Application Properties / General Tab

The two sections of this tab:

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Fully identify the application

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Track both your management of the application, and its projected support life from the publisher.

In the top right corner is a Source indicator. This shows:

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Flexera for applications identified by the Application Recognition Library. For these applications, only the Status field is editable on this tab.

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Flexera (Extended) for applications originally identified by the Application Recognition Library, to which an operator in your enterprise has subsequently added further evidence to help identify the application from software inventory. For these applications also, only the Status field is editable on this tab.

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Local for application records that have been created in your enterprise. For these applications, you can edit any of the properties on this tab.

The following controls (listed here alphabetically) are available on this tab. Notes about editing apply only to Local application records (shown in the Source field).

Application Properties / General Tab

Column Name

Description

Application category

The default list of software categories is taken from the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code standard (https://www.unspsc.org/).

To assign an application category, click Search, select a category you need, and click Add category.

Tip:To add new categories, navigate to Enterprise > Categories.

Classification

To indicate how this application is classified, select an option from the list:

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Beta—A pre-release application (covers such items as beta releases, alpha releases, or release candidates) that you have under some special arrangement.

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Commercial—The application requires a license to be purchased for use in a commercial setting.

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Component—The item is used or installed as a component of another application or suite, and is not licensed as a standalone item.

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Freeware—Licensed for use in a commercial environment free-of-charge.

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Malware—A potentially harmful application (a virus, Trojan, and the like), and should be treated as malware—if installations of this application are identified, you need to address the corresponding incidents or security issues.

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None—Use this when you do not wish to specify the application's Classification.

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Shareware—The application is available for downloading from web sites, and typically uses a “try-before-you-buy” licensing model that might include reminder messages, functional limitations, or other restrictions until a full license is purchased.

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Update—The application represents an update, for example, a service pack, to another application, and is issued for free to all customers regardless of purchasing agreements or support contracts (a “minor” update). If the original application is still recognized as installed after the update installation is completed, you can ignore the evidence for this application, and hide this Update. However, if the update modifies the inventory data, you may need to ensure that this Update application is recognized separately, but is linked to the same license as its predecessor. Then the presence of either the original application or its update will trigger consumption of a license entitlement.

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XRated—The application contains potentially objectionable or sexually explicit material. You might want to consider whether corporate policies require any action.

Note:Do not use the Upgrade classification type for major releases of a Commercial—type application (an “upgrade”). Upgrades and downgrades are significant licensing practices, whereas an Update classification is considered to have little licensing impact.

Edition

Enter the edition of this application. If you type in a value that did not previously exist for this product, a new edition entry is created, and is given the highest priority among the editions of this product. You might need to adjust editions' priorities because they control automatic upgrades and downgrades for the licenses that convey the corresponding product use rights. To do that, click the browse icon displayed next to the Edition field and choose an edition you need.

Note:Any application must have a unique combination of a publisher, product, edition, and version.

If you are creating a new application record, any entry in the Edition field is automatically appended to the Name field (however, if you are editing the existing application’s properties, automatic update no longer occurs). The Edition field is used less often than version to manage automatic upgrades and downgrades that may be applicable under purchasing agreements or maintenance contracts, and therefore it is best practice to add any necessary remaining attributes of the application to this field. For example, if your licensing requires you to separately track the language of the interface, the platform (application's operating system), or a system type (such as 64-bit), you can include a brief description in this field.

Note:An edition has to be assigned to at least one application. Any unused editions are automatically deleted from IT Asset Management.

End of extended support

The date when the publisher ceases the extended period to support this version and edition of the product in any way. Where publishers provide this extended period of reduced support, they often announce an earlier date for the change from full support to reduced support for this version. For this case, use the End of support field. This period is quite distinct from any support or maintenance agreement you may have for the application.

Enter (or click the calendar icon to select) the date when the application's extended support agreement expires.

For application records downloaded in the Application Recognition Library, any available value of this field is populated by the Application Recognition Library, and is not editable.

End of life

The date that marks the end of the lifespan for this software application. After this date, the publisher would no longer be selling, sustaining, and supporting this application.

Enter (or click the calendar icon to select) the date after which the application's lifespan ends.

For application records downloaded in the Application Recognition Library (ARL), any available value of this field is populated by the ARL, and is not editable.

End of sales

The date after which you cannot purchase this software application directly from its publisher or through the direct sales channel. After this date, the application is generally removed from the list of available products.

Enter (or click the calendar icon to select) the date after which the application's sale ends.

For application records downloaded in the Application Recognition Library, any available value of this field is populated by the Application Recognition Library, and is not editable.

End of support

The date when the publisher ceases to fully support this version and edition of the product. This is quite distinct from any support or maintenance agreement you may have for the application. Some publishers provide an extended period of reduced support after this date. For this case, use the End of extended support field.

Enter (or click the calendar icon to select) the date when the publisher ceases to provide primary support for this application.

For application records downloaded in the Application Recognition Library (ARL), any available value of this field is populated by the ARL, and is not editable.

Flexera ID

A generated code that uniquely identifies all application records, and may be used for integration between products from Flexera. All application records (including those created locally) include a Flexera ID starting with the following text:

ARL = arl://

Local = app://

Not editable.

Import detailed evidence

This check box may be left clear (not selected) for normal application recognition and license compliance calculations. You may select this check box if you want this application included in the Application Transparency report, which you may do for either of two reasons:

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To inspect imported inventory information in more detail. For this purpose, use the setting sparingly, and consider clearing the check box again when your analysis of this application is complete. Importing detailed evidence for many applications significantly increases the load on the database, and extends processing times.

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To create a file path exemption for some file evidence that prevents this application from consuming entitlements from its linked license.

A file path exemption can be created if the following conditions apply:

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This application is licensed under either an Oracle Processor license or a User license

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The application has been supplied 'embedded' in some other application that needs its functionality (for example, Oracle Java SE is supplied embedded in Oracle SQL Developer)

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File evidence is the only kind of evidence attached to this application record, and is used for application recognition.

Selecting this check box causes additional detailed information to be saved in the inventory database, and allows you to configure an Exemption by file path on the linked license so that this application does not consume separate license entitlements (see Exemptions for Embedded Products). When used for this purpose, the check box selection should be permanent.

Tip:If this software is a suite with member applications, import of detailed evidence applies equally to this record and to each of the member applications.

Information

Type in additional details about the application, such as the purpose of the application, or system requirements.

Name

Enter the name of the application. If the name was blank when the properties page was opened (that is, for a new application record), and you have completed the preceding fields for Product (primary), Publisher, Version, and Edition, the default name provided combines these values. You may adjust as required to suit your corporate standards.

Product

The basic name of the application, excluding references to versions or editions, and without mentioning the publisher. This field displays the value Multiple products for multi-product licenses that have multiple primary products. See Multi-Product License.

Product names supplied by the Application Recognition Library are not editable. Where you create your own application record:

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You should reuse existing product names where these are already defined (this helps define upgrade and downgrade rights). To do this, use the Search control to identify existing product names (more details: To Use a Fly-Down).

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You can also update any product names previously created by operators in your enterprise.

To create a new product for this application:

Enter a new name in the Product (primary) field, and click Search.

If no existing products are displayed, click Create product.

The new product is added to the application's properties, and is available for re-use in other application definitions.

For more details, see Adding a New Product Name.

Publisher

The name of the publisher of this software, responsible for its development and distribution. The publisher must exist as a vendor within your database.

The table of vendors combines both publishers and resellers. There are four ways to add vendors to the database table:

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You can create vendor records manually (navigate to the All Vendors page: Procurement > Purchases & Vendors > All Vendors and click the Create a Vendor button). This is especially useful for records of your local resellers.

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If you import a spreadsheet of purchases that includes a publisher not already in your table of vendors, a new record is automatically created.

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If you manually create an application record (a 'local' application that is not included in Application Recognition Library), you can define a new publisher as you edit the application properties.

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Publishers identified in Application Recognition Library are automatically copied to your vendor list on demand, as you link an ARL application to a license (manually or through automated purchase processing). Once present, they are available on your vendor list throughout your records.

Tip:Beware of creating overlapping definitions for the same publisher. For example, you imported purchases that referenced Microsoft Corp. Then an operator manually created the vendor MS. Finally, you link Microsoft Office to a license, which imports the ARL's name for the publisher, Microsoft. All three records now exist separately in your vendor table, and are visible on the list of all vendors (navigate to the All Vendors page: Procurement > Purchases & Vendors > All Vendors). Avoid this problem by preparing your licenses early and re-using a publisher name from the ARL in other data sources.

To create a new publisher for this application:

Enter a new name in the Publisher field, and click Search.

If no existing publishers are displayed in the search panel, click Create publisher.

The new publisher is added to the application properties.

Release date

The date when the application was made available to the customers. In most cases, an alpha and beta versions are released before releasing the final version of a software application.

Select the date when this application was released.

For application records downloaded in the Application Recognition Library, any available value of this field is populated by the ARL, and is not editable.

Source

The origin of an application record:

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Flexera—Shown when the application is downloaded in Application Recognition Library (if so, you cannot edit any of the application’s properties, but can link it to additional evidence).

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Local—Shown when an operator in your enterprise created the record for this application.

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Flexera (Extended)—Shown when an operator added additional evidence to the original record from Application Recognition Library.

Start of life

The date on which this software application started its operational life. In most cases, it is the date when the alpha or beta version (varies among publishers) of the application was released.

Enter (or click the calendar icon to select) the date that marks the start of operational life for this application.

For application records downloaded in the Application Recognition Library (ARL), any available value of this field is populated by the ARL, and is not editable.

Status

Indicates your assessment and processing of an application. It can have any of the following values:

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Authorized—Installation of this application is allowed on computers in your enterprise. If the application is also associated with a license, those installations can be reviewed to determine if they comply with the license terms and conditions.

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Deferred—You intend to manage this application in due course, but not now. This status is intended to be a temporary state that you will change later. Since it is an administrative convenience only, installations of these applications still count for license consumption.

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Ignored—Flags this application as irrelevant for software asset management. While you can recover an application from this state at any time, this status, unlike Deferred, is generally applied only to those applications that you do not intend to manage at all (for example, shareware that you permit, but choose not to manage closely).

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Inactive—IT Asset Management assigns this status to applications recorded in the Application Recognition Library, but not yet recognized as installed within your enterprise.

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Unauthorized—Apply this to flag applications that should not be installed on computers in your enterprise. It is best practice to uninstall such applications.

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Unmanaged—A new application identified in your enterprise, but not yet assigned any of the above status values.

Tip:If you do not have the time to process the new records, you can assign the Deferred status to an application, and review it later. This makes it easier to identify any new Unmanaged applications that appear, so that you can manage by exception.

Tip:Although you may choose not to manage an ignored application, it may still be licensable. For this reason, an ignored application is not exempted from license consumption calculations. To remove an application from license consumption calculations, either:

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Disconnect the application from all licenses

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In the General tab of properties for the evidence that identifies the application, set Ignored to Yes (first check that this same evidence does not also link to a different application that should still be included in compliance calculations).

Version

The release number (or release identifier) of an application.

Enter the version, or release number, of an application.

Important:You cannot edit the value of a version. If a version is already displayed, and you modify its value, you are effectively adding a new version. If you are modifying existing application entries, you might need to adjust version priorities because they control automatic upgrades and downgrades for licenses that convey the product use rights. To associate a different version with the application, click and select the upgrade or downgrade version you need.

When creating a new application record, any entry in the Version field is automatically copied into the Name field. However, if you are editing an existing application record, this does not happen: remember to synchronize version changes with the application's name when necessary.

Tip:While you can enter any text you want in the Version field, it is best practice to restrict its use to release numbers. The reason is that a version number is used to manage automatic upgrades and downgrades that may be applicable under purchasing agreements or maintenance contracts.