Deduplication and automatic deletion of inactive devices
Overview
If a device appears in the Devices view of PDQ Connect, it counts toward your license total.
You can manually delete one or more devices from PDQ Connect from the Devices page (see "Deleting Devices"), and these devices will no longer count toward your license total.
PDQ offers two features which are intended to work in a complimentary manner to help you manage your device count and license usage:
- Automatic deduplication
- Automatic deletion of inactive devices
Automatic deduplication
When you install the PDQ agent onto a device, it generates a hash value derived from that device's specific hardware and firmware identifiers, and the device appears on the platform under a unique device identifier.
If a new device registers with PDQ and the platform recognizes a hardware hash that is identical to one that is already enrolled on the platform, the new device will automatically take over the existing device entry and device ID.
This is intended to cover a range of common scenarios, including:
- Routine automatic updates to the PDQ agent
- Uninstall/reinstall the PDQ agent (with or without the program folder being deleted)
- Reimaging a device and reinstalling the PDQ agent
Known limitation with whitebox/OEM/unbranded devices
Deduplication methods function best with branded devices that contain specific values for common system firmware identifiers such as Manufacturer, Model, and Serial number.
You can check these values for a specific Windows device by running these commands:
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_ComputerSystem | Select-Object Manufacturer, Model
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_BIOS | Select-Object SerialNumberIf you see specific values for these fields, then deduplication should work without any issues.
If you see blank or generic values for these fields, such as:
To be filled in by O.E.M.Default stringUnknown/Null
Deduplication is unlikely to function well for these devices, and you may experience undesired platform behavior.
Automatic deduplication settings
Automatic deduplication is switched On for all organizations by default.
If you are working with whitebox/OEM/unbranded devices and expect to encounter problems with automatic deduplication, or if you simply prefer to manage duplicates yourself, you can disable automatic deduplication in your organization.
To do this, go to Settings (gear icon) | Auto-delete devices, and toggle the Auto-delete duplicate devices switch to the off position.
Automatic deletion of inactive devices
If you routinely remove devices from your environment which will no longer need to be managed in PDQ Connect, you can set up an Auto-delete devices policy, which will automatically delete devices when they have a Last Seen value more than a specific number of days ago.
Last Seen is a column available on the Devices page. It indicates the last time that the Connect agent on a device successfully checked into the platform, which should occur regularly if the device is online and has a healthy connection with the platform. If devices routinely remain offline in your organization but may still be turned online every once in a while, we recommend that you set a value which exceeds the amount of time that they typically remain offline.
To enable this setting, click the Settings ⚙ icon, and browse to Auto-delete devices, and set a value for days ago, and then click Save changes.
When a device is deleted, we only "soft" delete it. It will stop receiving deployments, commands, or remote connections. It will also no longer be counted towards your license total. The platform will also queue up a hidden deployment command to tell the agent to uninstall itself from that device when it next appears online.
If this occurs and you wish to continue using the device on the platform, you can simply reinstall the agent.
