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FindResources should optionally return excluded devices
As discussed in this forum post, FindResources only returns resources that are not excluded. There should be an option to FindResources so that it returns only excluded resources, both included and excluded resources, and only included resources (the current behavior, and what should remain the default behavior).
We're in the process of importing all our inventory and connectivity, which are stored across multiple spreadsheets. At a high level I have a Python script that reads a spreadsheet of devices, adds them to CS, performs a discovery, and then potentially marks the device as excluded based on a field in the spreadsheet.
Then there's a second script that imports a different spreadsheet that just contains connectivity (left device and interface names, and right device and interface names). Making a connection requires the full path to each interface (including chassis and module), which the script does by finding the device and all its interfaces. It cannot do this for excluded devices.
(Sorry I missed this question when it was first posted.)Thanks @jim.pfleger.vz
If you have the resource name, why don't you use the GetResourceDetails to get the resource information? this should get you the sub-resources as well, even if the resource is excluded.
BTW, your project sounds similar to something we previously developed, we updated the repository today with the latest changes, and it might continue to update, but you should take a look and see if it helps with your tasks.
https://github.com/QualiSystemsLab/Inventory-Utilities/tree/development
Yaniv
Thank you for the suggestions. I've replaced all our uses of FindResources() with GetResourceDetails(), which lets us work with excluded devices. This solves our immediate issue, but I still think that both methods should have an option to search all resources or only included resource. If not an option, then FindResources() should be changed so its behavior is consistent with GetResourceDetails().
I've been watching the Inventory Utilities project for ideas, but we're continuing to develop our version. One feature we implemented was to allow for incomplete information. For example, users can specify connections using just device and interface names, without knowing anything about the chassis/module/submodule structure and the tool will search the device for matching interfaces.
Also, we're setting boolean attributes on some devices based on what they're connected to, so these attributes can be used in abstract resources (e.g. an abstract resource for a router with a T1 connection).
