Recommended License Changes

FlexNet Manager Suite 2021 R1 (On-Premises)

Established license records that reference SKU numbers may benefit from subsequent updates to the ARL, SKU and product use rights libraries.

At each license reconciliation, the system checks all your licenses that reference SKUs with the latest definitions in the SKU and PURL. Any difference between your license record and the latest information in the libraries is identified in this list.
Tip: Checking for updated license definitions is based on the SKU numbers related to a license. These SKU numbers may be:
  • Recorded in the Part no. field on the Financial tab
  • The SKU used in automated purchase processing to create the software license (not visible in the user interface)
  • SKUs are referenced on any purchases that are linked to the software license, as shown in the Part no./SKU column on the Purchases tab of the license properties.
Conversely, if SKUs have never been used in the creation of the license or in purchases linked to it, the license cannot be validated against updated definitions provided in the ARL, SKU and PURL libraries.
Note: FlexNet Manager Suite (from version 2016 onwards) supports automatic processing and management of multi-product licenses for supported product bundles. If you have processed a multi-product license SKU in any older version of FlexNet Manager Suite, a future recommended license change may appear when the support for that multi-product license is added to FlexNet Manager Suite through the downloadable libraries.

Accepting recommendations

You may select one or more recommendations and click Accept to accept the recommendation from the SKU and PURL libraries. FlexNet Manager Suite updates your license properties and changes the Status of the accepted recommendations from Pending to Accepted.

To hide accepted recommendations from the list, clear the Show accepted license changes check box in the upper left.

Ignoring recommendations

You may select one or more recommendations and click Ignore to reject the recommendation from the SKU and PURL libraries, perhaps because you have negotiated custom use rights with the software publisher. FlexNet Manager Suite updates your license properties and changes the Status of the ignored recommendations from Pending to Ignored.

Future updates of the ARL, SKU and PURL libraries will not change this state; but if there are further updates to the definition of this license type in the downloaded libraries, this license reappears in the list because of those new changes.

To hide ignored recommendations from the list, clear the Show ignored license changes check box in the upper left.

Recalculating recommendations

Recommendations are recalculated automatically at each inventory import, or manually when you select one or more recommendations and click Recalculate. You may want to check for changes in recommendations if you:
  • Link or unlink purchases that reference SKUs from a license
  • Import new purchase records that include SKUs
  • Manually update license properties.

Select the affected recommendation(s) from the list, and click Recalculate.

Using the Recalculate button, or the next inventory import, will permanently remove accepted and ignored items from the list.

Unaffected properties

Although when you create a license, the libraries may propose content for the following license properties, they are considered your data, and never included in any recommended changes:
  • Name
  • Edition
  • Version
  • Publisher.

Available columns

The following columns (listed alphabetically) are available. Some are displayed by default and others are available in the column chooser.
Note: The Save view as feature of FlexNet Manager Suite enables you to create customized management views of a page by saving the applied user interface settings. For more information, see Creating Management Views.
Table 1. License properties in Recommended License Changes (alphabetical)
Name Details
Allocated

The number of license entitlements allocated to computers or end-users. Those with allocations have top priority consuming from this license, and cannot consume from any other. Allocations may also be set (per license) to always count as consumption (regardless of inventory). For each inventory device, you can also modify the behavior of allocations.

The Allocated value is editable in the Consumption tab of the license properties. Furthermore, the type of allocation can be adjusted on the Licenses tab of the inventory device properties.

Not available for SAP Named User licenses.

Category
The nature of the change in the libraries. Displays one of:
  • Property if the change is to a property of the license (including its type, or any attached use rights)
  • Application if the change is to the set of applications that the license may cover. Check for any changes in recent application versions linked to the license. Decide whether these changes are appropriate in your environment, or whether you need to make manual adjustments (for example, you may have restricted the versions attached to a license after discontinuing a maintenance agreement).
Date

The date that the recommendation was calculated. As the default import process and compliance calculation happens early each morning, you are likely to see today's date in this column.

Duration

The time-based nature of the license, whether it is a Perpetual, Subscription, or Time limited license.

Editable in the Identification tab of the license properties.

Edition

The edition property of the license, which may or may not be the same as the edition of the licensed application.

Editable in the Identification tab of the license properties.

Expiry date

For subscription (or other time-limited) licenses, this is the date when the current license expires. You should aim to renew the subscription before this date.

Has maintenance

Displays No when there is no current maintenance recorded for this license; or Yes when there is at least one purchase of maintenance for which today falls between the Effective date and the Expiry date (inclusive) on the purchase. When this is Yes, the Maintenance field shows the corresponding number of entitlements that are currently covered by maintenance.

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.

Maintenance

The total number of license entitlements currently covered by maintenance (or support, or Software Assurance), as shown in maintenance-related purchases linked to the license and taking account of their effective date ranges. (Keep in mind that the total purchases of maintenance may be split across licenses.)

The total is not directly editable in license properties. The value is summed from maintenance purchases linked to the license, and is displayed in the Compliance tab as Maintenance from purchases. To increase the total coverage, link additional current maintenance purchase records to the license.
Tip: Maintenance purchases can also be split across multiple licenses, for example by editing the Maintenance column in the Purchases tab of the license properties.
Maintenance can be included in purchases of the following types linked to the license:
  • Not set
  • Software
  • Software baseline
  • Software maintenance
  • Software subscription
  • Software upgrade.
Manager

The delegate who has responsibility for the license.

Editable in the Ownership tab of the license properties.

Override unit price (currency)

The unit price for a single entitlement under this license. This value has been set to override prices on all related purchase records. This may be set to the current single purchase price.

Editable in the Purchases tab of the license properties.

Product (primary)

The basic name of the application, excluding the publisher and references to versions or editions. This field displays the value Multiple products for multi-product licenses that have multiple primary products. See Multi-Product License.

Product values are not directly editable in the license properties, but are taken from the latest version of the application linked to the license (visible in the Identification section of the General tab of the application properties). In license properties the product is listed in the Applications tab. For multi-product licenses, linked products are listed in the Use rights & rules tab.

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

The total number of license entitlements recorded for this license. This is the sum of the Entitlements from purchases and Extra entitlements values stored in the properties of the license. This is the number of license entitlements your enterprise is entitled to consume.

Not directly editable. The value changes as you:
  • Link purchases to a license (for example, through the Purchases tab of the license properties)
  • Edit a value in the License entitlements column of the Purchases tab of a license
  • Change the Extra entitlements field in the Compliance tab of the license properties.
Raw consumption

The consumption from this license before taking account of any savings gained from product use rights that may cover some installations without consuming additional entitlements. For most license types, this is shown on the Compliance tab as Raw installations.

Not editable.

Recommended change

A text explanation of the differences found and some guidance about likely impacts.

Selection column

Check boxes to select any desired combination of rows. Click the header to select/deselect all.

Serial number

Any serial number associated with this license.

Editable in the Identification tab of the license properties.

Shortfall/Availability

Displays the result of Entitlements from purchases plus Extra entitlements minus Consumed fields shown in license properties. The result is positive when you have surplus entitlements (according to the last license consumption calculation), and negative when you are under-purchased. For points-based licenses (such as Core Points or Processor Points licenses), the value is the number of points, rather than entitlements.

Not editable. Visible at the Available Entitlements field on the Compliance tab of the license properties.

Status
The current state for each recommendation. This value is updated after each calculation to one of the following:
  • Accepted
  • Ignored
  • Pending.
Subject to true-up

A value of Yes means this license cannot be displayed as "at risk", and that at the end of the true-up period, you must make purchases to retroactively cover any over-consumption. Most licenses display No.

Editable in the Subject to true-up field in the Identification tab of the license properties.
Note: For SaaS User licenses covering Salesforce, this field should show a value of Yes. However, if the Subject to true-up field in the Identification tab of the license properties is manually deselected for a Salesforce license, this field will temporarily display a value of No until the next time FlexNet Manager Suite recalculates a license position, after which this field reverts to Yes.
Used
The number of installations of the licensed applications actively being used. Shows a zero if:
  • Usage thresholds are not set for the application(s) linked to the license
  • Usage data is not collected in inventory for the linked applications
  • Nobody used this application throughout the time-span specified in the Usage period field on the Usage tab of the application's properties (by default, three months).
If a non-zero Used count is less than the Consumed count, you may be able to harvest licenses by uninstalling applications.
Exceptions:
  • For SAP Named User licenses, this column shows optimal license use calculated by FlexNet Manager for SAP Applications. This forms the basis of recommendations made available to your SAP Administrators. (If Used is identical to Consumed, no further optimization is currently available.)
  • For SAP Package licenses, this column always has the same value as the Consumed column.
  • For Concurrent User licenses created during import of data from FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications, usage is a figure directly imported and not locally calculated. (By default, these special case licenses are not linked to application or computer records.)
Version

The version assigned to the license. Depending on settings, this may or may not reflect the version of the first-linked application.

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

FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)

2021 R1