TallySystems has been in the business of inventory management for over ten years, and, until now, it only sold inventory software that needed to be installed and managed locally. Tally's newest offering, WebCensus, allows shops to purchase an inventory service that requires no software installs on your server or clients. A simple Web click by your users uploads all the information necessary to run an inventory and sends it to Tally's servers to be stored. Fees for the service are per-workstation, based on subscription length (1, 3 or 12 months). After working with WebCensus, if you decide you need a more permanent solution, Tally will help you migrate to its TS.Census product. TS.Census is a continuously updated database that runs agents on your clients.
I took a look at the beta and final versions of WebCensus in our University of Wisconsin Real-World Labs®. I inventoried a number of different machines with different hardware, software and operating systems. I experienced only one glitch with the WebCensus -- with the reported processor speed -- and Tally worked quickly to correct it.
Ready, Set, Go
Setting up my account couldn't have been easier. Although WebCensus only works on Windows/Intel systems, that covers about 90 percent of our lab inventory, as well as most corporations' systems. By configuring inventory groups ahead of time, I was also able to categorize the machines. In the reporting interface of WebCensus, Web-based reports can be generated by a number of machine characteristics. It was easy to search for components that meet specific criteria, such as Windows 2000 minimum requirements.
I was very impressed with the thorough and quick inventory of all of the machines in our lab. At around $3 per machine per month, the price offers definite value for short-term projects. If you so desire, you can purchase a month's subscription to WebCensus, do your inventory, download the data it gathers, and close your account. Do the math to determine which is more worthwhile -- a short-term or longer-term solution to your inventory needs.
Once Tally activated my account, it took me no longer than two minutes to start the inventory process on our workstations. I simply logged into the WebCensus administrator Web site (http://www.webcensus.net) and set up my categories. For this evaluation, I simply separated my machines into clients and servers. Those categories could easily be labeled Accounting, Engineering, Sales and Support; or Madison Lab, Green Bay Lab, Syracuse Lab, and Dallas Lab.
Each workstation group is given a unique URL to go to, where the inventory process begins. With a simple click, WebCensus e-mailed those URLs to me. Next, I distributed the URL to the appropriate users by posting it on our intranet. You could also distribute the URLs to the management team and have them send it to their staffs. Each URL is unique to your account and workstation group.
Generating a proper inventory with this passive approach requires some diligence on your part. You must be sure your users click on the URL to get the inventory started. Users will have a couple of questions to answer there as well. This allows the Tally software to download and run.
Within the administration Web site, you'll see a list of users who have finished the inventory. Unfortunately, you have to manually scan through the list in order to see who has not inventoried. It would be an improvement if, when given a list of each user that you expect to respond, WebCensus would send automatic notification at predetermined intervals indicating the machines that haven't yet been inventoried.
From a User's Perspective
As administrator, I clicked on a URL that took me to a Tally Systems site that handles the software distribution -- very little interaction on my part was involved. After a simple 2.4M download to the ActiveX client, the WebCensus agent scanned the machines, uploaded the data and disappeared. Nothing is left behind except a couple of registry settings. The scan runs for about half a minute. When the inventory process was finished, I was notified in my browser window, so I exited the browser. All of the information was uploaded to Tally's servers.
The system is relatively secure. Tally ensures security by using SSL to upload data and by securing its servers. The administrative Web interface, where you view the inventory reports, is also secured by SSL.
Hmmm...I Didn't Know We Had That Device!
After a scan is complete, the data is immediately available in the administrative Web interface. I logged in and start sifting through the mountains of data collected in different categories -- hardware devices, software packages, license codes, BIOS versions and more. The interface has hardware and software categories that make it easy to find what you are looking for. You also can limit your search to machines that meet certain criteria, such as processor speed, RAM or service-pack level.
With capital expenditure reviews coming up, I was interested in checking the processor speed of all my machines to identify what needed to be replaced or upgraded. I put together a search that would locate that would locate any machines below 500Mhz, 2G disk or 64M memory. Luckily, very few devices met those criteria. Oddly, I found processor speeds that I did not expect to find -- some machines registered higher than they actually are. Tally was quick to work with me on fixes and is currently working out this problem with its speed detectors.
After the kinks were fixed, I checked our list of machines to see what registered. On each list, there is a button to download the data in an Excel format. I took advantage of that to look at the data on a spreadsheet and kept a hard copy for myself.
Real Specifics
For known software and operating systems (WebCensus inventories Windows OSes only), WebCensus will collect serial numbers. This information is very useful when you perform internal and external audits. It makes sure you have purchased all of the licenses you need. As an added benefit, I was able to bring our DHCP server up to date quickly with information gleaned from the inventory report -- I simply exported one of the workstation reports to the Excel format. The data includes the IP address, hostname and MAC address for each machine. All I had to do was massage the data into a DHCPd.conf format.
WebCensus allowed me to open up disk space on some machines. I could see that some applications were installed in multiple locations on some workstations. With a simple click, WebCensus showed me where it found the copy. By deleting the extra copy, I not only saved some disk space, but I saved some backup time as well.
Taking inventory doesn't have to be a pain, nor does it have to require hours of set up time in-house. Using Tally Systems' WebCensus, you could be deep in the inventory process within a week -- depending on the purchase-order shuffle required in your company.
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