Scope of Management

1. How do I add computers that I want to manage to Endpoint Central MSP?

Description

Endpoint Central MSP allows you to manage and secure computers located within your business network. The list of computers that you manage is known as the Scope of Management (SoM). For more information, see Defining the Scope of Management.

This document gives you the steps required to add computers to be managed using our product. This process is also called 'Defining the scope of management'.

Steps

To define the scope of management, follow the steps given below:

Navigate to Agent > Scope Of Management > Computers > Add Computers
The Add Computers page will have the list of discovered domains and Workgroups.
When no domains are discovered, use the Add Domain button under Domain tab and specify the credentials to add the domain/workgroup. Once the domain is added, all the computers belonging to the domain will be listed.
You can also add an active directory/workgroup by:
Before adding the computers from the discovered domains, you need to specify the credentials that have administrative privileges in all the computers that are being managed. To specify the credentials, follow the steps given below:
1. Click Edit against a specific domain or workgroup.
2. Select either of the following network types:
  - Active directory: Specify a domain user who has administrative privileges in all the computers that are managed. Enter the domain name as specified in the Active Directory and the name of the domain controller.
  - Workgroup: Specify a local username and password with administrative privileges in all the computers that are managed.
3. Click Update Domain Details.
Select the computers that you want to manage and click Next.
Alternatively, you can specify the names of computers and add them manually. All the computers gets added to the Selected Computers list.
Click on Install agents to install the agents in the selected computers immediately.
If you do not wish to install immediately, click on Add to SoM and the computers would just be added. You will have to install the agents later.

To know more about additional methods to install agents, click here.

2. How to add the details of Remote Offices?

Description

There are two types of remote offices that can be managed by our product. They are as follows:

Remote office with a distribution server
Remote office with WAN agents only

Steps

To add the details of the remote offices, follow the steps below:

Click the Admin tab.
Under SoM Settings, click on Scope of Management.
Click the Remote offices tab.
You will see a remote office called Local Office in the list of remote offices. This refers to the computer in the Local Area Network (LAN) where the central server is installed.
Click Add Remote Office and enter the following details:
1. Name of the remote office
  If there is a secondary IP address which the remote office will use to communicate with the product server, enter this IP address in the IP address field.
2. Communication details:
  - Type of communication: Through a distribution server or directly through WAN agents
  - Details of the distribution server, if required:
    - Name of the domain NetBios: This refers to the domain name of the computer where the distribution server will be installed. For example, if the computer where you are going to install the distribution server belongs to the zohocorp.com domain, specify the domain NetBios name as zohocorp.
    - Name of the computer in which the distribution server will be installed
    - IP address of the computer in which the distribution server will be installed
    - HTTP and HTTPS ports for communication: The default ports are already specified. If you want to use ports that are different from the default ports, change the existing port numbers.
  - Replication policy: The replication policy contains details of Data Transfer Rate and details of Replication interval which is the interval at which the distribution server synchronizes its repositories with those in the product server. An existing replication policy can be selected and modified, or a new policy can be created. Using replication policy, bandwidth consumption can be controlled. For more information, see How to control the bandwidth of distribution servers in a remote office?
3. Details required for the distribution server or the WAN agents to communicate with the product server:
  - Communication through a secure connection
  - Proxy information
4. Remote Control Settings: The Compression and Color Quality can be specified for better UI rendering and optimizing bandwidth consumption.
5. OS Deployment Settings can be enabled to deploy OS in remote office.
6. Remote Agent Installation: Domain credentials are given and automatic agent installation can be specified.
7. Managed Computers: Click Add Computers to select the computer you want to manage
Click Add.

You have added a remote office. Follow steps 4 and 5 to add more remote offices.

3. How to install agents in computers in remote offices?

Description

After you add the details of the remote offices that you are going to manage using Endpoint Central MSP, you are required to install agents in the computers in the remote offices. These agents will be referred to Wide Area Network (WAN) agents. There are two types of WAN agents. These include agents that receive information in the following ways:

Through a distribution server
Directly from the central server

Steps

To install agents in computers in remote offices, the following methods can be considered:

To install agents in Mac computers, follow the steps given here.
To install agents in Linux computers, follow the steps given here.

- Manual Installation:
  1. Click the Admin tab.
  2. Under SoM Settings, click on Scope of Management.
  3. Click Computers and click Download Agent
  4. Select the remote office in which you want to install the agent and select the required operating system.
  5. Click Download Agent.
  6. To install an agent in a computer manually, follow the steps given below:
    - Copy the downloaded file into a folder in a computer in the respective remote office computer.
    - Extract the downloaded file to a directory.
    - Edit the computernames.txtfile by adding all the names of the computers in which you want to install the agent. Enter the name of each computer in a separate line. Open command prompt and change the directory to either of the following:
      - <Extracted_Dir>/dssetup, if you are using distribution server
      - <Extracted_Dir>/directsetup for direct communication between the WAN agent and the product server
    - Execute the setup.bat file.
    - Follow the instructions given in the command window.

- CSV File Import:
  1. Go to Scope of Management under SoM Settings in the Admin tab.
  2. Navigate to Remote Offices tab.
  3. Now, you can either Add a new remote office or choose to Modify a remote office under the Actions tab.
  4. Fill in the details of the remote office. To know more about filling up the details, click here
  5. Under the section called Remote Agent Installation, check the Install Wan Agent Automatically box, if you wish to proceed with automatic installation
  6. Under the Managed Computers section, select Import CSV and choose the required csv file.
  7. There is also an option to Add computers by browsing through the list of available computers.

- From Add Computers:
  1. Click the Admin tab.
  2. Under SoM Settings, click on Scope of Management.
  3. Navigate to the Computers tab and click on Add Computers.
  4. Select the computers that you wish to add and click on Next.
  5. Click Install Agents.

Note: If you wish to move already managed computers from one office to another, then select the computers and choose the office from the Move to drop down menu.

You have installed agents in the computers in a remote office in your network. These computer names will automatically be added to the list of computers that you are managing.

4. How to install Endpoint Central MSP agents?

To know more about installing agents, kindly visit this link.

Note: Click here to know about the cloud agent installation methods.

5. How to uninstall agents from computers?

Description

You can uninstall the agents from computers directly. It is recommended that you uninstall the agents from respective computers before removing them from the Scope of Management list.

Steps

To uninstall an agent, follow the steps given below:

Click the Admin tab.
Under SoM Settings, click on Scope of Management.
Navigate to Computers and select the specific computers with agents.
Click Uninstall Agent.

Alternatively, you can also remove the agent using the agent cleanup tool from Windows machines. To know more, visit this link.

To remove the agents from the endpoints, follow the steps below

Go to Control Panel > Programs and features > Uninstall Program and select ManageEngine Endpoint Central MSP
You will get a pop up to enter the OTP for the agent uninstallation to be complete.
To view the OTP, go to the Endpoint Central MSP server web console > Agent > Scope of Management > Computers > View OTP

6. How to change domain credentials after setting up the scope of management?

Description

It is important that you set domain credentials when you are setting up the scope of management. You can change these credentials after you've set up the scope of management.

Steps

To change domain credentials after setting up the scope of management, follow the steps given below:

Click the Admin tab.
Under SoM Settings, click on Scope of Management.
Click on Computers tab.
Click Edit Credentials.
Modify the required details.
Click Update Domain Credentials.

You have changed the domain credentials.

7. How does the licensing of Endpoint Central MSP Work?

Consider the following cases:

The company policy enforces retiring of all devices older than 3 years of age and licenses had been purchased considering these devices that were getting retired too.
New devices are to be used for development for the first year, followed by usage for testing for the subsequent year and then to be issued to the finance department finally and the devices should not be managed when it is used as a test machine alone.
There is a need for new devices detected in the network, to be added to the Scope of Management and the agent be installed automatically.

Our product caters to every such need with its flexible and highly efficient license reuse policy. Only the total number of devices that are managed at a given time matters and not devices that were present before, hence, allowing users to remove old devices and add new ones for the same license. Also, Endpoint Central MSP provides an option to exclude a device from being managed, yet have it under the Scope of Management (for future use) without affecting the license count.

License count does not change if the devices are just added to the Scope of Management (SoM). The count will change only when agents are installed in the devices.

Description

To have devices under the SoM and yet not affect the license count, follow the steps given below.

Steps

This can be done in three ways:

Excluding devices through SoM policy:
- Devices that have not contacted the server for "n" number of days can be removed from the SoM automatically.
- New devices in the network can be automatically detected, added to the SoM ( Option to install agent automatically is also available).
Excluding devices in Remote Offices:
- Click the Admin tab.
- Under SoM Settings, click on Scope of Management.
- Navigate to the Remote Offices tab.
- Select Add Remote Office tab or you can modify an existing remote office by selecting Modify under the Actions tab.
- In the Remote Agent Installation tab, make sure the Install WAN Agent Automatically is unchecked.
- In the Managed Computers tab, either select import CSV to upload the CSV file containing device information or Add Computer(s) to select and save the computers to SoM.
Excluding via Add Computers option:
- Click the Admin tab.
- Under SoM Settings, click on Scope of Management.
- Navigate to the Computers tab.
- Now select the required computer that you want to remove and click Remove Computer
- Questions
Select the devices that you wish to exclude.
Click on the Exclude Computers button.

8. How to remove a computer from Scope of Management?

Description

You can remove a computer from the Scope of Management when required.

Steps

To remove a computer from the scope of management, follow the steps given below:

Click the Admin tab.
Under SoM Settings, click on Scope of Management.
Navigate to the Computers tab and select the computers you want to remove from the scope of management.

To remove computers qualifying a specific criteria, use the filter option and set the criteria needed, then select the required computers, Click Remove Computers.
To remove all computers in a remote office, delete the entire remote office from the Remote Office tab under Scope of Management

You have removed computers from the scope of management.

Please ensure that you revoke all the restrictions configured to the devices that need to be removed from SoM.

Questions