The TD DEX product uses the same core platform as TD ITAM. Because of this customers with both products have one fully unified experience of all features. In this documentation we'll focus on the DEX only items and make liberal use of links to the long standing ITAM documentation for the shared functions like Authentication and Client Deployment.
A key difference from ITAM is that DEX is web only from the server and administration side. As such the KeyConfigure desktop admin app will not be used. The client agent deployed to endpoints is the same agent as is used with ITAM, but as of DEX that agent UI has been greatly enriched and updated with modern feel and dynamic interaction features. Because most DEX customers will also be using our hosted service, this makes deploying and managing the product very light weight.
Accessing the Server
The primary admin will be provided with an initial full access account to the instance at the URL your organization chose. This admin can then provision other accounts or even link in authentication to an SSO provider like Azure. Very granular rights can be delegated in the platform, although the use case for DEX likely means limited access outside of the full admins. When combined with ITAM however this becomes a very robust topic of configuration. These topics are covered in great detail in our ITAM documents:
Deploying the Agent
The server has little to offer until there are agents talking to it. The agent is very light weight as mentioned and should not be noticed in normal circumstances, unless of course remediations are being presented to the user. Once the agent is installed, it will check in to the server and you can see the endpoint on the Computers page. Full details on client deployment can be found here.
Organizing Records
While not strictly needed with DEX only, it's useful to organize your computers into what we call Divisions. These are like folders or OUs, allowing you to easily see which systems are where in a logical structure. Of ITAM usage reports this is a critical idea, so again if you have both products that use case will drive this topic. But even without ITAM the DEX platform has some lite hardware asset management features, so keeping things organized will be useful. See the full documentation on Computers for more information, noting that Devices are an ITAM only feature. The main impact for Divisions with DEX is being able to apply custom settings Layers to individual buckets of computers.
DEX Configuration
The basic functionality with no further configuration will be to collect and monitor health of your systems using the data reported by the agent. The power of DEX however is in taking automated Remediations on endpoints when certain thresholds are crossed. You configure these under Settings -> DEX for the various metrics like Memory, Disk and CPU, and we provide an "easy button" for enabling default limits.
While each item can be manually configured with remediations, going to the specific Remediations page offers the easy Use Recommended button for activating each remediation on the common recommended metric category at the recommended threshold. This allows for very quick implementation of the entire platform that can be customized over time as you collect health data.
Note above the list of Categories there is a pull down menu to pick your Configuration Layer, as well as a + to add a new Layer. When you select a custom layer, in the top right you can Delete the layer, and see the number of overrides in that layer. Clicking the list button will open a sidebar with the overrides and an easy button for each one to change it back to the inherited default.
Layers are put together in this order, with each successive layer's customizations overriding anything in the layer above it:
- Default
- IF there are any customizations at one of the 3 OS layer levels, the relevant one is applied for the computer
- IF there is a custom layer chosen in the Division settings, it is applied
- IF there is a layer set at the bottom of the DEX pane on the computer, it is applied
To apply a Layer to a Division, go to the Computers page, right click a Division, and Edit it. You can pick the DEX Layer in that modal to apply to that division of computers.
When you look at the bottom of the DEX panel on a computer, you can see the full layer set that is applied to it.
Viewing Data
Computer Level
The Information pane on a Computer record will have some health indicators on the right side for various attributes. This is a handy in line reference when you are looking at records, especially when using our full ITAM platform for other asset management tasks.
The DEX panel of the computer detail however is the full dashboard of all health metrics and historic trend for that computer record.
The little arrows on the bars indicate Organizational average (top arrow) and Division average (bottom arrow) so you can compare this computer to wider aggregations easily.
On the DEX Events pane you can see the entire history of the computer events so you know date and time when a given threshold was exceeded.
Global Level
Under Settings -> DEX -> Effectiveness you can see an overall rating of how well the Remediations are working in your environment. You can reset the scores if you make significant configuration changes and want to start with a fresh baseline.
Dashboards
As with ITAM, there are a number of highly customizable Widgets you can apply to your Dashboard. Every person can have their own dashboard configured however they want. This is a highly flexible command center for viewing statistics and overall health metrics. See the ITAM documentation on Dashboards for more details.
Reports
The Reporting options, like Dashboards, are numerous. There are several DEX specific reports, in addition to the vast array of reports if you are also an ITAM customer. Once again, we will refer you to the ITAM documentation on Reports for more details.
