1 SoftwareCentral Update
Open Settings › General Settings › SoftwareCentral Update to see the version and licence of your installation.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| SoftwareCentral Version | Lists the version of SoftwareCentral (Current Version). If the installation is online, it will also tell the latest version of SoftwareCentral available from http://softwarecentralupdate.com: either a link Newest version, the text There are currently no new versions available, or a link Visit SoftwareCentral Update when the latest version cannot be read. SoftwareCentral does not update itself. |
| SoftwareCentral License | Click Open License Information Window to open a window where you can enter a new license for SoftwareCentral. |
| SoftwareCentral expiration date | Subscription paid until this date. Your license will automatically be renewed, if not specified otherwise. The text on the page reads Subscription payed until '…'. |
| SoftwareCentral license warning | Set up a mail address to receive a warning before your SoftwareCentral installation exceeds the number of purchased clients. The line reads Send a mail warning to [address] when there are less than [number] % available clients left. You can add multiple mail addresses by comma separating them, and the percentage is between 0 % and 10 % (5 % is the starting value). |
| Allow SoftwareCentral to report diagnostic data to SoftwareCentral Update | The checkbox Send diagnostic data allows SoftwareCentral to send diagnostic data to SoftwareCentral Update. This information is used to improve the user experience and can compare the health of your installation with other installations, and it helps identify problems with an installation from the “Health Check” interface. All information is encrypted and sent anonymously. |
SoftwareCentral synchronises with the central servers at SoftwareCentral Update once a day, and again after you restart the website. A synchronisation sends diagnostic data to SoftwareCentral Update (if you allow it) and receives messages and minor updates to the system. No information that can be used to identify the SoftwareCentral installation is passed on.
Buttons that are gone
Older versions had a Synchronize button, a Check for Updates button and a setting to send error messages. They are no longer on this page: the synchronisation runs by itself, and the newest version is shown under SoftwareCentral Version.
2 Server Configuration
Open Settings › General Settings › Server Configuration. Fields that are still empty and required are marked * Required, and SoftwareCentral opens this page by itself when something required is missing.
A tick box or a text field that belongs to Configuration Manager is hidden when SoftwareCentral only manages Intune.
The SoftwareCentral database
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| SoftwareCentral Database Settings | The connection to the SoftwareCentral database can only be changed by the installer. |
The SCCM server
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Central Site Code | This is the Central Administration Site, or Central Site for SCCM 2007, or primary site if it is a single site environment. |
| SCCM Server | The fully qualified SCCM server name, corresponding to the Central Site Code above. (The server where the SMS Provider is installed) |
| SCCM Server Username | This field is empty by default. Use this field if you require a separate account to connect to the SCCM server. Leave this field empty to use the application pool user. This account cannot be the same as the application pool user. This account will also be used if the SCCM server is in an untrusted domain. |
| SCCM Server Password | The password for the SCCM server user account. Leave it empty to use the application pool user. |
| SCCM Database Server Name | The SCCM Central Site database server name. If the database is running on an instance other than the default, add “\instancename” after the server name. |
| SCCM Database Name | The SCCM Central Site database name. For an instance, use the database server name field. |
| SCCM Database Trusted Connection | Tells if there is trust to the database (the application pool user can connect to the database using Windows authentication). |
| SCCM SQL User (Only needed if untrusted) | The SQL User login name. Only needed if there isn’t trust to the database. The field is available when SCCM Database Trusted Connection is not ticked. |
| SCCM SQL Password (Only needed if untrusted) | The SQL User password. Only needed if there isn’t trust to the database. |
Reporting
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| SCCM Reporting Server (URL) | The URL to the SCCM reporting server. E.g.: http://[servername]/ReportServer/ |
| SCCM Reporting Folder | The reporting folder name, e.g.: ConfigMgr_[SiteCode] (SCCM 2012 and above). |
| Report Database Server Name | The SCCM Report database server name. If the database is running on an instance other than the default, add “\instancename” after the server name. |
| Report Database Name | The SCCM Report database name. |
| Report Database Trusted Connection | Tells if there is trust to the database (the application pool user can connect to the database using Windows authentication). |
| Report SQL User (Only needed if untrusted) | The SQL User login name. Only needed if there isn’t trust to the database. |
| Report SQL Password (Only needed if untrusted) | The SQL User password. Only needed if there isn’t trust to the database. |
| SoftwareCentral Report Username | The user name for the SoftwareCentral report account, with its SoftwareCentral Report Password. See SCCM Reporting Setup for how the reports are set up. |
Proxy
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Proxy Server | The proxy server name, entered after the fixed Http://. |
| Proxy Server Port | A port from 1 to 65535. If you leave it empty, 8080 is saved. |
| Proxy Server Username, Proxy Server User Password | The account for a proxy that needs a sign-in. |
| Use the proxy for all connections | Use the proxy above for everything SoftwareCentral connects to, including signing in and Microsoft Graph. Without this, the proxy is only used for Robopack, patch downloads and SoftwareCentral updates. The SoftwareCentral service must be restarted after changing this setting. |
Administrators, application pool and address
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Administrator Group | The Active Directory group for SoftwareCentral administrators. Members of this group will have unlimited access to SoftwareCentral. Choose the domain first, then the group (written domain \ group). When the group memberships are read from Entra ID, a single list of Entra groups is shown instead, and you need access to the tenant of the group to change it. |
| Application Pool Username | The application pool username in the format “domain\username” (the form user@domain is accepted too). |
| Application Pool Password | The application pool user password. This is required as SoftwareCentral uses this account to run the SoftwareCentral Service. When you type a password, it is checked against the domain when you save. A wrong one shows Wrong Password, and a user name without a domain shows No domain detected in username. |
| Application Base URL | The base URL for SoftwareCentral. E.g.: https://softwarecentral/ (the box shows this as an example). |
| SoftwareCentral Client Share | Shown for installations that only use Intune. The path to the share for the SoftwareCentral client. |
Passwords are not shown
A saved password appears as a row of stars. Leave it as it is to keep the saved password, and type a new one only to change it.
3 Intune Configuration
For details about Intune Configuration, go to the Intune Configuration chapter.
The page also holds Enable Intune integration and Enable Delta Sync. Delta sync makes the SoftwareCentral Intune synchronisation faster, because it only synchronises the changes.
4 Maintenance
Open Settings › General Settings › Maintenance for the buttons and clean-up settings below.
Buttons
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Clear cached items | The Clear Cache button clears all data stored in the cache, for the website and for the service. This can be useful if a setting has been manually changed in the database or some object created in the SCCM does not show up in SoftwareCentral immediately. |
| Restart website | The Restart SoftwareCentral button asks you to confirm, then restarts the site, stops all processes running and disconnects all users. If used while a process is running, it may cause corrupted data. |
| Test connections | The Test connections button measures every connection SoftwareCentral uses, including how the proxy affects Microsoft Graph, and compares it with earlier runs. Save your settings first, because the test uses the saved settings. |
| Update Task Sequence Scripts (For Software Groups) | The Update Scripts button updates or recreates the task sequence scripts package used by Software Groups (‘SoftwareCentral Tasksequence Scripts’). It can be helpful if the package has been corrupted. Only shown when SCCM is used. |
Clean-up and messages
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Automatically remove log entries older than (months) (0 = Keep all) | Enter a number of months that log entries should be kept. Use 0 to keep all log entries. A big log of millions of entries or years of data may cause performance issues in SoftwareCentral. A value of 2400 or more is not saved. |
| Automatically remove Deployment Jobs older than (months) (0 = Keep all) | Enter a number of months that deployment jobs will be kept in the database. Use 0 to keep all deployment jobs. A value of 2400 or more is not saved. |
| Remove Phased Deployments older than (days) | Phased Deployments older than this will be deleted regardless of their state. Old phased deployments must be removed to free up system resources. Allowed values are 30 to 1461 days. The default value is 365 days. |
| Phased Deployments max phase runtime (days) | The maximum amount of days SoftwareCentral can keep a phase running before it will be marked as failed. Allowed values are 1 to 365 days. The default value is 30 days. |
| Analyze shop settings in Software Administration and suggest improvements | The checkbox Analyze shop settings: if enabled, SoftwareCentral will analyze the settings of your shop each time a user enters the “Software Administration” interface, and suggest the user the changes if anything can be improved. This can for instance be to resize large images. When images are resized, a backup of the original images is saved in the “Uploads” folder in the SoftwareCentral installation folder. |
| Notification shown on startup | Use this field to display a message in the notification popup, for example a message of planned downtime (up to 512 characters). The notification will be shown to all users the first time they start SoftwareCentral one time a day. If the field is empty, no notification will be shown. Note that if notifications are disabled or the user has chosen to hide notifications, no notifications will be shown. |
5 Configuration (cloud)
In the cloud edition of SoftwareCentral the three items above (SoftwareCentral Update, Server Configuration and Maintenance) are hidden, and the group has a single item, Configuration. In other editions this item is hidden.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Business Hours From and To | In the business hours, the CloudConnector will not be automatically updated. An update will cause a few minutes of downtime for your cloud. Updates are very rare, but will occur from time to time. The time you define is in your local time zone. |
| Report Database Server Name, Report Database Name | The report database. For an instance, use ‘servername\instancename’ in the server name. |
| SCCM Reporting Server (URL) | The URL to the reporting server, for example https://[SERVERNAME]/ReportServer/. |
| Active Directory Administrator Group | The domain and the group whose members are administrators. |
6 Best practice
- Configuration order. Fill the fields marked * Required first (application pool user, application base URL and, for Configuration Manager, the site code, SCCM server, database server and database name, and a package share for each site), save, and then run Test connections.
- Security. Use a separate SCCM Server Username only when you need one, and never the application pool user. Prefer a trusted database connection, and use an SQL user and password only when there is no trust. Keep Administrator Group small, because its members have unlimited access.
- Backup. Before you change the connection to the SCCM or report database, or the application pool user, write down the current values, so you can go back if the connection fails.
- Performance. Set the number of months for log entries and deployment jobs, rather than keeping everything, and keep Remove Phased Deployments older than (days) at its default unless you need the history.
- Timing. Use Restart SoftwareCentral when nobody is working, because all users are disconnected and running operations may be corrupted. After you change Use the proxy for all connections, restart the SoftwareCentral service.
- Common mistakes. Entering the application pool user without a domain; putting the same account in SCCM Server Username and Application Pool Username; forgetting the instance name in the database server name; running Test connections before saving.