Preparing CAM Administrator for Importing Purchasing Data

The first step in preparing to import purchasing data is to prepare CAM Administrator. You'll need to do the following:

1. Discover managed computers and users via Active Directory.
   This will populate the CAM Database with your organization's user names, machine names, and Active Directory group structure. This is important because if you want to be able to assign imported purchases to a user, that user must exist in the CAM Database. Further, if your spreadsheet includes a user name that doesn't match with a known user in the CAM Database, the import process will generate an error.

   If you have any of the following in your environment, you should discover them as well. Click the links for discovery procedures:

   • Virtual machines
   • Linux, Unix, or Mac OS machines

   You can also create other assets if you want to be able to reconcile to them.

2. Create user-defined machine groups.

   Besides being able to assign data to a user as described above, you may also want to assign that purchase to an organization or group. You can assign a purchase to a discovered Active Directory group (see above), but you can also create your own machine groups in CAM Administrator, and then assign purchases to those groups. For example, you may want to assign all finance-related software to machines in your finance department. Even if your Active Directory groups don't include a group for this department, you can create your own in CAM Administrator, and then assign items accordingly. Make sure that the group names in the spreadsheet you plan to import (in a later step) match the group names in CAM Administrator.

3. Create user-defined asset groups.

   This is similar to the previous step, but involves non-computer hardware such as switches, routers, firewalls, and so on. To assign these items to a user-defined group, make sure that the group exists in CAM Administrator's Other Assets panel, and that the asset group names in your spreadsheet match.

4. Create user-defined user groups.

   Similar to the above. You can use user-defined user groups to assign software that is licensed on a per-user basis.

Once you've set up CAM Administrator, proceed to the next step: Preparing Purchasing for Importing Purchasing Data.