About scopes in asset import

You add a scope to the asset import job to gather more specific asset data.

To provide a scope for the asset import, you first limit the scope to a location in the system. The location can be a site, a domain in case of Windows, or a database in case of SQL and Oracle. When you specify a scope at the location level, the asset import query returns the specified asset type from the specified location only.

After you provide the scope at the location level, you can select a specific folder, an asset group, or an asset. The asset import query looks for the specified folder, the asset group, or the asset at the specified location and returns the asset type. It is recommended that you provide asset groups or containers as scopes instead of providing individual assets as scopes.

Consider the following example:

Assume that you want to import the Windows Files. You limit the scope to Windows Machine, which is the default scope for the Windows Files. You select a folder as a scope that contains the Windows Machine and Windows Domain. In this case, the asset import query does not consider the Windows Domain as you have limited the scope to Windows Machine only.

Table: Asset import scope options explains how the default scopes and the supported scopes work in the asset import.

You can scope the assets in the following ways:

Use the default scope

The default scope includes the primary assets for the asset type that you want to include. You import the selected asset type from the primary asset for that asset type.

See Primary and secondary assets.
Use any or all the supported scopes

The supported scopes include all the asset types or sites from which you can import the selected asset type.

Table: Asset import scope options

Scope	Scenario	Results
Default scope	You select Windows File as the asset type to import. The supported scopes for the Windows File asset type are Domain, Machine, Directory, and File. The default scope for the Windows File asset type is Machine. You use the default scope. The asset import query looks for the Windows files only in the machines. If you explicitly select the machines A, B, C, and D, the asset import query looks for the Windows files only in the machines. In the scope, the asset import query looks for the Windows files on the specified machines only.	With the default scope, you can obtain more specific asset data. The query execution is comparatively faster due to specific scope. You can use the default scope effectively if you want to update the fields of certain existing assets. The order of asset type import is important if you want to use the default scope. For example, to import the Windows file with the default scope, you should have the Windows machines already imported in the asset system. See Default scope and supported scope.
Supported scope	The supported scopes for the Windows File asset type are Domain, Machine, Directory, and File. The default scope for the Windows File asset type is Machine. You use Domain, Machines, and Directory from the supported scope. The asset import query looks for the Windows files in domains, machines, and directories.	The query execution takes longer if you do not scope the query properly. See Default scope and supported scope.

See Default scope and supported scope.