Program Details Window

Concept

The program details window displays the full configuration for any particular program variant selected from the programs window. For definitions of the terms "Program Version", "Program Variant", "Program Family" see the Programs Window Documentation .

Starting from the main Programs Window where each line represents a single program variant, double-click on a line to expose a Program Details Window. The family identifier is shown at the top of the details window with a variant mask underneath which determines how specific variants in the family are split out (see the left side diagram below).

KeyServer chooses the Name to use for a variant based on the first discovery of a Sample File which fits the variant definition. Generally, this sample file's internal name will be appropriate for the variant but in some cases you may want to customize it, perhaps to make it conform to a specific program naming convention.

Whenever a variant is displayed in KeyConfigure, the Name always has the "variant version" field appended. The variant version is either empty, or it shows one or more of the most significant digits of a sample file's complete version information according to how far the variant mask has been reset from its full-left position. Hence, the value of the Name field should normally be kept the same for all members of a family - the Name together with "variant version" will distinguish among family members. Note: the selected variant, its name with version appended, is used in the detail window's title:

Left Hand Side - Program Family

The left hand side of the details window shows a list of all variants comprising the entire Program Family. This lets you see how the family has been split according to the digits exposed in the variant mask and/or through the creation of "keyed variants". Detailed information and configuration options for the selected variant are displayed on the right. The Actions and Information panes are always visible but other panes are toggled in or out of view and re-ordered using the small icons at the top right of the window. .

The Program Details window will initially display information about the specific variant that you double-clicked in the Programs Window. The left hand side is not terribly interesting in the case of a family with only a single variant, so you may want collapse the left side of the window in this case (slide the column separator to the left). However, when there are multiple variants in a family, it is useful to see the other family members along side the selected one, and to then easily inspect how they are being managed. Unless you make a change, the variant mask for a family will be in its default position, full-left. All version information will be masked out of view so there will be exactly one 'non-keyed' variant. But note: there may still be 'keyed' variants in the family and these will have all version digits exposed (plus the § symbol) regardless of how the variant mask is set. Keyed variants, if any, will be displayed below a line separating them from the non-keyed variant(s).

Whenever the program family has more than one member, just one will be currently selected and highlighted in dark gray from the list on the left. You can view details of any other variant in the family simply by selecting it in the list - you don't have to go back to the Programs Window. In fact, going back to the Programs Window and double clicking on a sibling will just bring up this same details view but with a different variant selected. If you have made configuration changes, you will be prompted to save them before you switch to a different variant. Remember, it is only the variant selected in gray that will be affected by options configured in the right hand side of the window.

The version mask appears to the right of the words “Selected Variant” and looks something like: "x.x.x.x+size". By clicking on one or more of these x's, starting from the left, you control how many digits of version information are unmasked in order to separate a program family into distinct variants. Regardless of how the program mask is set, keyed program versions (if any) must be managed as distinct "singleton" variants within the program family. Therefore, if there are any keyed program versions, they will appear below a horizontal separating line and they will be unaffected by mask changes.

By default, the mask is all the way to the left (notice the gray vertical line to the left of the first x), meaning that all non-keyed versions of the entire program family are treated in the same way. Dragging the mask to the right will make the mask more specific, dividing the program family into multiple variants distinguished by one or more digits of version information. If you slide the mask to a new position and let go, the list of variants will show how the family will be split - but the consequences of such mask changes won't actually take effect until you do a Save (or close the window). Whenever a change to the variant mask actually results in the creation of new variants (which are split out from the family) these new items will be added to the Programs Window detail window is saved. Note: the Programs Window should really be called the "program variants window" because the line items being displayed are neither wholly aggregated program families nor wholly differentiated program versions. They are "variants" which can be thought of as aggregating minor versions together or as splitting apart the program family to some significant level of precision.

The aggregated individual program versions (discovered by KeyServer audits etc.) are hidden within each variant's disclosure triangle. Clicking on the triangle to the left of the variant name will expand the variant, revealing all known program versions within the program variant. Use the context menu "Expand All" if you want to see full detail showing all discovered versions and how the mask setting aggregates them into variants. Use "Collapse All" to see just the variant names as they will appear in the Programs window (and in the Program Family window).

If you expand the current variant (the dark gray line), you will notice a small arrow icon next to one of the versions. This indicates the particular version (based on a Sample File) which currently has additional details displayed in the Information pane. Click to the left of a different version and the small arrow will move - the Information pane updates to show details for this other version's Sample File.

When experimenting with moving the variant mask to the right, notice how newly created variants inherit the Actions from their parent. Its not always so obvious what happens when variants collapse together with a mask moving to the left. Fortunately these subtleties are usually academic since for most purposes the variant mask remains either full left or is moved only to one decimal point, thus differentiating the family into "major" versions (e.g. variants).

Right Hand Side - Actions Pane

This is the most important pane in the program details window since it lets you configure the KeyServer's basic Action concerning the selected program variant. Although the display on the left may list several variants with icons indicating a management action for each one, configuration changes on the right side have no effect beyond the selected variant - the one highlighted in gray. The drop down menu at the top of the Actions pane lets you select an action for the selected variant from Controlled, Logged, Audited, or Ignored:

• When the action is set to Ignored, KeyServer will not track any launch or quit activity and ignored programs will not be included in any reports. WIth tens of thousands of programs discovered at a typical site, reporting on most of them is completely uninteresting - "Ignored" should be the typical default action.
  
  
• Setting a program's action to Audited simply means that KeyServer will include this program in its standard audit reports which detail deployment information (e.g. computers where the program is installed). The underlying audit database still collects deployment information for every program file found, but including all programs in deployment reports is typically uninteresting so the Audit action gives you a way to focus on the important programs. When you change a program's action back and forth between Ignored and Audited, there is no change to data collection - this change only affects what is included in audit reports.
  
  
• Setting a program's action to Logged means program launches and quits are tracked and recorded in KeyServer's Usage Log. Logged programs will show up in usage reports and also they will be included in all Audit reports so you can see where they are deployed. For any time period when a program's action is set to Ignored or Audited, usage data will not be tracked, so there will be no usage information available for upload, storage, or reporting. Changing to Logged will initiate the collection of usage data.
  
  
• Setting a program's action to Controlled means that KeyServer will apply a specific license management policy to the program whenever a launch is attempted. You must define the license policy in a License Details window - the selected program variant will be listed in the License Details WIndow under its 'Programs pane' (possibly along with other programs controlled by this same license). Of course a Controlled program may in fact be controlled by more than one license (e.g. each defining a distinct policy depending on location, user group, etc.), but there must be at least one. Just like Logged programs, Controlled programs will have every launch and quit tracked and uploaded to the Usage database. In addition, events tracking the specific license that enabled the launch of a controlled program will be recorded - remember, there may be several possible licenses controlling this program (and a particular license may control several different programs). Note: the action managing a keyed program is always set to Controlled and cannot be changed - without a KeyServer and the corresponding license (perhaps checked-out or cached), the keyed program simply can't run.

When the action is set to Controlled, the Current User List, a checkbox, and a License Name list are enabled below the Actions menu. The "Allow launch when KeyServer not available" is checked on by default so that disconnecting from the network or any failure to reach the KeyServer will not interfere with the ability to launch the program. In some cases, it may be appropriate to uncheck this box so that license policies are enforced more strictly but the implications of must be understood in the context of exactly what licenses policies have been configured to manage this program. The Current User list shows program usage only for computers currently connected to the KeyServer - it will not include usage from computers that are 'offline' or that are allowed to use the program when KeyServer is unavailable. Note: 'offline usage' is reported back to KeyServer when an offline computer reconnects and this information is included in post facto usage reports.

For a Controlled program, the Action pane shows a list naming one or more Licenses controlling the program. You can double click each item to show details and to check configuration options. Often this list will contain a single license. When there are multiple distinct licenses listed to control this one program, then the one listed with the longest blue bar at the left will be searched first. That is, when a user attempts to launch the program, KeyServer will first attempt to grant permission to run from the longest blue bar. If this fails (e.g. perhaps all of these licenses are in use), it will move on and attempt to grant permission to run from the second longest, etc. When there are multiple licenses in the list, they can be dragged relative to one another so that you can change the search order. Licenses can also be dragged directly from the licenses window into this list and positioned in the desired order - this will expand the scope of the dragged in license to include control over this program (so you will see a corresponding change in its License Details window/programs pane). For each controlled program, you will rarely want more than a few licenses controlling it - just one license controlling each program (or suite of programs) is most typical.

Information Pane

This pane shows general information about the program variant. The top few lines show information relevant to the entire variant (i.e. all versions within the variant have this information in common). Click the Variant Installs button to show all computers that have the program variant installed (e.g. some version aggregated within the variant is installed).

Further details displayed at the bottom of the information pane are gleaned from a specific sample program whose version is included within the variant. In the Actions pane, when you use the expansion triangle to expand the gray selected item from the list of variants, notice the small black arrow pointing to a specific version within the variant - this is the specific “sample file” whose sample information is being displayed. Click to move the black arrow to a different specific version and you will see some details change in the bottom of the information pane - e.g. Version, Creation Date, Discovered date, or Sample Install information. You can also change the sample file using the pop-up menu in the Information pane. The Version Installs button will show the computers that have the precise program version (pointed out by the black arrow) installed.

For a Windows application, our “Official Version” is text taken from an application's properties. It is the “File Version” text from the “Other ...” section under the Version tab. Our “Version” is an abbreviated form (stored as a long integer) that comes from the top of the Version tab in properties, where it is labeled “File version”.

For a Macintosh bundled application (.app), the version information comes from the embedded info.plist. Our “Official Version” is the text from the CFBundleShortVersionString (or CFBundleVersion if the short version is undefined) - the Finder displays this string as the “Version’ in the application's Get Info window . Our "Version" is just an abbreviated form of the Official Version based on our attempt to parse out and remove verbose or extraneous data.

Custom Message Pane

This pane allows you to configure a custom message to be displayed on client computers when a controlled program is launched (or denied, or queued). You can choose to display the message on every launch or only once. Note: if the program is logged or ignored rather than controlled, Custom messages are not supported. If the license that allows the controlled program to launch also has a custom message defined, then only the message defined for the license will be displayed.

The following macros may be placed in the custom message, and KeyAccess will replace them with the appropriate values:

^a

name of the currently running program

^d

date on active KeyServer

^D

date on local (KeyAccess) computer

^f

"KeyAccess" (name of client software at start up time)

^n

network name of active KeyServer

^t

time on active KeyServer, shown in local (KeyAccess) time zone

^T

time on local (KeyAccess) computer

^u

name of user

^w

name of program user is waiting for, if any

^^

single caret ("^")

Notes Pane

This pane contains a single item, which is a free-form text field. You can use it for any information you want. It can be seen here in the KeyConfigure interface, and can also be used in reports. Some sites have found it useful to specify a rigid format for data entered here so that the effect of multiple custom fields can be achieved and then parsed by custom built reports.

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