Getting started with Custom Data policies

Depending on the Absolute product licenses associated with your account, the Custom Data policy may not be available.

The Custom Data policy controls the collection of custom data points that collect information that is not currently captured by Absolute from your Windows devices. The collected information is made available in reports.

Example

You want to ensure your devices are not affected by newly issued Common Vulnerability and Exposures (CVEs). If the devices are affected, you need to identify and retrieve those devices for remediation. You can activate the Custom Data policy to collect this type of information using data points that are enabled for one or more policy groups.

To use the Custom Data policy to collect custom data from your devices and make it available in the Secure Endpoint Console, the following system requirements must be met:

  • Each device is running a supported version of the Windows operating system

    Due to restrictions imposed by Microsoft, data points that use PowerShell are not supported on devices running Windows 11 SE.

  • Each device's Secure Endpoint Agent is regularly checking in to the Absolute Monitoring Center

To configure the Custom Data policy, your user role must be granted Manage permissions for Custom Data Collection and Policies. All default Administrator roles are granted these permissions.

All users can add Custom Data policy columns to reports and view the Custom Data Points on the device's Details page.

The Custom Data Collection (CDC) component A lightweight software component of the Secure Endpoint Agent that detects configured data points on a Windows device. The CDC component is deployed on a device only when the device is associated with a policy group in which the Custom Data policy is activated. of the Secure Endpoint Agent is responsible for collecting data points configured in the Custom Data policy.

When you activate the Custom Data policy, the CDC component is activated on each device after its next successful connection to the Absolute Monitoring Center. The CDC component performs a scan for the device's configured data points. The information is uploaded the next time the device checks in to the Absolute Monitoring Center. Going forward, the component collects the data points once every 24 hours.

By default, the Global Policy Group includes the Custom Data policy, which is set to Inactive. Although you can activate the policy in the Global Policy Group, best practice is to create custom policy groups and activate the Custom Data policy for each policy group, as required.

After you activate the Custom Data policy, all users can view the collected information using Edit Columns to add the Custom Data > Display name column to most pages or reports that show devices in the results grid. For example, open the All Devices page in the Devices area or open the Makes and Models report. You can also filter pages and reports by Custom Data. Filters are not supported on data points with a double data type.

All users can also view custom data point information on a device's Details page.