Bit of an out there question for you guys... So at work, I get my AD services from a third party, including things like O365, Laptop deployment, SCCM etc. Non profit so we dont pay them for this (which is part of the problem). My staff all use laptops, I have 154 users in 20 different countries. None of my staff sit on the domain network unless they connect to the VPN, which to be honest they never do. A few years back, I flagged that our machines were not getting windows updates, the techs kept saying oh they have to be on vpn and its a user issue. Finally it came to ahead when I had my counterparts and three levels of management in the room. My statement was "So I have Windows machines which havent had a single update in 3 years, if you are happy for these to be on your domain network, why should I stress about it?" Very quickly we got the WinOps techs working and they set up an SCCM node in the DMZ and updated client configs. Great, right? Fast forward to Friday, we heavily use Zoom as an org. I ask the third party SCCM guy to run me a report on what version Zoom client is on each of our machines so I could gauge what we had to do to bring everyone up to V5+. The report I got back wasnt hugely helpful, but it was a start. We had them push a client upgrade to all of the machines not at the right level and he agreed to give me an updated report EoD ET on Friday and a further updated report on Monday morning. I never got the updated report as requested, got them today after i had to remind him... I cant put it into words, but the reports themselves just drive me nuts. I expect a report that says here is all 150 machines we have, and here is the version of the zoom client that they have and here is the date that the client last reported. Instead the machines that havent reported back or have no client are missing from the report, so i have to go back to my inventory and pull data to perform comparisons. Newly deployed machines that I know have the client installed not appearing on the list at all. I have asked a few times to see if I can get access to the SCCM console so that I can attempt to create my own reports, but thats been pushed off multiple times. Also given that we dont pay for this, any request I have is right at the bottom of the pile! Its super frustrating. Anyways to my ask: Does anyone have any good open source / free assetmanagement software that will communicate over the internet. I want to stick server up in AWS and have clients on the laptops that will communicate back to the server so that I can pull my own reporting! Ive done something similar on spiceworks back in they day. However its more geared to a service desk which we already have. I have limited access to the AD itself, the worst I can do is reset a password, which is fine.
Your probably not going to get very far without an admin account, but if you can LANSweeper has asset lists. Your provider not using any agents on these systems then? How do they remotely support the users?
Sorry to clarify I do have local admin privileges on the laptops themselves. Support is a little complicated, we have our first line which escalates to me. If I can solve the issue great if not I run an assessment and either pass to their first line or directly through to the appropriate 2nd line team. We mainly use zoom remote support when required. I think they do the same. If the machine is connected to the vpn they are able to use rdesktop or connect to the remote registry etc. I'll take a look at lansweeper Ty for the tip.
im no system admin but was tasked to look after our office computers and mobiles ( about 40 users and devices in 2 locations). I found Itarian when it was free and does everything I need, remote access, software management, update management, help desk, etc etc. Install their endpoint manager and away you go.
Did you ever sort this one? You could ask if they would be willing to give you access to the reporting server which sits beside SCCM then you could write your own via that web interface and wouldn't need access to the console itself. Not sure on your experience with SCCM but using it as your single point for asset management is just pain waiting to happen. I've been using it for coming up to 4 years (around 3000 devices / users) and anytime I've been asked to produce a report its a major pain to get anything which is useful from it out of the box. If you yourself are an SQL wizard or the support team have a good SQL guy then there is a chance to custom write something but it's always just gave me poor results. Even when the client is talking back, sometime you get issues with the audit collecting the files and adding back into SCCM's DB so even if you manually use the resource manager to look at the hardware/software for the device, it can be blank - even tho its quiet happy pushing updates, software etc to that device
