Rescan Rules to Preserve Inventory Data

In general, a rescan (full or on only changed files) can add or disassociate files and overwrite properties for any existing system-generated inventory that has not been manually updated. However, the rescan does retain the existing status and priority for such inventory items, as well as any existing notes or Notices text (although the scan can append new notes or Notices text).

For inventory that you have manually edited or created, the rescan applies the following rules:

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All the user-created inventory, its file associations, and edits are considered not system-updatable and therefore are preserved.

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Any manual change to a system-generated inventory item (including updates to the associated component) results in the inventory item being classified as user-created and therefore not system-updatable (see the previous rule.) However, the rescan can add additional files to the inventory item if the component, version, and license match.

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If one or more files were manually disassociated from a system-generated inventory item before the rescan, rescan logic assumes that these files were erroneously associated with the component initially. Therefore, the rescan does not attempt to re-associate these files to the inventory item; nor does it associate the files with another inventory item that uses the same component name (with a different version or license). The following example scenario illustrates this rule.