Warranty Lookups and Writebacks FAQ

LCI provides warranty lookup services for Dell, Lenovo, HP, Microsoft Surface, Cisco Meraki and Smartnet products.  

These services use an api call to the query manufacturer serial number to obtain the warranty information.  

This information can also be written back to your PSA for convenience.  

 

There are also settings available to override manufacturer dates for both the purchase date and the expiration dates of your assets and use the date that is listed in your PSA. 

 

There are several issues that may arise with the robust configuration of the warranty lookup and write-back services.  This document will address some of these issues for both the cause and solution.  

 

Configuration Settings

 

A correct configuration is key to knowing how warranty lookups work and what to expect.  Data is another key component that is driven by the configuration settings.  Together they can solve many questions as to what to do to make the processes work.

 

We will look at the configuration steps and match data issues together to solve your warranty issues. 

 

There are several configuration options available that will dictate how and when the warranty lookup process will work.

When you navigate to the Integrations menu and select the Warranty Lookups Tile you will see these configuration options. 

 

 

Vendor Lookup Selection

 

The list of available vendors that offer warranty lookup services can be selected.  These must be selected for the warranty         lookups to function.

 

 

Cisco Meraki and SmartNet lookups are mapped via your specific api credentials to pull warranty or end of subscription data. These configurations include integration and company matching steps as outlined in the integration instructions here and here.  Special notations for troubleshooting these device types will be listed in each section of this document if needed.

 

Accompanying asset data issues. 

  • Incorrect or incomplete serial numbers will not return results, these must be corrected for the asset to receive warranty data

  • Missing Make or Model numbers - Our system will try to use the Model # and Serial number to determine a Make and assign that to the asset.  This does not always work, as our database is not all inclusive.  Some Make field data will need to be updated manually in your PSA or within Lifecycle Insights.

  • Our system will also try to determine the Model using the Make and Serial Number data.  However, this does not always work, as our database is not all-inclusive.  Some Model # field data will need to be update manually in your PSA or within Lifecycle Insights.

  • Manually Overridden data - If warranty expiration or purchase date fields are overridden via manual entry, the warranty lookup service will not update/overwrite this manually entered data.  Manually entered data is shown in the asset editor window as a cream color highlight within the field data box.  You can click the reset data icon to clear the manually entered data to allow the warranty lookup service to process the asset items.
  • Lifecycle Insights supports api lookup for HP products.  HPE (Enterprise) products are NOT supported at this time.  We are working to resolve a warranty lookup for HPE assets for warranty lookup information.  These devices will need to be updated manually.

  • Cisco Meraki assets pull warranty expiration dates and make for assets that currently exist in LCI.  Optionally we can import assets from Cisco that are not already syncing from your PSA/IT Glue.  All LCI data is dependent on configured data within your Cisco Meraki instance

  • Cisco Smartnet assets pull warrant expiration dates for your Cisco assets.  We can also pull end of life dates from Smartnet as an option, as well as model information.  All LCI data is dependent on configured data within your Cisco Smartnet instance.

  • Assets from other manufacturers must be edited manually for purchase dates or warranty expiration dates.  

 

 

Frequency of lookups 

 

The frequency of lookups is determined by the settings listed in the configuration menu.  These settings determine the frequency of warranty lookup actions being performed for existing assets and for assets nearing warranty expiration.  New asset items are checked on the first full sync cycle after they are displayed in Lifecycle Insights. 

 

You can determine the next warranty lookup date in the asset editor window, as well as view the most recent warranty information.  

 

You can also set a new Next Lookup Date, by clicking the field and changing the date using the drop-down calendar.  Setting this date to the current date will force a warranty lookup for the asset.  This will be performed during the next scheduled data sync. 

 

 

 

Check the Display Criteria in the warranty Settings also.   If these data sets are not configured correctly, your expected results may not show in Lifecycle Insights.

 

Accompanying data issues

 

  • Assets that do not show a Make in the asset list will not be flagged for lookup if they are identified through our internal manufacturer cross reference function.  These asset items will not receive any warranty expiration or purchase date information from the lookup processes.

  • Some assets return a "no warranty information found" message from the manufacturer.  You can view the warranty details to identify these items.  Some causes include asset age (some manufacturers purge older information, incorrect or incomplete serial number data, incorrect manufacturer in Make field. These items should be addressed individually.
  • Mis-configured override settings can cause the manufacturer date information to be overridden.  See the next section below for override settings information

  • Cisco Meraki and Smartnet integrations are configured to sync daily.  Frequency of lookups does not apply for these integrations.

 

Override Settings

  

You can configure both the purchase date and warranty expiration dates that are displayed in LCI.  You can configure the application to display either PSA data or manufacturer data, or latest date for warranty expiration dates.

 

If your configuration is set to use PSA data, and there is no data present in your PSA, you will not receive warranty or purchase date information from the manufacturer.

 

 

Accompanying data issues

 

  • If display criteria options are not set, the system will use the manufacturers purchase date by default, as well as the warranty expiration date.  This also includes write-back data to your PSA (see writeback section below)

  • Mis-configured or unconfigured display criteria settings may return unexpected results for warranty information.  These settings can be changed and asset data will reflect these changes after your next data sync.

  • If "always use vendor lookup date" is selected for either option, the system will not run warranty lookups for asset items that do not contain data in LCI.  We will rely entirely on your PSA data.  All missing or incorrect data issues will need to be corrected in LCI manually or within your PSA/IT Glue application.

 

Warranty Write Back Service

 

The Warranty write-back service will push purchase date and warranty expiration data received from manufacturer lookups back to your PSA to populate the asset data.  You can also configure the service to write back data for any asset to your PSA.

These configuration options must be selected for warranty expiration and purchase date to write back to your PSA.

 

In order to support this feature, you need to make sure that the CW Manage API Member has the correct privileges.  You will also want to ensure that no other integrations are writing data to these fields in your PSA

 

The write back service will write back data based on the settings selected here.  The data written back will also depend on the display criteria selections shown in the previous section.

 

You can choose to write back to your PSA either the warranty expiration date, the purchase date, or both.  This setting applies to any asset that falls under the warranty lookup service supported manufacturers list.  

 

You can also select to write back purchase date, warranty expiration date, or both for assets that are not one of the supported manufacturers for warranty lookups.

Accompanying Data Issues