Network Discovery

Have you tried adding a Heartbeat Trigger to your Scan Profiles? That will cause the target to be scanned when it goes from Offline to Online.

Thanks Colby but in this case it doesn't work.  The remote computers are connecting via VPN so when they connect they have a different IP from the normal internal subnet, this is given out by the firewall.

If there was a way to add the IP range to the scan profile that would be ideal. 

I have this exact question. I feel like it's not a feature that's built-in to PDQ but might be possible with a script of some sort.

If I could schedule a network discovery on the VPN subnet for our international users that would be fantastic

Has anyone found a way to accomplish getting computers scanned when working from home that connect via VPN?  With COVID and being in healthcare we deployed an extra 500+ computers that didn't go through our regular asset management identification process.  So now I have a bunch of computers that got added into PDQ Inventory from AD Synch but aren't getting scanned.  An automated network discovery would also help as we put our hardware through a QC process and before being put into service.  At times we get a lot of computers imaged and then get shut off for some time (not joined to the domain so not added to AD).  The goal is to be able to have ALL computers/laptops into PDQ so at any given time we know the total count of devices regardless if they are in-service or not. 

Hello I work at a large school district that would also like to see this feature automated currently we turn on 50 to 150 devices that we would like to be scanned periodically over the network and we do our work in a location where the devices get a particular IP address allowing us to automate the updates and packages . currently after turning everything on we have to run a network discovery scan before the machines go to sleep

This would be extremely useful, like many others have stated, to regularly and AUTOMATICALLY scan the VPN subnet. Why is this not implemented yet?

Does anyone know if PDQ is working on this feature? This would be so extremely helpful for our daily use with our VPN Subnet, just like Seth said.

I also agree that a scheduled network scan feature is absolutely needed since the pandemic has changed the way everyone connects to work (or a client agent developed would solve this problem :-)).  Please implement this as the tools are crippled without this feature right now for a lot of us.

I realize that an "Agent" solution has been in the works for quite a while with limited success, but this would be the best solution of all.  Depending on accurate DNS information is just not a viable solution as there are way to many issues (aggressive DNS scavenging does not fix this issue and can cause a ton of other issues).  All of these common issues I see in the knowledgebase with regard to network discovery would be non-issues if an agent was implemented.

Please no Agents, the beauty of PDQ Inventory/Deploy so far, has been that no Agents are required, having to deal with an Agent that will became obsolete, unhealthy, corrupted, etc .. will only make the product to be another cheap clone of SCCM.

I do agree that Network Scans should have an option to be scheduled, that will help maintain a fresh inventory of Computers for Distributed Locations, like having Computers on Sites located at different Cities but all part of the same Domain but you don't want to rely on AD for identifying those.

There are no current plans for a PDQ Deploy & Inventory agent. If you are looking for an agent-based solution, check out PDQ Connect.