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Overview
Become familiar with key concepts that are necessary to understand how BigFix Inventory works and learn about features and functions that are introduced in every version of the application.
Scenarios
To understand the business goals that you can achieve with BigFix Inventory, familiarize yourself with the main user scenarios. Each scenario presents a real-life example of using the application and lists personas who are typically involved in achieving a business goal.
Organizational business units
Available from 9.2.2. To manage software and view reports per organizational business unit, divide the computers in your infrastructure into groups that represent these units. Then, create dedicated users, each with access to a particular computer group.

Overview
Become familiar with key concepts that are necessary to understand how BigFix Inventory works and learn about features and functions that are introduced in every version of the application.
- What's new in this release
  BigFix Inventory provides new features and enhancements that facilitate your work with the application. For more information, follow BigFix Forum - Inventory (Release Announcements).
- <discontinued> Updates and patches for BigFix Inventory up to version 10.0.13.1
  This page provides information about application updates released for BigFix Inventory.
- Keeping BigFix Inventory up-to-date
  BigFix Inventory updates and content packs are released periodically. Ensure that you upgrade the BigFix Inventory server with each release to take advantage of the new features and apply the application patches.
- Features and functions
  BigFix Inventory provides useful features for managing physical and virtualized environments. It discovers the software that is installed in your infrastructure, helps you to analyze the consumption data, and allows you to generate reports.
- Preview features
  BigFix Inventory provides a set of preview features that give you a chance to take a sneak peek at what we are currently developing and researching. Whether it is a small function or an extended report, you can check how it works and tell us about your ideas. The previews can change with each release, which means that you can still influence their final form.
- Limitations
  Review the list of BigFix Inventory limitations. For information on IBM limitations, refer to IBM limitations.
- Key concepts
  There are several concepts that will help you to understand how BigFix Inventory works and how to use it effectively.
- Scenarios
  To understand the business goals that you can achieve with BigFix Inventory, familiarize yourself with the main user scenarios. Each scenario presents a real-life example of using the application and lists personas who are typically involved in achieving a business goal.
  - Service providers
    Available from 9.2.2. To properly calculate subcapacity values in the service provider environment, divide the computers in your infrastructure into groups that represent your customers. Then, manage software and generate audit snapshots separately for each customer.
  - BigFix subcapacity regions
    Available from 9.2.2. BigFix subcapacity licensing rules define three regions. To properly calculate subcapacity values for products that are installed in multiple regions, generate the audit snapshot for each region. Then, for every product, sum up the subcapacity values from all regions. The value that you obtain is the overall subcapacity usage for the particular product.
  - Organizational business units
    Available from 9.2.2. To manage software and view reports per organizational business unit, divide the computers in your infrastructure into groups that represent these units. Then, create dedicated users, each with access to a particular computer group.

Organizational business units

9.2.2 Available from 9.2.2. To manage software and view reports per organizational business unit, divide the computers in your infrastructure into groups that represent these units. Then, create dedicated users, each with access to a particular computer group.

To manage software per organization business unit, perform the following steps:

Divide the computers in your infrastructure into groups that reflect the departments. Ensure that each group contains only computers from one department. Do not create computer groups that overlap as it might distort the obtained results.
If software in each department is managed by a different person, create dedicated BigFix Inventory users, each with access to computers in one department.
Import part numbers for each computer group and bundle software within each department.

For detailed instructions, see: Tutorial: Reporting subcapacity usage per computer group.

Example

A company that is located in the United States has three departments: Finance, HR, and IT. Because employees in each department use software that is typical for their position, the Software Asset Manager wants to manage the software for each department separately. To do this, he asked the IT Architect to create three computer groups in BigFix Inventory, each containing computers from only one business unit. The computer group hierarchy looks as follows.

All Computers
- Computer Group 1: Finance Department
- Computer Group 2: HR Department
- Computer Group 3: IT Department

The Software Asset Manager can now import part numbers that are dedicated for each computer group and manage the software within each department separately. He can also generate separate subcapacity reports to get an overview of PVU consumption for BigFix software within each department. However, to create the audit snapshot with the PVU consumption within the entire company he must generate the audit snapshot for the All Computers group.