Licenses Consumed and Purchased by Cost Centers Report

FlexNet Manager Suite 2020 R2 (On-Premises)
The Licenses Consumed and Purchased by Cost Centers report applies when your enterprise allows local purchases of software licenses within your cost centers. It compares local purchases against local consumption, with automatic roll-up of totals from your cost center structure.
Tip: If, instead, your enterprise purchases software centrally and then assigns entitlements to your enterprise groups, see the Licenses Consumed and Allocated by Enterprise Groups Report. (That provides the numbers allocated and consumed locally for each group, but unlike this report, does not provide rolled-up totals for a parent/child hierarchy, nor cost estimates.)
For convenience, some columns in this report uses the term "compliance" to summarize the position for each cost center listed, in terms of whether their purchases of software license entitlements are sufficient to cover their software installations (or use, depending on license type). However, keep in mind the following important points:
  • Your enterprise may also allow central purchasing of software licenses, with separate assignment of license entitlements from the central pool to various enterprise groups; and those assignments are not included in the "compliance" columns in this report.
  • No individual enterprise group(s) determine your genuine compliance position for a software license, which is a measure of how well your entire enterprise is adhering to the terms of the license (and has legal implications). Therefore, genuine 'compliance' is measured only for your enterprise as a whole. These measures of 'group compliance' are only ways of assessing which cost centers are at risk of breaching their delegated license management responsibilities. In other words, these are purely internal measures of management performance for your use within the enterprise. They can also be helpful in balancing purchases against need when comparing like groups and the licensing resources available to them, and perhaps redistributing excess purchases.

Generating the report

  1. Navigate to License Compliance > Compliance > Licenses Consumed and Purchased by Cost Centers.
  2. Click Run report to display results for all licenses purchased locally by, and then consumed across, cost centers (including rolled-up totals for 'child' cost centers).

Limiting the report results

To reduce the number of records included in the report, either:

  • Click the simple filter button (above the listing at the right end), enter the value to match and if necessary adjust the condition for assessment by clicking the blue filter icon next to the value field.
  • Click the advanced filter button to expose the Advanced filter control, and click that to reveal the advanced filter dialog. In that dialog:
    1. Click the + at the top of the list to add a new row.
    2. Click the column name in that row to expose the list of available columns, and choose one.
    3. Click the green condition to select a condition to match.
    4. If required, complete the remaining control (such as providing the value to compare).
    For more help with the advanced filter, see Creating an Advanced Filter.
For help with the search, see To Use a Fly-Down.

Reading the report

The following columns (listed alphabetically) are available in this list. As the report is very wide, you may prefer to hide some columns in the column chooser.

Column name Description
Assigned locally

The number of license entitlements (or points, depending on license type) that have been purchased elsewhere and assigned directly to this cost center. For example, if you have a mixed environment where groups may make some purchases locally, but other purchases are made centrally and then assigned for use within cost centers, this column shows the direct assignments to the cost center named in this row. The balance of this report is focused on local purchases and relevant consumption within each cost center.

Compliance cost (currency)
This shows the result of multiplying the Shortfall/Availability figure by the Cost per right amount, as at the most recent license consumption calculations.
  • If the result is negative, this may be a budget matter to provide for the necessary additional purchases (a true compliance cost)
  • A positive amount represents a past expense that it currently not being fully utilized
  • Of course the result is zero if either of the input figures is zero.
Consumed
Shows the number of license entitlements consumed by this group (as at the last compliance calculation, for which the date and time are shown in the very top right of the page as Reconciled:), based on inventory imports. Two figures are shown:
  • The first figure is the number of entitlements consumed directly by this group (also called 'local' consumption).
  • The second figure (in parentheses) is the rolled-up total consumption for this group and all its descendent groups. Naturally, this figure is omitted for leaf-node groups that have no descendents.
Consumed locally

The number of license entitlements consumed directly by this group, as at the last compliance calculation, for which the date and time are shown in the very top right of the page as Reconciled:.

Cost center hierarchical name
Displays one of the following:
  • The name of the cost center in your enterprise group hierarchy
  • TOTAL for the top-level cost center rolling up the figures for its child units
  • Unassigned if the license in this row has not been assigned to any cost center (these assignments are managed from the Group assignment tab of the license properties).
Cost center tree level
Displays a number explaining at what level (from 1 at the top-most level, down to the lowest available level) in the cost center hierarchy is the current group (shown in Cost center hierarchical name) shown in this row. The column may also show:
  • A zero when it indicates the root level of the cost center hierarchy, of which all level 1 units are children
  • A zero when it identifies those rows that show a rolled-up TOTAL rather than addressing an individual group (see the Cost center hierarchical name column)
  • A blank if the row shows Unassigned in the Cost center hierarchical name column – meaning that the license in this row of the report has not been assigned to any locations.
Cost per right (currency)
The unit cost of one entitlement (or point, depending on the license type). This cost is taken from the first available of the following data points, from highest to lowest priority:
  1. The Amount field on the Financial tab of the license properties.
  2. The Override unit price on the Purchases tab of the license properties.
  3. The Quantity amount at unit price field on the Financial tab of the properties of the purchase most recently linked to the license.
  4. Zero.
Covered installations
Shows the installation count for a particular application linked to the specified version of the license referenced in this row of the report. The column combines:
  • The application name, one of those identified in the Covered products column
    Note: For multi-product licenses (sometimes known as bundles), only the primary product is considered when identifying this application (secondary products are excluded).
  • The License version, which may be tracking the application version, or may be an independent value, for example tracking different edited versions of your license record
  • A colon and space (: ) as separators
  • The count of installations covered by this license within the current hierarchy.
To identify the individual installations, you can:
  1. Copy the license name.
  2. Switch back to Management view.
  3. Search for and open the properties of that license.
  4. Check the devices with installations in the Consumption tab (remembering that from the column chooser, you can add a column for cost centers to this list, and filter by your group of interest).
Covered products

The list of products covered by the license. A product is the basic name of the application, excluding the publisher and references to versions or editions.

Visible on the General tab of the application properties. It is editable only for applications with a Source value of Local.

Covered products and edition

This starts with the same value as the Covered products column, and then adds the edition details where the product has multiple editions. As many products do not have editions, this value is often identical to the Covered products column.

Level 1
The highest cost center in the set represented in this row of the report. Other possible values for this column are:
  • TOTAL if the data row contains a set of rolled-up total figures applicable to the whole license (and in this case, no groups are shown for Level 2, Level 3, or Level 4)
  • Unassigned if the license in this row does not have any purchases or consumption attributed to any cost centers.
In these cases, this column displays the same values as the Cost center hierarchical name column.
Level 2

The second-highest cost center in the set shown in this row of the report. If this row displays a TOTAL for the license (visible in the Level 1 column), this column remains blank. It also remains blank if the Level 1 group for this row has no child cost center.

Level 3

The third-highest cost center in the set shown in this row of the report. If this row displays a TOTAL for the license (visible in the Level 1 column), this column remains blank. It also remains blank if the Level 2 group for this row has no child cost center.

Level 4
The fourth-highest cost center in the set shown in this row of the report. If this row displays a TOTAL for the license (visible in the Level 1 column), this column remains blank. It also remains blank if the Level 3 group for this row has no child cost center.
Note: If this fourth-level cost center has further children that have made purchases or consumed from the license shown in this row, there are additional rows to show those figures. Check the value of the Path to see the full hierarchy of locations in each row, and see the Cost center hierarchical name value for the individual location that is the focus of each row.
License cost (currency)

This is the cost of the license in this row to the enterprise groups in this report. (This may be distinct from the total cost of this license within your enterprise.) This is the calculated result of the overall rolled-up consumption for a group and its descendents (shown in parentheses in the Purchased column), multiplied by the Cost per right displayed in this row.

License edition

The edition property of the license. Commonly this echoes the edition of an application attached to the license, but may be used in other ways in your enterprise.

Editable in the Identification tab of the license properties.

License name
The license name may be:
  • Copied from the first-linked software product
  • Derived from the License Name field of the SKU in the first-linked purchase (or if there is no SKU, from the purchase Description field)
  • Created manually.

The Name value is editable in the Identification tab of the license properties.

License type

The kind of license, which determines what properties are available for the license, and how compliance is calculated for the license. For details of an individual license type, please see the appropriate entry in the glossary.

Editable in the License type field in the Identification tab of the license properties.

License version

The version assigned to the license. This may be tracking versions of a linked application, or may an independent value.

The license Version is editable in the Identification tab of the license properties.

Local compliance (currency)
This shows the result of multiplying the Local shortfall/availability figure by the Cost per right amount, as at the most recent license consumption calculations.
  • If the result is negative, this may be a budget matter to provide for the necessary additional purchases (a true compliance cost)
  • A positive amount represents a past expense that it currently not being fully utilized
  • Of course the result is zero if either of the input figures is zero.
Local shortfall/availability
The difference between the Purchased locally value and the Consumed locally value. A positive number means that this individual cost center has surplus entitlements, and a negative number means this cost center is under-purchased. A zero means that consumption exactly matched purchases. For points-based licenses, the value is the number of points rather than entitlements.
Remember: Check for entitlements that may have been purchased centrally in your enterprise, and then assigned to the cost center to make up for any shortfall. For a quick check, see the Assigned locally column.
Path
This column repeats the value of the License name, followed by the license ID, then a forward slash separator followed by the cost center hierarchy traced in the current row of the report. Each level of the hierarchy also has a forward slash as separator. The hierarchy shows as 0-Root alone for those rows displaying the TOTAL for a license, or where the license is not linked to any cost center (Unassigned).
Tip: Click this column header to re-sort and quickly realign the group hierarchies.
Publisher

The name of the publisher of this software, responsible for its development and distribution.

For application records that you create manually, Publisher is editable in the General tab of the application properties. For applications supplied through the Application Recognition Library, the Publisher field is not editable.

Purchased
Shows the number of software purchases related to this group, in two figures:
  • The first figure is the number of purchases linked directly to this group (also called 'local' purchases)
  • The second figure (in parentheses) is the rolled-up total of purchases by this group and all its descendent groups. Naturally, this figure is omitted for leaf-node groups that have no descendents.
Purchased locally

The number of license entitlements purchased directly by this group (known as a 'local' purchase).

Rolled up consumed

The sum of all license entitlements consumed by this cost center and its descendants.

Rolled up purchased

The sum of all purchases by this cost center and its descendants.

Rolled up used

The sum of the Used locally values for this cost center and its descendants. (For limitations, see Used locally, below.)

Shortfall/Availability

Displays the result (according to the last license consumption calculation) of the rolled-up purchases for each group and its descendents (shown in parentheses in the Purchased column), minus the rolled-up consumption for the same group and descendents (in theConsumed column). A positive number means you have surplus entitlements, and a negative number means you are under-purchased. For points-based licenses, the value is the number of points rather than entitlements.

Used locally
The number of installed copies of the licensed software that are known to be actively used within this cost center. This value shows a zero if any of the following is true for the application(s) linked to the license in this row:
  • Usage thresholds are not set in the Usage tab of application properties
  • Usage data is not collected in inventory
  • In the period specified in the Usage tab of application properties (default: 3 months), no end-user has used the application in ways that meet the usage threshold of minimum number of starts (and, for heritage platforms, how long the application remains active).

FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)

2020 R2