Usage guide: Hardware refresh insights

This page outlines various ways to use the pack, including use case examples.

Administrators can refer to the Configuration guide: Hardware refresh insights to set up and customize the installed content.

The Hardware refresh insight library pack enables EUC teams to:

Efficiently determine, based on these DEX scores, which devices should be kept or upgraded; ensuring that hardware is only replaced when necessary.
Maintain operational efficiency while promoting sustainability.

In addition, this library pack offers preconfigured live dashboards, remote actions and custom fields.

Library pack uses

Jump to Use cases on this page to see relevant scenario applications.

Use the library pack content for the following purposes.

Insights into device performance

The Hardware refresh insights live dashboard offers a comprehensive solution for optimizing device management.

The dashboard provides key insights into device hardware components that need attention and utilizes the Digital Employee Experience (DEX) endpoint score to measure device performance.

High-scoring devices that perform well can be kept rather than replaced.

Hardware upgrade opportunities

Devices with low memory or disk scores but with other components performing well, such as the CPU, network, or applications, can be considered for upgrades.

This targeted approach ensures that only the necessary components are upgraded, enhancing overall device efficiency.

Use cases

In addition to the relevant use cases covered below, you may uncover other troubleshooting scenarios specific to your environment.

Identifying devices for hardware refresh review

This library pack uses a single custom field to target the devices subject to hardware refresh review.

Device selection should be conducted externally, using various data specific to your organization and local policies.

For example, you can source warranty and age information from the CMDB or through the Get warranty information remote action. Selection criteria might also include device model and year of release, which are publicly available online.

This scenario shows how to use the download alm_hardware table (CSV file) from ServiceNow hardware asset management, to select the devices subject to hardware refresh review.

In this case, the hardware refresh policy involves selecting devices for review that are over five years old and have an expired warranty, indicating significant usage.

In the image below, notice that the device age information and warranty in the alm_hardware table are under the Created and Warranty expiration fields, respectively:

The Created field date of the hardware asset record is considered the device purchase date.
The Warranty expiration field determines if the warranty expired.

Use the following formula to tag devices under review in the alm_hardware table based on the selection criteria from above.

=IF(AND($I2<TODAY(),$H2<TODAY()-365*5,OR($D2="In stock",$D2="In use")),
"Under review","")

Use VLOOKUP to populate CSV file with the custom field, using the same under review tag:

=VLOOKUP(A2, '[alm_hardware.xlsx]Device list'!$A:$J, 10, FALSE)

In Nexthink, from the Custom fields page:

Upload the populated CSV file to update values of the custom field in the data model.

This way, you can now find the number of Devices to review out of the total number of active devices under the Device selection tab in the Hardware refresh insights dashboard. See the image below.

This information is further broken down by device model, displaying the Average endpoint score for each model.

The Devices not under review section allows you to check additional devices that did not meet the initial selection criteria but may still be considered for review.

In this case, Devices not currently under review but with endpoint scores of 30 or below can be identified and potentially included in the review list.

Identifying devices to keep

Identifying Devices to keep requires determining which devices reviewed for hardware refresh report good endpoint DEX scores.

Following the same selection criteria of the use case from above, Devices to review may be out of warranty and over five years old, but if they continue to perform well, you should consider these devices for an additional year of usage.

From the Device to keep tab in the Hardware refresh insights dashboard:

Examine the Devices to keep. Notice that the Average endpoint score is above 70.
Drill down to, in this case, 26 devices to investigate all endpoint DEX component results. This investigation is necessary to recommend keeping the devices for a longer period.

If specific endpoint DEX components report low scores, this may be due to certain devices.

On the contrary, if all endpoint DEX components report good scores, you can justify retaining the devices longer.

Identifying devices to upgrade

Identifying Devices to upgrade requires analyzing their potential for enhancement by adding more memory or replacing a disk.

Devices to upgrade are those that report an average or frustrating overall endpoint DEX score but meet the following conditions:

All endpoint DEX components, except those measuring memory or disk performance, report satisfactory scores and are successfully rated—not null.
At least one of the memory or disk scores is average or frustrating, and successfully rated—not null.

These conditions indicate that upgrading the device memory or disk most likely improves the overall endpoint DEX score, as these components currently report low values.

Examine the Devices to upgrade tab in the Hardware refresh insights dashboard to identify the abovementioned conditions.

Identifying devices to replace

Identifying Devices for replacement requires a comprehensive analysis of the specific components of the endpoint DEX to determine if a significant number of these scores report low values.

Devices for replacement are those that report an average or frustrating overall endpoint DEX score. However, they do not qualify for an upgrade because they underperform in multiple areas and should be replaced.

From the the Device to replace tab in the Hardware refresh insights dashboard:

Examine the Devices to replace.
Drill down to, in this case, 426 devices to investigate all endpoint DEX component results.

By identifying and replacing devices with consistently low endpoint DEX scores, organizations can maintain high-performance standards and ensure that their hardware infrastructure remains efficient and reliable.