Working with Linked Items

Learn more about Linked Items in BigFix 10 Insights.

About this task

A Linked Item indicates a mapping of the same content across multiple datasources to prevent its duplication in BigFix Insights. In the case of sites, it indicates that certain sites between different datasources are the same, and so there might be content between the sites that are the same. To know more about datasources, see Working with Datasources and Sites.

In the mappings within a Linked Item, there is always one datasource that is set as Primary. The primary linked item is a datasource whose represented objects (for example, an external site) are used as a single record to correlate to. The primary linked item determines when there is a difference between the content of mapped represented objects and what record is going to be chosen as the representation of the content. By default, the first datasource to import the represented object is set as its primary. You can change the primary datasource for a represented object under the Linked Items tab.

Example:

The following example describes how a primary datasource affects BigFix Insights.

Assume there are two datasources, Datasource West and Datasource East with the same external site, BES Support. On Datasource East, BES Support has a slightly older version of the site and has 20 fixlets. On Datasource West, BES Support has the newest version of the site and has 30 fixlets. Between the both of them, they have 20 fixlets that are the same.

If Datasource West’s BES Support is set as the primary site and the ETL runs, BigFix Insights shows a total of 30 fixlets represented instead of 50 because BigFix Insights maps the 20 shared fixlets between the linked sites and adds all 10 of Datasource West’s BES Support’s unique fixlets. Inversely, if Datasource East’s BES Support is initially set as the primary, BigFix Insights shows only 20 shared fixlets represented between the datasources.

If you switch the primary datasource from Datasource East to Datasource West after an ETL has run, all the unique BES Support fixlets from Datasource West are added upon the next ETL, therefore there are 30 fixlets represented. If you switch the primary datasource from Datasource West to Datasource East after an ETL has run, BigFix Insights still shows a total of 30 fixlets; however, only the 20 shared fixlets are updated and Datasource West’s 10 unique BES Support fixlets are not updated.

To navigate to Linked Items Overview, click the Linked Items tab in the BigFix Insights Details page. BigFix Insights automatically creates linked items for the sites that are found in the datasources.

The Linked Items Overview contains the following columns:

Table 1. Linked Items Overview
Column Name Description
Link Alias The alias of the linked item. Defaults to the site name.
Type The type of the site included in the datasource, which could be Internal or External
Datasources The number of datasources for this linked item.
Primary The primary datasource of the linked item.
Last Updated The timeline at which the property of the linked item was last updated.

Editing Link item

Do the following steps to edit the link alias and update the primary datasource for a linked item:

Procedure

  1. Within the Insights app, navigate to the Linked Items tab.
  2. Click the item in the Link Alias column.
  3. Edit the Link Alias name.
  4. Select the Primary Linked Datasource from the list.
    The Primary Linked Datasource is used to map content for all the non-primary datasources; hence choose the datasource that is a preferred source of data.
  5. Click Save.