Well I did go ahead and purchase SoftCAT - it can scan all folders, it does have a lot of useful fields pre-configured, and it also gives me 18 user-configurable custom fields. This will certainly do.
@ashwken: One last note on putting my Excel sheet into UR. Sorry - not to try and besmirch UR but I cannot see any utility at all in doing what you suggest. Get all the data into Excel, then have to export it out again into a CSV file, then import it into Ultra Recall but only after defining all the attributes first (notice this is s heck of a lot of setup work?!). And even if I manage to get it all in there, finally, I cannot do anything at all with that data. It would be completely static - frozen in time, so to speak. Why wouldn't I just keep it in Excel instead of going through all that? At least I could then add to the data there.
I honestly cannot see even one good reason to put it into Ultra Recall. I guess that Kinook can say that this technically (and I do mean a true "technicality" in the barest sense) lends legitimacy to the claim that I can import an Excel sheet into Ultra Recall, but that's very thin, IMO.
-J-Mac
J-Mac,
I have agreed from the start that if you want the ability to scan a system for software then UR is not going to be of much help.
I was originally under the impression that you had a good percentage of the data already in Excel, it was later revealed that you were working with three separate systems and that there was only data for one system in Excel. If you remove the desire to scan a system for software you are left with having to enter data manually, something that you had been doing with Excel.
My original suggestion of using UR was as a replacement for Excel, and subsequent posts dealt with the method of moving the existing data from Excel to UR, then you could abandon Excel.
Although UR is not going to be able to scan your system for installed software, if you were cataloging a software library, you could bring these files into UR (probably linked) and the UR Item(s) created from this import would contain the Attributes that you had been working with in Excel (that are now being used in UR). Yes, there would be some setup required in UR, but this is always going to be the case when you are designing something yourself rather than using an existing application.
Additionally, within this same software catalog, you could have a folder that contains Items for each of the systems you want to track, software Items could then be linked to the desired system. UR would also allow you to store additional information about (web pages and such) the software and the systems you are tracking.
I'm not saying that this is a superior method, but that it is an alternative solution with limitations and advantages. Your decision to purchase SoftCat is probably a good one based on what you want to do.
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