details on installation.
Enable Numara Asset Management Platform system-wide in FootPrints.
Enable Numara Asset Management Platform within specific workspaces that will utilize the integration.

Install and Configure Numara Asset Management Platform

Prior to enabling Numara AMP within FootPrints, an administrator must create an administrator account in Numara AMP, the details of which will be used later when configuring the FootPrints part of the integration. This step is needed to ensure the Numara AMP administrator has given permission for a FootPrints installation to integrate with this install of Numara AMP. To set up this administrator, do the following:

In Numara AMP, expand Global Settings in the left hand toolbar, right click on "Administrators", and choose "Create Administrator". Give the account the desired Login name and fill out other information if desired. The login name can take one of three forms:
User ID login, for example:

jsmith

Domain/login , for example:

widgetdomain/jsmith

Internet style login, for example:

jsmith@widgetdomain.com

Make sure the "Account Enabled" checkbox is checked. Switch to the "Authentication" tab. For the NAMP administrator accounts that were manually created (i.e., the first bullet – User ID login, jsmith), the account must be configured to use Internal Authentication. Put in the desired password and click OK.
Under Global Settings in the left hand toolbar, select "System Variables". On the Security tab, select the "FootPrints Integration" row and either hit F2, right click and choose "Properties", or choose Edit | Properties from the top menu. For the "FootPrints Integration" property, fill out the Login you created in the previous step and click OK.

These settings are what make it possible for FootPrints to integrate with Numara AMP.

Enable Numara AMP for the System in FootPrints

To use Numara Asset Management Platform, it must be configured by the System Administrator.

Select Administration | System from the FootPrints toolbar. The System Administration page is displayed.
Select Asset Management from the Features section of the System Administration page. If this is your first time configuring, and your FootPrints is installed on a Windows server, you will be asked to choose your asset management system. Choose "Numara Asset Management Platform" and click SAVE. The Asset Management administration page is displayed.
Click the Enable radio button.
Complete the NAMP Server Information fields. FootPrints will communicate with the Numara AMP master server by calling Numara AMP web services.

Server name—Enter the name of the Numara AMP master server. This could be the machine name, the fully qualified domain name, or the IP address.
Port number—Enter the port number for FootPrints to use when communicating with the Numara AMP master server. This is the port that was set up previously on the master server. The default value is 1610, but the recommended value is 1611.

Enter the login and password for the integration account configured in Numara AMP. These are the login and password created for the Numara AMP administrator configured earlier (specified under the Global Setting|System Variables|FootPrints Integration settings).
Click the "Click here to test connectivity" link to test the connection to the Numara AMP server. If the connection is successful, a popup is displayed stating that "NAMP server connection is verified." If the test is unsuccessful, a popup declares that the test failed and instructs you to verify your settings and that the server (i.e., the Numara AMP master server) is running. The settings you should verify are the server name, port number, login, and password.
Numara AMP Authentication for Agents—Optionally, enter system-wide credentials to be used to authenticate any FootPrints agents seeking to access Numara AMP. These credentials do not apply to an agent who has defined credentials on his or her Preferences page. If an agent with Numara AMP integration credentials defined on the Preferences page attempts to access Numara AMP, only those credentials are authenticated. If that login attempt were to fail, the system-wide credentials would not be used a secondary login. System-wide credentials might be used to allow more limited (for example, read-only) access to Numara AMP.
Enter the system administrator password and click SAVE.

Enable Numara AMP for a Workspace in FootPrints

To enable the Numara Asset Management Platform integration for a workspace:

Select Administration | Workspace from the FootPrints toolbar. The Workspace Administration page is displayed.
Select Asset Management from the Other Options section of the workspace administration page. The Asset Management page is displayed.
Click the Enabled radio button in the General Setup section.
The Fields Section allows you to specify which asset data should be imported into FootPrints fields on the issue page when an asset is associated with an issue. It also allows you to specify the name of the issue fields that displays the data. In addition, you can exclude data. Be sure to make a selection in one of the columns (Use New Field, Use Existing Field, or Skip This Field) before submitting the page.
Use New Field—If you choose a new field for any of the Numara AMP information, the new field for the selected data type is created and put in a tab called 'Asset Information'. Click the radio button and enter a name for the new field. You can later rename, reorder or reconfigure the fields on the Field Maintenance page.
Use Existing Field—Selecting Use Existing Field maps the specified Numara AMP data to those fields as they exist today. You can later rename, reorder or reconfigure the fields on the Field Maintenance page.
Skip This Field—Select a radio button to exclude the asset data from the issue page. The data is still discovered by the Numara AMP and exists in the database, but is not imported into the issue when an asset is selected.
In the Using Integrated Functionality in Issues section, select the field that will determine which tab on the Issue will display the Numara AMP search and Action button. The Action button provides a number of functions through your integrated Numara AMP. When an agent is on an issue page, Numara AMP functions are accessed from the tab or section where the specified field is located. For example, if you select the Device Name field, the panel would be accessed from the tab or section on which the Device Name field is located. By default, the fields listed here are located on the Asset Information tab, but you can move the field to a different tab via the Field Maintenance re-order fields functions.
The Searching Assets section sets options for automatically looking up asset data from within FootPrints as follows:
Contact Field—Select a contact field to use for looking up asset data associated with the contact. Numara AMP will capture the system login that is most frequently used to access a machine and store that value as the asset's user. The specified contact field should be a field that is likely to contain the contact's system login. For example, if your contact is coming from Active Directory, you would likely want to use the field that maps to the attribute "samaccountname".
Automatic Lookups—When an action is taken, an asset data lookup will be performed automatically in each instance for which you have checked a box. For example, if you check the box for "create Issue page for agents (when a contact is selected)", an asset lookup is performed when an agent selects a contact on a create issue page and the appropriate fields in the issue page are populated with asset data. Uncheck any boxes for which you don't want an automatic asset lookup to occur. Options are:
create Issue page for agents (when a contact is selected)
edit Issue page for agents (when a contact is selected). When multiple matches are found or when mail is used, the system will select the device that was most recently updated by Numara AMP.
create Request page for customers (after the request is submitted)
create Issue through incoming mail (agents)
create Request through incoming mail (customers)

NOTE

If more than one match is found when an agent is creating an issue, the agent is shown a list of assets from which to choose. If only one match is found, the asset is selected automatically. If no matches are found, the agent is informed that no match has been found.

Enter your password and click the SAVE button to complete this operation. The workspace is enabled and configured for asset management.

NOTE

In order for FootPrints agents to be able to access everything they need in Numara AMP, they will need a valid Numara AMP login. In addition, they have to have their security profile set up correctly on the Numara AMP side to allow them access to the desired functionality. Their AMP credentials must be given the permissions to do the functions listed in FootPrints and they must be associated with the particular device they are trying to do the action on. Within Numara AMP, on the Dynamic Objects tab, you must specify the objects in Numara AMP to which the agent has rights, including rights to Inventory. Note that you can't just specify that the agent has rights to access the Inventory module, but also to see the objects. The default Admin account in AMP automatically gets all rights even though it looks like they aren't associated with any objects, so this only applies to accounts other than the default Admin.