Most Inventory Systems come with a long and troublesome setup procedure, a heavy price tag and require you to have
internal infrastructure to store and maintain the inventory data.
FastTrack Scripting Host 7 comes with a cloud-based inventory system that can be set up in minutes and requires no
internal infrastructure. By issuing just one simple command in, for example, your logon script or through group policies,
your network's inventory information is automatically uploaded in encrypted format from the executing computers to your
FastTrack Inventory web pages, which you can then access from your laptop, iPad or mobile device.
The inventory system uses the FastTrack Scripting Host engine to collect information and you can add your own script-
based custom information. In other words - it is the only inventory system that gives you the flexibility of true script-
based inventory.
Once licensed, you can access your inventory by selecting "My Inventory" under "My Account" in the top-menu. There is no
extra charge for using the FastTrack Inventory web as long as your computers are licensed and you are within a
maintenance period.
To fully understanding FastTrack Inventory, it is highly recommended that you try the web part here in the Demo
Center before you read on.
Uploading inventory information
To upload inventory information, all you have to do is to issue the UploadInventory command from any FastTrack Scripting
Host script, which means that it is entirely up to you how and when the inventory happens. If you are using FastTrack Logon
for logon scripts, this would be the most obvious way. Just include the UploadInventory command in for example your
postlogon.fsh file and that's it.
Another option would be to deploy through group policies. For this an exe file is required, which can be created with these
simple steps:
- Create a new script.
- Write "UploadInventory" in the script window.
- Hit the "Create Exe File" button and save an exe file to for example your netlogon share.
You can then deploy the exe file through group policies, as shown here. Other options of deployment could be adding a
scheduled task or including the exe file to your proprietary logon script as shown here .
The UploadInventory command will upload only about 1 kilobyte of data to fasttrackscript.com in encrypted format. You do
not have to be concerned that the command is called too often from your scripts in relation to network traffic, as the command
will only upload information once a day or when inventory information is changed. It is not necessary to identify yourself for
uploading; your data are automatically identified from your license key.
Uploading inventory with the Inventory-only version
The term "FastTrack Inventory" refers to the UploadInventory command in FastTrack Scripting Host and the inventory web
pages. You can purchase a smaller version of FastTrack Scripting Host called "FastTrack Inventory" that can do inventory only
and has no other scripting capability.
How this version works is that upon purchase, you get one single one megabyte exe file build especially for you. This exe file
includes identification of your web account and uploading capability. The exe file has no parameters and no user interface; it
will normally take 2-3 seconds to execute and then it will exit. You must execute the exe file in your preferred way on your
network computers. You can do this for example through your existing logon script or group policies. Examples of these
deployment options are shown here.
You do not get a script editor or any scripting functionality with this version and thus the sections "Using the UploadInventory
command" and "Adding custom information" below do not apply to this version.
Using the UploadInventory command
In the example below, the UploadInventory command is simply added to the existing FastTrack Scripting Host logon script. It is
safe to always issue the command, as the UploadInventory command will detect if there are changes in what would be uploaded.
If there are no changes, the actual upload will only happen once a day for each computer.
The information sent over the internet is encrypted and is only about 1kb in size. However, if you have concerns about how
often information is uploaded, the command can be controlled through normal script logic.
Viewing the inventory
To view the uploaded inventory data, simply log on to your account or go directly to the URL
https://www.fasttrackscript.com/Inventory .
You must logon with the credentials that you received when you purchased your licenses. If you are not sure what your
password is, enter the email address used for purchasing the licenses and click on the "Forgot My Password" button.
Once logged on, you can see and filter your own data, as you could at the Demo Center demo (which uses data from the
fictitious company Acme Corporation). We will use the demo center data here as an example; when you log on to your inventory,
you will, of course, see your own uploaded data.
In the example below, the demo center data was filtered to show computers that are eligible for a hardware change.
The criteria used are all computers that have a 1.8 GHz or slower CPU and 50 GB or less of free disk space. Seven computers fit
these criteria:
To view more-detailed information about a specific computer, click the magnifying glass to the right. Clicking the details button
on ACMEPC0005 (see above) will bring up the detail view (only the first four windows are shown here):
Adding custom information
If you take another look at the script editor screenshot at the top, you can see that it is possible to feed the UploadInventory a "List Of Custom Values". It is likely that you have some information from for example your Active Directory that you would like to pair with the web inventory. This is what the "List Of Custom Values" is for. You can use the built-in functions or you can create your own script logic to add custom information to the inventory.
If the "Description" properties are, indeed, very descriptive for both users and computers in your organization, you can just upload these as custom values. In the case above, we are uploading the description of the computer and user and the department of the user. Once this is executed on the client computers, the information is shown at the bottom of the detail views as custom information:
The caption of custom information is, by default, "Custom info" followed by a sequential number. To change the captions to reflect the custom information sent by your uploading script, the "Edit my custom property name mappings" link can be clicked to change the captions. Once this is done and saved, the view could now look like this:
The custom mappings will also take effect in the filter list. Our second custom field is now mapped to a caption named "Department". If we go back to the inventory list and click the filtered search, we will find that the mapped "Department" is now a filter value:
