Important note

Please be aware, as covered below, that this is initially an early release feature and does not (yet) have all the functionality in the existing computer and server device lists.

Summary

The device list pages for computers and servers are very heavily used pages that are key for many of our customers. They already work well, but we want to enhance them further because of how important they are.

Some of the improvements are quite fundamental, such as better handling very large accounts with tens of thousands of devices, and so we have chosen to replace the implementation to let us best address the underlying constraints, rather than extend the existing one.

Instead of waiting until we have all the existing functionality and more, we plan to run the new device list in parallel (with a "beta" label to indicate it is a work in progress) with the current list pages so you can see progress and provide feedback. This will become visible in the next few days.

The new page is shown in the navigation menu under devices > "Computers & servers" with a "Beta" label by it:

If you have feedback, please look at the open beta page in the forum to see if it is already discussed, or create a new thread if not.

Detail on improvements and timeline

The replacement device list view will be released gradually, building up functionality at each stage. The old device list views will be left in place until all functionality is available in the new pages.

First release (April 2024)

The new device list will initially be primarily a proof of concept. There will be some improvements, such as the ability to see both computers and servers in one view. The page load time should be much faster in large accounts with many devices (particularly tens of thousands upwards). However, there will be a number of capabilities from the current device lists that it does not yet match, such as the number of columns/data points available.

Second release

In this release we intend to largely achieve feature parity with the existing device list views, such as filling out additional columns of data. There will be some items left to complete later, such as exporting the list as a .csv file.

Subsequent releases

We will consolidate the multiple device lists, such as those in the encryption product view and the live query device selector so that we have one consistent implementation across the Central interface. We will also combine the computer and server reports pages as these offer very similar features.

The public API will work from the same new data source as the replacement device list, so that they offer the same functionality and results always match across the two.

The "last active" indication will improve from the current implementation which represents the last time the information about a device changed to instead use the more timely information about whether the device is currently connected to Central via the push server, even if there hasn't been a recent status update.

Future

Some customers have more than one Central account, and some of our partners manage multiple customers' accounts. We intend to provide a consolidated page where they can see devices from across those multiple accounts in a single list.