How to Manage CALs with FlexNet Manager Suite

FlexNet Manager Suite 2022 R1 (On-Premises)
FlexNet Manager Suite supports a number of Microsoft server applications that require CALs. This high-level process outline gives some context and guidance.

To manage CALs within FlexNet Manager Suite:

  1. Ensure that the inventory import is complete, and that FlexNet Manager Suite contains evidence data (including access evidence) for the devices hosting installations of the supported Microsoft server applications that require CALs.
    You can verify this from the All Inventory and All Evidence pages.
  2. To ensure that the access evidence has been collected, generate and review the CAL Usage Inventory Report.
  3. To identify any server applications accessed without a CAL, navigate to License Compliance > Unlicensed CAL Usage.
    Available only after a compliance calculation, this page displays a list of server products that have been accessed without a valid CAL. For each accessed application, you can click the number mentioned in the Accessing devices or Accessing users column to access the CAL Usage Inventory Report and view the related access evidence records. It is important to note that the numbers indicate the distinct users and devices, but the report displays all access evidence records.
  4. On the Access evidence tab of the All Evidence page, ensure that each record of access evidence is linked to the appropriate application.
    A null value for the Name column indicates that the evidence is not linked to the appropriate application. In such a case, link the evidence to the appropriate application. For more information, see the online help topics under Evidence.
  5. Use the All Licenses page to check the usage of the existing CALs.
    You can set a filter for License type= Microsoft User CAL or License type= Microsoft Device CAL, and check the value of the Consumed and Used columns.
  6. Use the CAL License Summary report to view the consumption and compliance status for licenses of the type Microsoft User CAL and Microsoft Device CAL.
    For detailed assignment information, you may check the Consumption tab in the license properties of a particular license. Note that some users may be accessing servers from their mobile devices.
  7. For every CAL, ensure that you have selected the correct CAL consumption mode value.
    This is set with the Consume entitlements based on control on the Use rights and rules tab of the license properties. No access evidence is required if this field is set to Access.
  8. Ensure that you have enough CALs or CAL Suite licenses to cover the usage.
    If you have some unused CALs, you can assign them to other users. You can use any of the following methods to create licenses:
    • Processing purchases: Use the Unprocessed Purchases page to recalculate and accept the recommendations to automatically create and link CAL purchases to the recommended CALs. For more information, see Unprocessed Purchases in the online help.
    • Manual creation and linking: You can create a license manually and link it to the appropriate server application. For more information, see the Creating a License topic in the online help.
      Note: The CAL Legacy license type is still supported for backward compatibility. You can use this license type to manually manage CALs when the access evidence cannot be collected for any reason.
  9. If required, configure the use rights for each CAL license, as well as for every product of a CAL Suite license.
    See the Use Rights & Rules Tab in the online help.
  10. If required, configure the required exemptions and use rights and rules on CALs.
    See License Properties > Use rights & rules and Consumption tabs in the online help.
  11. If required, you may allocate users and devices to appropriate CALs.
    Consider the following example use cases:
    • For a particular access event, you want a user to consume a CAL Suite license instead of a single-product CAL.
    • You need to exempt a user from consuming a CAL. To exempt, you need to allocate first.
    See License Properties > Consumption tab in the online help. Note that in the case of CALs, allocations always consume entitlements.
    Tip: In usage scenarios where many external application users use a single server account to access a server, the Overridden consumption column value (on the Consumption tab of license properties) should be adjusted to show the actual consumption. For example, if multiple external-product users are using the same Microsoft SQL Server user to access the database, the UAL data will reveal access evidence for only one user of Microsoft SQL Server. In such cases, the usage should be adjusted to actual number of users to remain license compliant. The value of the Overridden consumption column should be edited to reflect the actual usage.
  12. When consuming CALs in the Access mode, you can apply restrictions to ensure that the CALs are consumed by appropriate users or devices.
    For more information, see License Properties > Restrictions tab in the online help.
  13. You may use the following reports to review the CAL usage in your organization:
    • CAL License Summary
    • Licenses Consumed and Allocated by Enterprise Groups.

FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)

2022 R1