Getting started with Custom Data policies

NOTE   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.

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

  • Each device is running a supported version of the Windows operating system
  • Version 7.16 or higher of the Absolute agent is installed on each device
  • Each device's Absolute agent is regularly checking in to the Absolute Monitoring Center

The Custom Data Collection (CDC) component A lightweight software component of the Absolute 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 Absolute 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 Assets > 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.