"Most Recent User" field is not updating reliably (inventory management)

[JThurston42]

I work for a community-based organization. We have Chromebooks at churches, libraries, and schools within our region. We have always taken Chromebook inventory by printing out a paper spreadsheet and marking off devices. This is a slow and tedious process that must be completed at a very busy time of year. I am trying to find a better way.

I thought I could create a special CB Inventory user and simply login to each CB as I update them. Then I could search for devices where the most recent login was from that account to produce a list of every device present and compare that to the inventory sheet. However, what I have found is that the "most recent user" field for each device is only updating half the time. And weirdly, half the devices have this field completely blank, even though they've been used many times in the past. What's even more strange is that if I go to the page for a specific device, the "Recent Device Events" clearly shows the login from the CB Inventory account. But for whatever reason, that information is not getting passed to the "most recent user" field. 

If I turn the same CB on and log in again, the issue is often fixed. But that doesn't help me since I need to know that I will reliably and accurately be able to track the most recent user from one login. 

Any ideas on how to resolve this? Or a better way to quickly check inventory?

I have been working with Google support to try to figure this out for the last week without success. They told me that the CBs must not be syncing, so instructed me to go to chrome://policy/ for each device and reload the policies. I tried that, but the issue still happened with a second batch of devices. 

[MattDPenn]

How long are people logged in for? What I've tentatively noticed is inconsistency in updated stats if an account was only briefly logged in. You'd think the sync would fire off every time on login but it feels like it only fires off at x times or intervals. Could also be a matter of timing when the device attempts to sync info vs when wifi is actually functional (assuming wifi may switch based on logged in user).

[JThurston42]

Just for a minute or two. And it is weird because the info in the admin console does update to an extent. The most recent sync time matches the login, and most recent device events shows the login. The info just doesn't make its way to the most recent user field for some reason. 

[Kim_Nilsson]

I created a tool for this in sheets.

I call it CB_Inventory, of course. 🙂

Free and open source, so you can change it any way you want. If you do something cool, do tell me about it, as I may want to include it in the default code.

[JThurston42]

Thanks for sharing this! Seems like a cool tool with a lot of functionality. I think the export script might be most relevant to my situation? However, I see that it pulls the most recent user, which unfortunately is not updating properly on my devices. Is there a way to modify so it pulls the recent device events instead? 

[Kim_Nilsson]

Not all things are available through the APIs.

If they are, then the answer is a resounding YES!

Please, add that as another column of data, or push the info of individual devices from the Update CBs sheet to a new Recent Device Events sheet. So it doesn't mess with the existing code.

Like I said, it's open-source, so if you find a new thing it can do for you, please, just do that! 🙂

However, as I say in the beginning here, I don't think that data is accessible to us non-Googlers. At least, I don't see any of it in the API documentation.

You/We should definitely click the feedback button and tell them to make all that data available via APIs!

[Kim_Nilsson]

Yet another however... 🙂

A fellow GAM-lover said this, earlier this year.

If you have enabled "User and device reporting" you will be able to find all logins via:
gam report chrome event CHROME_OS_LOGIN_EVENT filter "DEVICE_NAME==SERIALNUMBER

[JThurston42]

Thank you! I appreciate your time and help. I have never used GAM before, but I will look into that. 

[GT]

A highly valuable tool for managing the Chromebook fleet. An invaluable Swiss Army knife.