How does Discovery know which Hardware Model to attach to? Does it / Should it / Can it use Model Number (Manufacturer Part Number)?

[bjmcdonald]

In the Discovery data it seems it just has Manufacturer and Model Name - not part number; and to be honest, most of our hardware models do not have a Model Number.   If we do populate our Hardware Models with a Model Number - do you create one with a "Generic" model number for those that are Discovered and/or loaded without a Model Number (Part Number)?   Wow, I hope that made sense.

[Katie A]

The Model Number isn't that important unless you have a specific reason to filter by Model Number. As long as you have Name, Manufacturer, and Model Categories populated then you should be OK. I'm speaking from experience, because we don't always have Model Numbers for everything either, so far it has not made a difference in our process.

[bjmcdonald]

So, how would Discovery know to match a device to the right Hardware Model?   let's say I have 9 Thinkpad T460s with i3 processor and 1 Thinkpad T460 with i7 processor.   Would I want Discovery to lump them all into the same hardware model?   Thinkpad T460s?   Does it just match on Model name that it discovers?   What if I had one with a part number - and I only wanted Discovery to attach to that hardware model if the part number matched - could I do that?

Seems trivial I know - but I may have a requirement for 1 acct to add in part number - but for all others I don't have one - this may force me to have part numbers for all - which seems overkill.

[Katie A]

That depends on how the Hardware Model Transform Map is configured. We have it set up to coalesce on Model Name.

[Katie A]

Also yes if you want more granular filtering capabilities for the various processor options then Part Number should be imported into Model Number and you can use that as the coalesce field in the Transform Map settings.