Criteria for Determining the Uniqueness of Workstations in Servicedesk Plus Scanning

ServiceDesk Plus uses the following criteria to determine the uniqueness of workstations during the scanning process:

• Service Tag

• Workstation Name

Thanks to these criteria, the application distinguishes workstations and assumes that each one is unique. If a workstation has the same criteria as another workstation, the information of the existing workstation is overwritten with the information of the newly scanned device.

Notes:

• If a service tag is added to the "Invalid Service Tags" list, only the workstation name is considered to determine uniqueness.

• For virtual machines, only the machine name is considered as a uniqueness criterion.

Service Tag Overwrite Status

Sample Scenario:

• Let's assume there are two workstations named Machine A and Machine B. Both have the service tag 12345 and their full computer names are MachineA.domain.com and MachineB.domain.com respectively.

• First, only when Machine A is scanned, its information is recorded.

• When Machine B is later scanned, Machine A 's information is overwritten with Machine B 's information because it has the same service tag.

Solution: Configure Invalid Service Tags

If the service tag is incorrectly configured by the OEM, multiple machines may have the same service tag. In this case, the information from one device will be overwritten with another with each new scan. To prevent this from happening, incorrect service tags can be added to the Invalid Service Tags List .

This setting is located under Admin -> Scan Settings -> General tab .

Overwrite Status by Workstation Name

Generally, when ServiceDesk Plus scans a workstation it first checks the Service Tag . If the service tag is empty, the Computer Name is used for uniqueness.

Sample Scenario:

• A workstation named MachineA.domain.com has already been scanned and registered.

• When another machine with the same name is scanned, the new machine's information is overwritten with the old machine's information.

Scenarios Where Workstation Name is Renamed with "_old"

In some cases, ServiceDesk Plus changes the name of an existing machine by appending "_old" . These cases are described below.

Scenario 1: Relocation of Workstations within the Network

• Let's consider two workstations named MACHINE-A (ST-1) and MACHINE-B (ST-2).

• Let's assume that these workstations are swapped. The result is:

  • MACHINE-A now has the ST-2 service tag,

  • MACHINE-B has the ST-1 service tag.

• When MACHINE-A is scanned, the system overwrites MACHINE-B and renames the old MACHINE-A to MACHINE-A_old .

• If MACHINE-B is later scanned again, MACHINE-A_old is overwritten and appended as MACHINE-B .

Scenario 2: Changing Service Tag

If a workstation was previously discovered with a valid Service Tag and is later scanned with a different service tag, the old machine is renamed with the "_old" suffix and re-added with the new service tag.

Example Cases:

Case 1:

• A workstation may have been discovered with a valid service tag.

• However, over time, the service tag may change if the motherboard is replaced.

• In this case, the old workstation is named "_old" and is added again with the new service tag.

Case 2:

• Let MACHINE-A (ST-1) be scanned and registered.

• If a different MACHINE-A with service tag ST-2 is added later in the same network,

• When the scan is performed, the old MACHINE-A is renamed to MACHINE-A_old and the new MACHINE-A with service tag ST-2 is added.

Proper management of these processes will help prevent data loss and incorrect device pairings when scanning the network.